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If you thought Chuck Tingle’s version of the Clinton-Trump debate last night was surreal, well, take a look at what Dilbert creator and wannabe master persuader Scott Adams has to say about it.
Unlike some of Trump’s superfans, Adams is willing to admit that, yeah, Hillary kind of won the debate, at least by normal debate standards.
Clinton won on points. She had more command of the details and the cleaner answers. Trump did a lot of interrupting and he was defensive. If this were a college debate competition, Clinton would be declared the winner.
But Adams thinks this “victory on the 2D chess board” doesn’t really matter, because in his mind, apparently, Trump is playing some kind of 95th Dimensional mashup of Chess, Cribbage, and Hungry Hungry Hippos, or something. And in this game, Trump is the clear winner.
“Clinton won the debate last night,” Adams explains. “And while she was doing it, Trump won the election.”
IS YOUR MIND BLOWN YET
On the off chance that your mind is not, in fact, blown, let’s look at exactly why Adams thinks Trump is the real victor in this game of 95th Dimension Chesscribbippos.
As he sees it, Hillary needed to prove to skeptical Americans (or at least to Dr. Adams) that she’s healthy. And she failed.
Clinton looked (to my eyes) as if she was drugged, tired, sick, or generally unhealthy, even though she was mentally alert and spoke well. But her eyes were telling a different story. She had the look of someone whose doctors had engineered 90 minutes of alertness for her just for the event.
Huh. This is your takeaway from a debate in which Trump sniffled so much that people started to wonder if he wasn’t hopped up on the cocaine?
Some will say Clinton outperformed expectations because she didn’t cough, collapse, or die right on stage.
But that’s not enough for Adams, who raises the serious medical question: Is Hillary’s smile kind of weird?
Clinton’s smile seemed forced, artificial, and frankly creepy. … My neighbor Kristina hypothesized that Botox was making her smile look unnatural. Science tells us that when a person’s mouth smiles, but their eyes don’t match the smile, they look disingenuous if not creepy. Botox on your crow’s feet lines around your eyes can give that effect. But whatever the reason, something looked off to me.
CLEARLY UNQUALIFIED TO BE PRESIDENT
Trump, by contrast, was the perfect model of health and handsomeness! Well, not entirely.
To be fair, Trump’s physical appearance won’t win him any votes either. But his makeup looked better than I have seen it (no orange), his haircut was as good as it gets for him … .
But Trump didn’t WIN THE ELECTION LAST NIGHT just by being somewhat less orange than usual. He showed what a calm, cool, and collected customer he is.
Trump needed to solve exactly one problem: Look less scary. Trump needed to counter Clinton’s successful branding of him as having a bad temperament to the point of being dangerous to the country. Trump accomplished exactly that…by…losing the debate.
Wait, what?
Trump was defensive, and debated poorly at points, but he did not look crazy.
MASSIVE WIN
And pundits noticed that he intentionally avoided using his strongest attacks regarding Bill Clinton’s scandals.
You actually think he lost the debate … on purpose?
In other words, he showed control. He stayed in the presidential zone under pressure. And in so doing, he solved for his only remaining problem. He looked safer.
As I put it in a tweet to Adams last night (you’ll have to forgive my typo):
Yeah, Trump throwing a tantrum as the same exact moment he was attacking Hillary for having a bad "temperament" was super duper reassuring. https://t.co/RQnRLxd66C
— David Futrelle (@DavidFutrelle) September 27, 2016
Trump definitely looked presidential, not at all like a giant petulant baby who shouldn’t even be in the same city as the nuclear codes.
BLINKING SARCASM.GIF
The most memorable moments of the first debate: Clinton laughs off Trump’s temperament barb https://t.co/NW6ToTCDFS https://t.co/IR90V9KcLc
— POLITICO (@politico) September 27, 2016
Ladies and gentleman, Donald J. Trump! https://t.co/H9Uy8yzNYZ by @RiosJose559 via @c0nvey
— FLOR DO DESERTO (@FlorDeserto) September 27, 2016
https://twitter.com/peterwsinger/status/780607277938147328
https://twitter.com/CCW000/status/780897508310458368
Oh, wait, that last one isn’t Trump. Hard to tell sometimes.
And here’s the latest Pledge Drive capybara, with a friend:
@ roger
I’d have to disagree. ‘Lone wolf’ attackers and especially ‘cleanskins’ are a much bigger threat than groups.
Groups are easier to identity, monitor and infiltrate. They also tend to have specific motivations so there are ways both of addressing that and spotting potentially radicalised (or radicalisable) individuals earlier by their rhetoric or views expressed.
Random attacks by previously innocuous individuals are much harder to predict and prevent in advance.
Plenty of foiled terror attacks, very few interdicted mass shootings.
Here, the troll subtly makes the switch from American/foreign to white/non-white. Because all Americans are white and all foreigners are brown or black.
I am very interested in the idea of a President Goaty McGoatface.
