I've had people say it's a hardening, actually ~ US presidential election 2016 part 9/11 never forget

re: not warmed up for the debate

https://twitter.com/SopanDeb/status/779346098389417984

Like, maybe his "skill" is shamelessness. People admire the fact that he is a giant blemish on the face of a system they resent, or something. But anyone could act like a racist asshole and refuse to take responsibility for anything they've ever said or done. Unique, sure, but hardly a skill

"chaotic, random ways"

idk i think it was just a matter of time before the GOP cooled it with the dog-whistles and went explicitly racist

i'm not suggesting his "skills" are virtues, but...he's done a lot of things right to get to where he is. to suggest otherwise is essentially to imply that he doesn't represent the values of a frighteningly large percentage of the electorate

or, what will said

Sure, he was able to pick up on the latent racism within the GOP electorate and pander to it. I am just not sure this was skillful or even smart. It was mostly just reckless: a risk that paid off big, but that anyone could have thought of.

All Hillary has to do is trick Captain Squintie.

"My opponent is so callous that he has yet to comment on the attacks earlier this week in Lafarce"

'That is a lie! I have a meeting scheduled with their Prime Minister'

"There is no such country."

"a risk that paid off big" - i certainly can't argue with that

no - they're asked to remain silent. Trump definitely knows how to play a crowd - it's one of his few legitimately great political skills - and without any response he's not gonna know how to modulate his message

― frogbs, Friday, September 23, 2016 11:50 AM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is a very good point. At his rallies, he can assume the temperature of the room going in, and he can* modulate his response based on the response of the crowd. Without anyone to bounce his message off of, without anyone to validate his chaotic spew of half thoughts, he's going to be lost in the woods.

* (I say 'can' but what I really mean is 'will, because he is a completely reactive nullity of narcissistic flesh, automatically and unconsciously'.)

Without anyone to bounce his message off of

this will be hillary clinton.

Clinton's success is a measure of the ongoing glories of our political culture, mainly familiarity and raising billions from billionaires

xpost and lester holt, who he already called a biased democrat for some crazy reason (holt is actually a registered republican fwiw)

i mean, everyone's right that he's going to be out of his element if it really is a silent auditorium and he's expected to expound on his "ideas" and "policies" and stuff. but in that environment, he'll just turn his attention to trying to mindgame the only other people in the room allowed to speak.

I don't know that it's at all clear that both candidates would get at least 40% of the vote - senior Republicans have been tripping over themselves to not endorse Trump, and a month ago it looked like all Clinton needed to do would stay the course.

And the last month has involved everything going wrong for her and reminding people why they don't like her. There are also record numbers of undecided and third-party voters, and the candidates are unpopular to record levels - so variability abounds.

And of course the number's meaning is a little hard to pin down - they're not going to run the election 100 times so we can see whether Clinton wins 65 times, or 55 or 95. And I'm sure you appreciate that whatever happens, voices on ILX will insist it was always going to happen :)

Shoulda bent the 15% threshold and let Johnson in, no better way to get the Berniebros to defect faster than having them actually look at the platform of the dude they blindly endorsed.

Sanders himself has started speaking out against Johnson and pointing out the stark and terrifying differences in platform, but hasn't been given too much of a microphone for it.

"lester holt, who he already called a biased democrat for some crazy reason"

because he's black, I'm guessing

Gary Johnson :P

https://twitter.com/kasie/status/779292864043855872

@goole - I really enjoyed the two articles you posted. Thanks.

xpost akm, yep, i think that's definitely it

Platform examination won't change anybody's mind; we tend to pick our candidates in ways different from that and rationalize it ithru platform after

That's pretty cynical.

schwantz, you are welcome

Almost every decision people make is made through opaque means and then justified post hoc through rationalization, imo, nobody sits down and thinks through anything

My thoughts on the upcoming debate, gathered in one spot for convenience:

Trump's gonna look really stupid on Monday night. He's got several major problems going in:

1) He does well in a group situation where he can let other people do most of the talking and every once in a while, interject a mean jab at his chosen victim for the evening (Rubio, Jeb(...), Cruz, etc.). In a one on one debate, where he's gonna have to talk a lot more, he won't do as well because

2) His speeches, if you watch them at full length (they're on YouTube), are terrible and boring. He has a couple of big lines, which are the bits that get picked up by the nightly news, but they're stuck in the middle of 45 minutes of rambling, empty bluster. Yes, he draws biggish crowds, but there's plenty of reporting documenting the fact that a lot of people leave halfway through the "show." On debate night, he's not gonna have the video editor on his side to pluck out the one halfway-cogent (in a horrible, racist, thuggish sort of way) bit and spotlight it. It's gonna just be word salad upon word salad. And

3) If he goes straight at Clinton on the stage, he's gonna look like a bullying asshole, for several reasons, including the fact that he's about a foot taller than she is. If he pulls some shit like Rick Lazio pulled during her Senate campaign, actually entering her physical space, he'll fuck himself completely.

