Wednesday 28 September 2016

Trump vs Clinton

I've read a few of the reviews of this first debate, and listened to the assessments on TV and the radio. By and large Clinton gets the victory in the opinion of the reviewers. I have now watched a substantial part of the debate myself. She comes across as reasonable, rational, experienced, unflustered, refusing to be riled. An easy win when compared to the question evading, blaming, complaining, boasting Trump.

But winning a debate in the eyes of an intelligent, articulate, unbiased reviewer, is not the same thing as winning the votes. Many of the people who will cast those votes are feeling hard pressed, let down, frustrated and discontented with their political system. They see foreign countries as stealing their factories and incomers as stealing their jobs. They see violence in their cities as perpetrated by people of strange religious persuasion and having a different culture and outloook from them. I could be talking about the Brexit vote, and in a way, I am. The lead voices promised much, promised easy naive solutions, told lies, gave out sound bites of blame, and echoed the complaints in the hearts and minds of many. People remember those bits. They don't really pause to think about whether what they heard was a lie or not. They don't scrutinise the solutions for flaws. They simply hear them, and believe in them. Moreover, that way of talking, expressing yourself, echoes the way many people do. Complain, blame, resort to "if only.." Time and time again, that's what Donald Trump did in response to the questions asked. Hilary Clinton listened, thought, and responded rationally and reasonably. Trump has a track record of not paying suppliers, taxes, dues. People like his maverick buck the system approach. They think it will pay dividends in government. He'll be for them precisely because he's wide, likes the shady deals, and won't stand for stuff which doesn't suit him. Surely he'll do the same for me? Right? Moreover, he boasts, deceitfully. It never ceases to amaze me how often people are actually impressed by those who blow their own trumpets. (Excuse the mild pun.) "I got, I did, I am" were things we had to listen to many times from Trump.

I find the man deeply scary, untrustworthy, selfish, and ignorant. Sure fire win attributes if the mood of recent elections is annything to go by.