@Roger
I quite eagerly await
Your answers of terrors late
From people with pale faces
Wanting to harm all races,
Bombing clinics to ash
How unlike those with a sash
Or perhaps do you find
Storm Roof simply sublime?
A personality
Who seeks brutality;
Leaving workers no pay
And sees all as his clay
But flees from Mexico
When the leader said “no”
Is a spineless coward,
Unworthy of power.
@pitshade
We shouldn’t have a President who can be goated with a tweet.
Roger.
No, it’s not actually “better to be careful” — not if “careful” is: talk about immigrants as if they pose a unique danger to the country, and talk about Muslims as if they are all responsible for all terrorist attacks perpetrated by Muslims. Othering people in this way makes us less safe. Ignoring the hate crimes this inspires, as if the victims deserved it, creates an us-versus-you mentality that leads to increased violence. But hey, who cares how many more people will be killed — at least they will die knowing that the country has adopted the bigotry of assigning blame to entire groups of people for the actions of a few. How comforting!
Twenty-seven people are killed in this country every day by drunk drivers. Umpteen more by people who have had citations for reckless driving, road rage, etc.
In the three months following September 11th, 2001, the increase in people eschewing flying because they thought driving would be safer led to an increase in traffic fatalities that was greater than the number of people killed on the four hijacked planes. But at least they weren’t killed by terrorists, right?
And while I’m on the subject of cars: how many people die every day because the NRA and their supporters freak out at the idea that guns should be registered and tracked, and their owners licensed, to at least the same degree as…oh, I don’t know…*cars*?
But hey, it’s cool. We do our little ritual. Shed a few crocodile tears for the everyday victims of drunk and otherwise reckless or careless driving, of gun violence, of misogynist murder-suicides.
But if *one*, and I mean *one* person, dies at the hands of an undocumented immigrant, or a terrorist who belongs to the un-American religion–well! We just can’t have that, right?
@ littleknown
It’s funny how we perceive risk. To follow on from your example, more people are killed on their way to the airport than in plane crashes. But very few people arrive at the airport and think “Phew; thank goodness that bit’s over!”
Okay, wut.
O_O
And Trump is humble and readily admits when he is wrong or isn’t sure of what to do, right? Shoo, troll, shoo.
No? How about mandatory abortions for everyone? True, we can’t do anything about the real and potential bad people that are already living in this country (and the world) without resorting to mass murder which, um, would be both evil and ironic, but by stopping human reproduction as well as migration we can ensure that there will be no more potential bad people coming into this country and that way we will be safe! Safe, I tell you!
Stupid is as stupid does,
If Trump is right; then take your lumps,
Highfalutin theory’s fine,
As long as you will keep your eye,
On what the hell is going on,
And don’t assume that he is wrong,
Because he sings a different song,
Than that so loved by you and yours,
Where upstanding scholars are the source,
Favored by the bourse,
Scream contempt till you are hoarse,
Might as well be speaking norse,
Who paid for it?
Goldman-Sachs of course.
@IP
I’m thinking you made a pun, but it’s gone over my head/face.
I know I would much rather trust one guy’s prejudice over “scholars,” with their “research” and “well-informed opinions.”
@ Roger
Did I cite scholars? Or did I just point out facts about how we navigate risk that are inconvenient to your “the sky is falling, banning Muslims from the country will keep us safe” theory?
Where in anything that I said to you do you see an *assumption* that he is wrong?
@ Alan
I think your point further upthread about lone-wolf versus coordinated attacks is important, especially as to why Trump’s “blame them all” rhetoric is so dangerous. The previously innocuous are indeed the most dangerous. He is acting as a de facto spokesman for ISIS, writing all of their material for them. They could never have hoped for a platform as large as his, and yet he gave it to them.
@Roger
A shitty attempt at poetry and a major overuse of hyphens?
http://i.imgur.com/2mkFVX4.jpg
@ littleknown
ISIS are trying to bring about the Fitnah (the apocalypse). In the eschatology they subscribe to there are a number of signs or conditions before the end times can be fulfilled.
One is that ‘the worst of all men shall be elected leader.’ Hmm.
But yeah, a big part of their recruitment strategy is reaching out to the alienated and saying how they only need listen around them to know they’ll never be accepted (IS call it ‘eliminating the gray’).
Trump is a godsend to them.
@paul
“we can’t do anything about the real and potential bad people that are already living in this country (and the world) without resorting to mass murder”
OK – so this is why I lean trump. Why leap from border control to mass murder?
It seems completely irrational to me.
@littleknown
What you say about “othering” is true – but at the same time, if there is already a group that *has* othered you and yours there is no point in ignoring that. I don’t know. Trump also said “I don’t know” – we need to be cautious until we get a better idea of what is going on.
Don’t see how anyone can object to that – unless they are quite intellectually arrogant.
About Trump, yeah he is a braggart. I get the feeling he’ll say anything to be President and doesn’t really have many principles. But I also get the feeling that in this election his “base” is the common man. I get the feeling that Clinton will also say anything to get elected, doesn’t really have many principles, but that her “base” is the status-quo, conventional wisdom, liberal elite.