4) Also, as has been repeatedly stated here, a major part of his act is feeding off the crowd. There are TONS of call-and-response bits in his usual act - everything from asking the crowd who's gonna build the wall to his repeated refrains of "Believe me!" The debate audience is under STRICT orders to remain completely silent at all times. Without that sounding board, Trump is gonna flounder, and will probably have at least one "lost-in-the-weeds" moment not that far from when Rick Perry forgot which parts of the government he wanted to shut down.

x-post I feel like everyone says that but secretly thinks they are the exception.

didn't realize it was monday night. maybe i'll watch atl-no instead

Phil OTM.

yea good post 誤訳侮辱

"Donald Trump: How many branches of government are there, what are they called and what do they do?"

"Donald Trump: How many Senators can each state have?"

"Donald Trump: What is the name of the first ten amendments to the Constitution?"

"Donald Trump: If the government started supporting one religion over another, it would be in violation of which amendment?"

"Donald Trump: What amendment gave African Americans citizenship?"

"Donald Trump: The rights of speech, press, assembly, and petition are often grouped together under what term?"

lol

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/trump-rival-cruz-to-throw-support-to-gop-nominee-228584

Evan, that's exactly what I've been saying reporters should've been doing for months. Ruthlessly reveal his basic ignorance, on every level, of how our country and our government functions and demonstrate just how mindblowingly unfit he is for office.

Most of America can't answer those questions, are you trying to make them look stupid

Most of America isn't angling to run the country for four years.

I don't know shit about HVAC repair but you better believe that I want the dude I'm hiring to fix my heater to be able to answer a pop quiz on the matter.

(But, yes, I know, 'fuck an expert' and that whole willful ignorance trip America is seemingly on.)

A goodly percentage of the white population of the USA harbors delusions that they would make a good president, despite their profound ignorance concerning almost everything a president does. They conceive of the job much as Trump seems to conceive of it, as sitting in a big chair in a fancy office being in charge of the government and whatever you say goes, similarly to how children conceive of being an adult.

some people who kinda know how our country functions

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cq4QRPXUkAAchM6.jpg

I wish the debate was 90 minutes on one question, i.e. a debate. Jumping topics every 15 minutes, you're guaranteeing superficial responses.

I don't know shit about HVAC repair but you better believe that I want the dude I'm hiring to fix my heater to be able to answer a pop quiz on the matter.

sadly becoming an HVAC tech requires much more certification and testing than becoming POTUS

i wish the debate was on Batman v Superman

My suggestion would be replacing one of the debates with something like a model UN sesh. Give the candidates a complex hypothetical problem and let them explain how they would go about trying to solve it.

https://frinkiac.com/img/S09E14/137636.jpg

i mean, everyone's right that he's going to be out of his element if it really is a silent auditorium and he's expected to expound on his "ideas" and "policies" and stuff.

i'm imagining a donald trump shreds video now. someone must have done this.

There are also record numbers of undecided and third-party voters, and the candidates are unpopular to record levels - so variability abounds.

this is a good point.

a preview of the upcoming debate:

https://vine.co/v/553HYQBZvjg

https://twitter.com/BillCorbett/status/779383929669169156

More baffling to me than the idea that people agree with Trump is that anyone who's been exposed to Trump's rhetoric could have no strong opinions for or against him. Feel like the undecideds this year have been paying basically zero attention to election coverage and/or have no strong convictions about anything at all.

This thread moves too fast for me to remember if I saw the Daily Kos piece I'm about to quote here. So if I'm posting info everyone already has, sorry.

Trump remains underwater in too many key battleground states to be truly viable: Colorado (38 percent), Michigan (37 percent), New Hampshire (37 percent), Pennsylvania (39.8 percent), Virginia (38 percent), and Wisconsin (37 percent).

Trump could win every other battleground state, but without winning at least one of the above, he cannot win. Or put another way, to get to 270, Trump needs to win at least one state in which he is mired below 40 percent.

link

I genuinely do not understand what Cruz has to gain by endorsing Trump.

ignominy