Third Debate

[Airbrush]

Anyone watch last night's debate? What did you think?

 

Here is one I noticed. Trump said in regard to criminal illegal aliens, "We have some bad HAMBRES here". Anyone who speaks Spanish must have noticed this gaff. He intended to say we have some bad HOMBRES. His accent was just wrong. In Spanish "hambre" means hungry. "We have some bad hungrys here". Yes Donald you are obese, a bad hungry.

 

How many examples of projection?

 

"In the final moments of the final presidential debate, Donald Trump said Hillary Clinton was "such a nasty woman" while she was answering a question about how she would raise taxes on the rich to tackle debt and entitlements if she were to become president..."

 

After acting like a nasty man throughout the debate, contorting his face in every nasty grimace he can, acts nasty for his entire campaign, then he calls Hillary what he is which is the king of nasty.

 

He was judged "pants on fire" about his claim that $6 billion was missing from the State Dept. It was not missing, only contracts for that much had no supporting documents which extended to before she was in the State Dept.

Edited October 20, 2016 by Airbrush

[Delta1212]

I wrote a post in the Trump thread about why his response to the question about accepting the results of the election was possibly the single scariest answer we've ever seen a candidate give to a presidential debate question.

 

Failing to back off of the current rhetoric he's employing to salve his ego in the event of a loss could wind up being incredibly dangerous and do lasting damage to our ability to function as a democracy.

 

It is seriously, seriously concerning for anyone who spends much time reading about the ways in which democracies and republics ultimately fail. Taking the stability of our democratic institutions for granted is a dangerous mistake to make.

[Memammal]

Yeah, I watched it too. Looking at it as an outsider, I am astounded every time I have to watch- or listen to Trump. I just can't believe that there are actually people who will vote for him to become the president of the USA. Not that he stands much of a chance by all indications, but still... Sorry for repeating myself but he is just such an inferior specimen compared to Hillary Clinton and that, in a sense, is pretty ironic if not downright sad...a male chauvinist parading his ignorance, narcissism and bigotry in front of the whole world while being outclassed and outwitted by his female opponent...without him even noticing it. She did a fantastic job in showing grit, determination and above all, being able to convey a great deal of sense in a well articulated manner in the short time allocated to her. Just consider the two closing arguments as an example. She also made very good use of opportunities to compare their respective track records (and those should be telling). He, on the other hand, was not saying much new. The same old rhetoric, the same old (unsubstantiated) blame game against Clinton, Clinton & Obama. He has no clear vision, just empty promises and dreams of some sort of American grandeur that gonna happen because he thinks it will..?

And the audacity to acknowledge:

That, considering his stance against outsourcing or importing cheap labour/material, he did it himself...Why? Because the Clintons and Obama allowed him to;

That he used loopholes to avoid paying taxes. Why? Because the Clintons and Obama should have prevented said loopholes;

And last, but definitely not least, hinting towards possibly not accepting the outcome of the elections...like in next time on the Trump presidential reality show, watch this space folks...

Gosh, this coming from a presidential candidate..? Seriously!

Edited October 20, 2016 by Memammal

[Raider5678]

I wrote a post in the Trump thread about why his response to the question about accepting the results of the election was possibly the single scariest answer we've ever seen a candidate give to a presidential debate question.

In that regards, do you agree with the electoral college? If not, then boy do we have a problem.

[Delta1212]

In that regards, do you agree with the electoral college? If not, then boy do we have a problem.

The one doesn't have an especially strong connection to the other. There is a difference between having a system with rules that are not popular and having a system where it genuinely doesn't matter what the rules are because the result is a sham.

 

There are pros and cons to the electoral college. I think it would be more democratic to go with a simple popular vote, however, if you live in a mostly rural state or far away from a major population center, the EC actually nudges elections slightly in your favor and prevents all of the campaigning being done exclusively in the cities where you can get the most eyes for the money spent.

 

Whether the fact that the EC leads to all of the campaigning being done in a handful of "swing states" is any better is another question of course.

 

 

Regardless, there have only been four instances in 57 election where the winner of the popular vote did not become President, and the first of those was a result of the election being thrown to the house because no one had a majority, and in fact the loser also had the most electoral votes, so they lined up with the popular vote in that instance.

 

This means that we've only ever had three elections where the electoral college came into play and made someone who lost the popular vote President in the past 228 years. It has come into play in less than 6% of elections, and only once in the last century.

 

That's a flaw, but it's one that is theoretically fixable if we want to pass an amendment, and also one that rarely matters to the actual result even if we don't fix it.

 

On the other hand, a widespread belief that our elections are rigged, that the reported results are fabrications, and that the loser of an election can maintain that the winner is not legally in office and that their victory is illegitimate is the kind of thing that can end a democracy scarily quickly.

 

Do you understand the difference between having a controversial rule that almost never comes into play and a belief that nobody is following any of the rules at all?

[Raider5678]

Do you understand the difference between having a controversial rule that almost never comes into play and a belief that nobody is following any of the rules at all?

I do, I and also understand that there are massive exaggerations as to its flaws, but you also have to understand, even if an entire state voted democrat, if the electoral college of that area didn't feel the likeness of a particularly unlikable Candidate then they don't have to vote for them. They can vote for who ever they like, regardless of which party they belong to. In the case of Donald Trump, with a lot of republicans even removing support of him, the electoral college could do the same. In which case the democrats could win by a landslide, no matter what. This is of course, unlikely, and probably not going to happen, but this could be what Donald Trump will be yelling his red face off about.