Now, I that’s not necessarily a problem if Clinton appears a bit independent or someone you can personally trust, or who has good judgement and strength. But she doesn’t appear to.
So the “everyman” candidate seems better.
Someone mentioned Norse. Hwá ábéonnon Scildfreja?
Roger, I’m with you. I loathe the corruption that’s seeping into the western world.
The halls of power have been poisoned with the taint of money to the point where a large and in-depth study by Princeton indicated that the United States is no longer a Democracy, it is an Oligarchy, controlled by large corporations (such as Goldman Sachs) with the appendages of democratic power acting as their proxies. It’s disgusting, damaging, and loathesome.
But here’s the problem. Trump is an Oligarch. He’s literally been the one pulling the strings. He brags about this, about buying senators. He’s not going to restore democracy, he signifies its destruction.
Hillary isn’t perfect; she’s got major flaws. Trump is the final dissolution of freedom in the United States. If you want to end corruption, there are a pile of places working towards it. Democracy Now, Wolf-PAC; there are a lot, and many of them are bi-partisan, accepting both left and right leaning members.
Trump’s a liar, a con, a bully, a thief. All on video. Saying “at least he isn’t bought” is ridiculous. Sure, he’s not corrupted by the Washington Insider bubble. Because he’s one of the sources of that corruption.
According to Roger, Trump represents the common man, while Clinton represents conventional wisdom. Obviously, then, the common man does not believe conventional wisdom, and in fact is in explicit opposition to it.
How does that work? Conventional wisdom is that which the majority, or at least a plurality, believes. The common man is the personification of the majority or, again, a plurality. Practically by definition, the common man believes in nothing but conventional wisdom.
Roger, you keep throwing out cliches, apparently with little understanding of what they mean but a certainty that they must support your argument. This is not working.
I miss the Scott Adams of The Dilbert Future, who admitted that he didn’t know enough about the issues to be an informed voter.
Of course, he was saying that in the context of an argument about why democracy is bad, so it’s not much of an improvement.
Man, and I was thinking arguments that blatantly had the word uppity in them before it was removed for public consumption were an endangered species now Obama’s about done with his terms.
Thanks Roger.
Alan Robertshaw:
I have seen it argued that the reason that people tend to fear airplane crashes more than automobile crashes, even though the latter by many degrees more common, is the element of control. A person can comfort himself with the thought that, if his automobile malfunctions, or another driver rams into him, he may be able to take some action that will save his life. That may not be true in the event, but it has a plausibility that is reassuring. If something goes wrong with an airplane, there is literally nothing a passenger can do that will make a difference. His chance of survival is dependent entirely on luck and the pilot’s skill, and experience has repeatedly shown that the former is very undependable and the latter usually not sufficient.
@ Roger
Yeah, see, here’s the thing: “I don’t know” doesn’t fly. Banning all Muslims from entering the United States does not fall under “being cautious.” Tearing the Constitution to shreds, and instituting bigotry as a national program, because you are vastly overestimating risk, is not “being cautious” — it’s being quite literally the opposite of that.
And who is this group that has othered me? Is it every Muslim in the world? In the country? Please, be specific, here.
I’m no genius, and I’m not trying to talk down to you. I’ve laid out the reasons I think your argument is flawed and dangerous. You haven’t addressed them very well. Instead, you ignored my point and suggested that all Muslims should be suspect because groups like ISIS have othered me. Instead of addressing my point, you have suggested that my disagreement with your position can only come from intellectual arrogance. Which one of us does that make arrogant?
What makes you the common man, and me not one? I work a blue-collar job. What makes liberals elite? Because they don’t talk about how it’s politically incorrect to challenge the popular notion that the only way to reduce terrorism committed by Muslims is to institute bigoted policies against all Muslims? Because they don’t whine about “conservatards” in their ivory towers at Fox News brainwashing their intellectually arrogant viewers with “conventional wisdom”?
What makes Trump an “everyman” candidate? The billionaire who made his fortune while bilking everyman contractors, bankrupting family businesses in the process, because he didn’t like their work? Who brags about avoiding paying debts by declaring bankruptcies, about avoiding paying taxes despite making sums of money — both things that no “everyman” can do?
Wasn’t there some point where one of the big criticisms against Hillary was how she was wishy-washy and changed according to how the political wind was blowing? And now she’s confident, which means she’s totally intractable? It’s almost like there’s no stance she could take that would be correct unless it was withdrawing from the race and telling everyone to Vote for Trump. And I get it, I really do Roger. I understand you find a confident and competent woman to be emasculating. But Daddy Trump is a poor receptacle for your hopes and dreams here.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA *gasp* *wheeze*
It’s one thing to be ignorant, it’s another thing to revel in ones ignorance.
As an aside to the everyman thing, if Trump had come from the same background that Hillary had he would be pumping gas right now. It’s amazing how much of an advantage growing up with millions of dollars can be.