US Elections 2016 Part II: The Debates & General Election

[Dauerlutscher]

This moron is so stupid...
Wrong
Wrong
China
Wrong
Wrong
Look at her
Wrong
Wrong
Disaster
Wrong
Wrong
Emails
Wrong
Wrong
Wrong
Sad
Wrong
Wrong
Wrong
Wrong

[MCAL]

It's finally over.

Let's not mince words, Donald Trump was pathetic. His debate etiquette, let alone normal human etiquette, is far away from common sense as possible (Bad Hombres. Nasty Woman). Who could have possibly thought his ignorance on abortion wouldn't be his lowest point? I mean by sticking by his rigged election claim, he's basically is committing treason or at the very least is potentially inducing people to commit violence. If people can't honestly see what's wrong with this, then I'm not even sure you deserve to vote to be frank.

[KiraYamatoFan]

In any case, Drumpf both was decked hard and had a meltdown. He knows he's screwed now.

Originally Posted by MCAL

It's finally over.

Let's not mince words, Donald Trump was pathetic. Who could have possibly thought his ignorance on abortion wouldn't be his lowest point? I mean by sticking by his rigged election claim, he's basically is committing treason or at the very least is potentially inducing people to commit violence. If people can't honestly see what's wrong with this, then I'm not even sure you deserve to vote to be frank.

Yep, it was utter pathetic. That part on abortion at the beginning was already bad in itself when he said he would appoint judges who are pro-choice (WTF?); he knows nothing about women and it's not surprising after what he did. For the rest, he dug his own hole on every single trap Hillary laid into his path, and then sank even deeper by sticking to his usual bullshit.

[Harbinger]

It was almost sad to watch.

Clinton says nice things, but we know that a lot of it are just "lies".

Trump... well, I'll let others describe his performance.

[Galaxian]

My favorite moment was the return of "I didn't pay taxes because you didn't stop me."

[Eisdrache]

Whatever you may think about Trump, he did shoot himself in the foot by not confirming that he will accept the result of the election regardless of the outcome.

[Dauerlutscher]

Originally Posted by Galaxian

My favorite moment was the return of "I didn't pay taxes because you didn't stop me."

He argues like a 6 years old and has absolutely no clue how politics or democracy works.

[sayde]

I can't believe he remained non-committal about the issue of concession. Like why!? Just say it!!! Even if you don't mean it in that moment, why unnecessarily drive another nail into the coffin like that? That's easy votes just by giving a simple "YES!!!" HE WAS GIVEN A SECOND CHANCE TO ANSWER THE QUESTION CORRECTLY! *smh*

I've never witnessed a political candidate stand in their own way so much.

Oh yeah. Props to Trump for restating verbatim my favorite quote of the 2nd debate.

"Nobody has more respect for women than me".

And then proceeds to call Hillary a "nasty woman" all in the same debate. Stay classy my friend.

[KiraYamatoFan]

Originally Posted by Eisdrache

Whatever you may think about Trump, he did shoot himself in the foot by not confirming that he will accept the result of the election regardless of the outcome.

He basically repeated what he said in the second debate. That alone should be destroying his campaign completely because that attitude is in direct violation with an electoral system that held its ground for 240 years. Ordinary folks can feel mad when elections don't go their way, but he (as a candidate) cannot and should never afford to say that in public.

[Ithekro]

Question. Did they ever get to a point where they are debating issues that the next President of the United States should be responsible for at all?

I am tired of this election already. They don't talk about anything that would be relevant to being the President. They don't come across as Presidential. All we get are sound bite and attacking each other.

I can't even see a "lesser evil" between these two. It is like we have two greater evils fighting it out for who can sucker more people in.

[Irenicus]

Originally Posted by Ithekro

Question. Did they ever get to a point where they are debating issues that the next President of the United States should be responsible for at all?

I am tired of this election already. They don't talk about anything that would be relevant to being the President. They don't come across as Presidential. All we get are sound bite and attacking each other.

I can't even see a "lesser evil" between these two. It is like we have two greater evils fighting it out for who can sucker more people in.