[koti]

I've finished watching right now, taped it because it was on at 03:00am my time. Frankly, I've watched the previous 2 debates very thoroughly but I skimmed throught this third one as I've had enough of Trump's demeanor and primitvie rhetoric. I don't think that he's made a single strong or semi-strong argument, he's just attacking Clinton, talking "make america great again" like a broken record and the "wall" thing is just plain surreal by now. Whats horribly worrying is how he got to where he is. How is it possible that he's up there running for president, this is beyond me. Anyway I think he's done and kudos to Clinton for keeping her cool.

[Phi for All]

The "nasty woman" comment was the perfect summation of Trump's character, imo.

 

It pointed up his hypocrisy by complaining about her deft comment after making several juvenile ones himself.

 

It highlighted his narcissism by objecting to a comment about avoiding taxes being a bad thing, because he himself has bragged about it being smart.

 

It proves he has trouble controlling his mouth and his emotions, that he lets his ego keep him from being smart in high-pressure situations. He should have shook his head and grinned and kept his mouth shut. He quite visibly took a moment to process her comment, and made the decision to say something into just the right moment to be heard by everyone, and he chose to say, "What a nasty woman".

 

It showed everyone that he first thinks about people in light of their gender or ethnicity, and let's that affect his overall judgement. Even if you could argue that Hillary's remark about getting him to pay a higher tax to insure the future of Social Security was actually nasty, what difference does it make that it was a woman who said it? I thought it was a great zinger coming from anyone.

[CharonY]

I do, I and also understand that there are massive exaggerations as to its flaws, but you also have to understand, even if an entire state voted democrat, if the electoral college of that area didn't feel the likeness of a particularly unlikable Candidate then they don't have to vote for them. They can vote for who ever they like, regardless of which party they belong to. In the case of Donald Trump, with a lot of republicans even removing support of him, the electoral college could do the same. In which case the democrats could win by a landslide, no matter what. This is of course, unlikely, and probably not going to happen, but this could be what Donald Trump will be yelling his red face off about.

 

It is not that trivial, though as a number of states actually have laws against faithless electors.

[Delta1212]

I do, I and also understand that there are massive exaggerations as to its flaws, but you also have to understand, even if an entire state voted democrat, if the electoral college of that area didn't feel the likeness of a particularly unlikable Candidate then they don't have to vote for them. They can vote for who ever they like, regardless of which party they belong to. In the case of Donald Trump, with a lot of republicans even removing support of him, the electoral college could do the same. In which case the democrats could win by a landslide, no matter what. This is of course, unlikely, and probably not going to happen, but this could be what Donald Trump will be yelling his red face off about.

But he hasn't been talking about faithless electors. He has specifically brought up people voting illegally and shipping in illegal immigrants to cast votes, and claimed that both the media and the political establishment are rigging the election against him. He currently has a page on his website urging people to sign up to be "poll monitors" to ensure that the election is fair, which is both likely to violate some rules about voter intimidation and also implies that there will be voter fraud taking place at the polls if his supporters don't act to stop it.

 

That's not "well, the electoral college technically has the power to undermine the popular vore in a way that has never actually been used to swing an election before and for which the majority of states have penalties in place for anyone who tries to do that, including in some cases rendering void the vote of any elector that does't vote in line with the population of the state."

 

We're engaging in speculation about what he might have meant that runs directly contrary to lots of things that he ha actually said.

[CharonY]

It seems I missed the meaning of the argument. I agree that Trump has made it pretty clear that he is talking about actual voter fraud, something that has been shown repeatedly to be irrelevant.

[swansont]

It seems I missed the meaning of the argument. I agree that Trump has made it pretty clear that he is talking about actual voter fraud, something that has been shown repeatedly to be irrelevant.

 

 

Though that won't stop me from going trolling on twitter. I voted today and got an "I voted" sticker. I also have a few from previous elections. I wonder what would happen if I took a picture and implied that they were all from this election?

[CharonY]

I'd not be surprised if they picked that up, considering that they were desperate enough to pick this guy up.

[DrKrettin]

I am astounded every time I have to watch- or listen to Trump. I just can't believe that there are actually people who will vote for him to become the president of the USA.

 

 

Even more scarey than that is the guy I saw on video who said that if Clinton were elected "somebody has to take her out". This guy could hardly articulate words, but he had a vote and he certainly had a gun. It is the downside of democracy that every knucklehead has a vote, and there are plenty of them going to vote for Trump.

[rangerx]

 

It is the downside of democracy that every knucklehead has a vote, and there are plenty of them going to vote for Trump.

 

I don't have evidence to back this up, but I'd suggest a lot of them are convicted felons. Ineligible to vote with a huge chip on their shoulders because of it.

 

[swansont]

 

I don't have evidence to back this up, but I'd suggest a lot of them are convicted felons. Ineligible to vote with a huge chip on their shoulders because of it.

 

 

 

Restoring voting rights to ex-cons is something the right has fought. I think they would tend to vote the other way.

[rangerx]

 

 

Restoring voting rights to ex-cons is something the right has fought. I think they would tend to vote the other way.

 

In that case, yes.

 

However, I think many of these ugly "sound bytes" we see in the media are made by persons with self-destructive histories and/or poor education but lay blame elsewhere. Up until Obama, intransigence was not exclusive to any political party.

 

Since the rise of Tea Party, it's the mode of operation for the GOP. The Party of No.