- Reaction score
- 11,938
I watched the first debate with a very liberal crowd. It seemed like every time Trump said something they were like "what ?!? that doesn't even make sense," seemed like overtime Clinton said something they fist pumped. It was difficult to follow.
I'm going to try and give a neutral review. Note: I myself am not voting, I'm not an American citizen, and if I were I'm not sure who I'd vote for. They're both awful candidates.
I think Trump did better in the first half and Clinton did better in the second half. Overall, Clinton won in my opinion.
Trump hammered on trade and pointed out some issue with Mexican value-added taxes (is it made up?), which is specific and it's a naturally good issue for him as the Clintons are associated with the evacuation of manufacturing in the past thirty years due to NAFTA. Meanwhile, Clinton came off as very arrogant, she was smiling and laughing the entire time. She believes she is the smarter candidate, but that arrogance may be extremely offensive to a lot of people watching at home.
Another thing Trump did well was referring to Hillary as "Secretary Clinton", whereas she referred to him as Donald. It makes her look arrogant.
However, Clinton's arrogance paid off because things went downhill for Trump in the latter parts of the debate.
One of his mistakes, a missed golden opportunity in my opinion, was the issue of whether or not he pays taxes. Clinton alleged that Trump may pay zero taxes, and Trump responded with a dumb answer: it's because I'm smart. I'm sorry ... but there are plenty of people of smart, hardworking people out there who pay tax rates of 30%, 40%, or 50%. A more efective answer for Trump to give would be that his accountants - and he hires the best accountants
-- simply use the rules set up by Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, and all of his billionaire friends and he has lots of billionaire friends use the same tax rules That would relate to the actual reasons Trump pays little taxes. By saying that he pays no taxes because "he's smart" he has insulted medical professionals, small business owners, etc who pay 40-50% tax on their mid six-figure incomes.
Trump had a bad habit of repeating himself several times. For example he brought up Sean Hannity way too many times. Making the point once or twice would have been sufficient.
Trump often stumbled on his words. Do any of you know what he meant when he referred to West Palm Beach? I know what he meant but it's because I have a sister there who tells me about the community. What he meant to say was that the country clubs that he built in the area are among the only ones (maybe the only ones?) that allow Jews, Blacks, etc into the country club. Most Florida country clubs are exclusive. This professional achievement of his was brought up as a counter to the claim that he's been a racist property manager. He's saying that he has less racist management practices than his peers. Was that clear? I'm not sure.
Finally, and most damaging, is that Trump looked weak when he kept saying "wrong wrong wrong" and interrupting Hillary. It's an impotent counter, as she just ignored him and kept speaking which is her right given the debate rules. This contrasts sharply with how much of an alpha male he came off as when debating the Republican dwarves like Rubio and Cruz earlier this year.
Clinton took a very high risk approach in smiling and laughing throughout the debate. Her dancing "woo !" moment may become a legendary .gif, but I think it likely pissed off some people. However. her arrogance was validated by Trump's poor delivery, which was far meeker than during the Republican debates.
I'm going to try and give a neutral review. Note: I myself am not voting, I'm not an American citizen, and if I were I'm not sure who I'd vote for. They're both awful candidates.
I think Trump did better in the first half and Clinton did better in the second half. Overall, Clinton won in my opinion.
Trump hammered on trade and pointed out some issue with Mexican value-added taxes (is it made up?), which is specific and it's a naturally good issue for him as the Clintons are associated with the evacuation of manufacturing in the past thirty years due to NAFTA. Meanwhile, Clinton came off as very arrogant, she was smiling and laughing the entire time. She believes she is the smarter candidate, but that arrogance may be extremely offensive to a lot of people watching at home.
Another thing Trump did well was referring to Hillary as "Secretary Clinton", whereas she referred to him as Donald. It makes her look arrogant.
However, Clinton's arrogance paid off because things went downhill for Trump in the latter parts of the debate.
One of his mistakes, a missed golden opportunity in my opinion, was the issue of whether or not he pays taxes. Clinton alleged that Trump may pay zero taxes, and Trump responded with a dumb answer: it's because I'm smart. I'm sorry ... but there are plenty of people of smart, hardworking people out there who pay tax rates of 30%, 40%, or 50%. A more efective answer for Trump to give would be that his accountants - and he hires the best accountants
-- simply use the rules set up by Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, and all of his billionaire friends and he has lots of billionaire friends use the same tax rules That would relate to the actual reasons Trump pays little taxes. By saying that he pays no taxes because "he's smart" he has insulted medical professionals, small business owners, etc who pay 40-50% tax on their mid six-figure incomes. Trump had a bad habit of repeating himself several times. For example he brought up Sean Hannity way too many times. Making the point once or twice would have been sufficient.
Trump often stumbled on his words. Do any of you know what he meant when he referred to West Palm Beach? I know what he meant but it's because I have a sister there who tells me about the community. What he meant to say was that the country clubs that he built in the area are among the only ones (maybe the only ones?) that allow Jews, Blacks, etc into the country club. Most Florida country clubs are exclusive. This professional achievement of his was brought up as a counter to the claim that he's been a racist property manager. He's saying that he has less racist management practices than his peers. Was that clear? I'm not sure.
Finally, and most damaging, is that Trump looked weak when he kept saying "wrong wrong wrong" and interrupting Hillary. It's an impotent counter, as she just ignored him and kept speaking which is her right given the debate rules. This contrasts sharply with how much of an alpha male he came off as when debating the Republican dwarves like Rubio and Cruz earlier this year.
Clinton took a very high risk approach in smiling and laughing throughout the debate. Her dancing "woo !" moment may become a legendary .gif, but I think it likely pissed off some people. However. her arrogance was validated by Trump's poor delivery, which was far meeker than during the Republican debates.