You must have missed Hillary Clinton spending like half the debate discussing her view on Supreme Court nomination (very much the responsibility of the President), her tax plan (in which presidents work closely with their congressional allies to push through), her discussion on her immigration reform plan (another major legislative priority), her foreign policy approach to the Syrian Civil War (the President's most obvious area of responsibility being foreign policy), among other things. In fact until the latter half Trump meltdown it really was quite a substantive debate.

Actually, come to think of it, Trump did share some of the answers to the questions above as well. In his, mind you, nonsensical rambly way, he did say that he would nominate people who'd overturn Roe v. Wade to the Supreme Court, doubled down on his trickle down tax plan, also doubled down on the wall. His "answers" to the Mosul and Aleppo questions were capital offenses on the English language, but OK.

Or is this one of those OMG I am so cynically superior look at my moral high horse, meanwhile one candidate refuses to accept American democracy but whatevs they are all the same...?

[Ithekro]

No this was a I didn't watch the debate and all I kept hearing about was meltdowns and not issues.

[Irenicus]

Then I think you'll enjoy the first half of the debate. Chris Wallace did a great job with tough, if loaded, questions -- I happen to think he assumed certain opinions as facts when he posed some of the questions. Wallace started with a question on the Supreme Court, wedge issues like abortion and the 2nd amendment, their economic plans, immigration, Obamacare, a question on Mosul, and one on Aleppo. In-between he did, yes, ask questions on controversies, like the Podesta emails or sexual assault allegations. I promise no guarantees that all of the answers make sense, if they weren't pivots or outright word salad nonsense, but the questions were asked and many of them were answered in ways you can, more or less, called policy answers.

Then the "WRONG!! *sniff*" started and Donald Trump decided that Chris Wallace's eloquent plea for him to just fucking say yes at the question on accepting the legitimacy of the election was a bridge too far. But fine, you can ignore that part.

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by Ithekro

No this was a I didn't watch the debate and all I kept hearing about was meltdowns and not issues.

Of course there is no "discussion" of issues in the debate. Only one side had anything to say about them, and you need two sides to have a discussion. The Meltdowns are what is reported because that is what is actually what matters in this case, it isn't Clinton's problem that Trump doesn't really have any policy position. He doesn't even know the difference between an abortion and a C-section.

I really have trouble understanding why you would believe Clinton doesn't talk policy. She talks policy all the damn time, but since Trump never actually responses coherently the discussion ends there. She is basically talking to a brick wall by herself.

Clinton says nice things, but we know that a lot of it are just "lies".

You put "" around lies because you know they aren't lies. On the other hand, we DON'T need to put quotation marks around Trump lies, because his lies are actual, undisputed lies.

[Brother Coa]

Honestly, the only way Trump can win these elections now is if majority of US citizens are fed up with their Government and media and want to take revenge on them by voting for someone new to mess them up a bit.

And giving current state in the US ( civil unrest, slow death of middle class, inflation, anti-war feel rise, anti-globalization feel rise, daily SJW attacks, anti-immigration feel rise... ) Trump still has a solid chance to win even if debates were poor for him and every surveyed poll stacks chances agaisnt him.

[monir]

We'll find out how big Trump's base really is in few days because this entire performance by him was exclusively catered to them. I don't think he can go any lower than 35% in the coming polls but if he does, we will know this country still prides itself as the beacon of democracy.

By the way, there are couple of things Trump said that rang very true:

- "They get the vote and then they come back. They say, ‘We’ll see you in four years.'"

I think if the Republic Party wants to survive after Trump exit the stage, it will be incredibly wise for them start including the latinos and the blacks in their platform. It's very true what Trump said about how Democratic Party can easily count on those votes without really doing anything significant for them. No other president in the US history has deported more than Obama and latinos were affected the most. I'm also not sure how the lives of the blacks has gotten any better in this country under the Democratic party. So why do these two groups of people vote for the party? The black, I'm guessing, for the Civil Right act under LBJ. Latinos, well, I'm guessing the Republican platform doesn't even acknowledge them without demeaning them where as the Democratic party is clever enough to talk about immigration reform and all those sound bytes during election cycle. If Obama really wanted to do comprehensive immigration reform, he could have done so in his first two years of his presidency when the Democrat had control of both the house and the senate. So yeah.... Republican Party will survive the Trump assault if they change their platform and start including the blacks and the latinos.

