Like a few hundred million other people last night, I watched the first debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.
I thought Trump had a good initial ten minutes in which he attacked Clinton roundly on her support of previous disastrous trade deals (I agree with him in part.)
Then…he lost it. Other people will document his numerous gaffes and lurches. I’m going to focus on a few things that really stood out.
He was proud to be unprepared for this debate. He rambled incoherently and gave few specific answers.
He’s profoundly ignorant about a lot of things…and worse, proud of his ignorance.
He really hates fat people. He mentioned them three times: the mythical chubby coder, the beauty queen, and Rosie.
He is too easily provoked and unfocused to be solid Presidential material.
He lied numerous times.
He ‘mansplained’ and tried to talk over both Clinton and the moderator. (By several accounts, he did this at least 51 times.)
He’s so racist he can’t even see how racist he is.
He tried to claim the higher ground by hinting he wasn’t going to hit Clinton on her husband’s infidelity. Why should Bill’s stupidity two decades ago have any bearing on Hillary’s fitness for office now? She wasn’t the one cheating.
Here’s why: to Donald Trump’s mindset, a frumpy wife is excuse and reason for a cheating husband. After all, *Donald’s* been guilty of this many times.
I noticed that faced with accusations about his business acumen, Trump is proud that he paid no taxes, that he stiffed contractors and creditors, that he settled lawsuits with no admission of wrongdoing, that he used legally available bankruptcy tools to save his companies. That’s just ‘business’, he claimed.
Business skills, even legitimate ones, don’t always translate into politics. His record is somewhere between unsettling and shameful.
I noticed at the end of the debate, when Clinton’s entourage got down into the audience to mingle, Trump’s stayed high up on stage and quickly exited.
Was that another reveal, of how Trump really views most of the Americans not as fortunate as he was?
Like thousands of other Australians, I watched yesterday’s debate too. I’ve never had any time for Donald Trump, let’s get that up-front at the start, and yesterday’s debate didn’t make me think any more highly of him.
Unfocused, inarticulate, blustering, he made very little attempt to link his statements to facts or to link his views with the wider experience of the community. It was Me, Me, Me from start to finish.
True, he had a go at showing empathy with the Black and Hispanic communities by claiming “politicians” have let them down, but he spoke of those communities as if they were “other”, as if he was addressing White America and talking about some groups of people who were separate in every possible way.
The way he talks about “politicians” is a worry, too. Who does he think he’s going to be working with if he’s President? Or does he plan to ignore those elected to office and somehow avoid engaging with them? Because he’s setting himself up as a hostile party, the way he talks.
Reference to policy and planning boiled down to “I’m gunna”. What he failed to tell us was how and why. A leader engages with people, helps them to sign up to a plan of action, makes sure they understand how we’ll move forward and why we’ll take that route rather than another.
Donald Trump is not leadership material. He blusters and poses like an insecure little bully-boy in the playground telling the other kids “I’m the boss of you, and this is my game.” Most people who are under consideration for high office have grown out of that. I’m still stunned that he got to be a candidate.
And like you, I watched the minutes following the end of the debate with great interest. Clinton was first to shake hands with the moderator, and then she went straight down to the audience to greet people and shake hands. Trump stood on the stage, surrounded by his family, acknowledging a few audience members with waves and thumbs-up, but without any two-way engagement.
Australians are interested in the Presidential elections because America is our ally. We are closely tied to the United States through trade, foreign policy and cultural exchange. Who’s is in the White House is significant for us.
After all his hype, I honestly expected better from him. If I’m offered an evil tycoon as a a potential Despot-in-Chief, she or he had better live up to the Hank Scorpio model. Donald isn’t there. Donald was barely coherent, and decidedly unsympathetic.
Oh, I almost forgot the priceless exchange somewhere in there, where he said something along the lines of ‘I have a winning personality. I’m a winner!’ I don’t think that’s the definition of a ‘winning personality’ as far as someone who can win hearts and persuade minds.