- "Let’s protect our Social Security and Medicare.."

Yes... oh god yes!!!! This is one of these stupid wedge issue the Republican party gets stuck on in every facet of politics and then wonder why people are voting against them. One of the positive thing about Trump ((yes, there are positive to Trump) is how he has transformed the GOP. This election cycle, if you haven't noticed already, were devoid of those stupid wedge issue the GOP gets so tongue-tied about once they come out of their respective primary. Trump actually talked about common sense Gun Control such as background checks, importance of safety net program such as Social Security and Medicare, highlighted some huge flaws to Obamacare, didn't make a deal out of same sex marriage or the stupid bathroom issue that are driving some of these state-policy. There is a reason why he was able to bring a lot of people to the GOP side.

Perhaps that's a cue for the GOP to take if it wants to stay relevant in the coming years as this country becomes more and more diverse.

[Jaden]

I'll say Trump won this one, although at this point I doubt that many voters were influenced - he didn't win the election here. There were some missed opportunities, and I agree the "I'll keep you in suspense" towards the end was unnecessary stubbornness on his part. Might please his base, but that's gonna make the rounds in media for a while and likely hurt him. Other than that, I think it was good for Trump, and here's why:

1 - Clinton's deflections. Because it's the FOX news debate, she was pressed on her scandals more than in previous debates, and she wasn't really able to dispel any of them. I would expect her scandals to get more awareness now, while Trump's scandals of sexual assaults and Russian connections will probably simmer down, unless new evidence comes out.

She didn't really answer what was going on with the pay-to-play politics or the donations from Islamist countries.

Her defense against the "open borders" accusation was weak. OK, so she just wants a common energy grid across the Americas, but doesn't that kinda imply open borders & full-on TPP implementation?

Clinton made a jab somewhere about Trump's foundation. Trump counters with Clinton's foundation and the mess in Haiti, which seems like an issue of much higher magnitude (hehe).

Clinton's defense against many scandals continues to be the "red scare", but when you pit the government's zero-evidence claim of Russian hackers against Trump's now somewhat substantiated claims of a rigged election and foul play by the democrats, I think Trump comes ahead. However, Trump did overreach by suggesting that "Clinton and Obama paid people to start violence at my rallies". The fact checkers are going to side with Clinton on this, Trump needed to frame it better.

2 - The wall. Considering how retarded the idea of the border wall is, Trump did an okay job defending it. Illegal immigration from Mexico isn't as much of an issue anymore, but the drug trade certainly is. I thought it was pretty effective when he brought up how the Clintons also used to want a wall, which is true. The democrats may have done a 180 on immigration in recent times, but I don't think that the general public has.

Not up for debate: Abortion, one is pro-life and the other isn't. Supreme court, one will appoint conservative judges and the other liberal ones. One wants gun control, the other doesn't. Important issues, but also rather cut and dry. I think neither candidate can really gain further ground on these things.

The rest seemed like recycled material. Trump fell short with his general attitude. Interrupting with "nasty woman" and other childish quips isn't helping him, but then again this isn't anything new. He should've brought up his new ethics reform and term limits plans, those seem to be well received. Clinton's jab about Trump's Chinese steel in Las Vegas was a nice one, though I think Nevada is pretty safe blue anyway?

[frivolity]

I'm more interested in the House elections nowadays. Hillary with Congress, Senate, and Supreme Court all aligned with her is a pretty scary prospect.

[Key Board]

do people actually buy in to the "Trump will get along with Putin and thus prevent World War 3" unsaid, but seeming acknowledged platform?

do people really believe he is anti-war

[Newhope]

Basically this is what your voting for.

Trump=smaller government and lower tax on businesses

Hillary=Bigger government, higher Tax, less freedoms and more war.