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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:
You’re right. It’s impossible to insult the intellect of someone who lacks intellect.
Anyone can. They provide sources and evidence. If you weren’t a complete idiot, you could be checking the fact checkers right now.
Skriki – What is the racist comment?
Scildfreja Unnýðnes –
The original point of the OP was that Clinton’s victory in technical debating would make everyone vote for her.
I’m just saying that in my case, that isn’t the case.
Okay, let’s say we’re on the board of a company. Two candidates for CEO are applying.
One of them says, “We’re going to compete in arena X, by doing A, B, C, and D” — where A, B, C, and D are policy proposals that are specific enough to show where they think the company needs to put its focus in order achieve winning condition Y, but general enough not to reveal critical information to the company’s rivals.
The other says, “I have a plan. But it’s a secret plan, and no one can know about it. The other person you interviewed is an idiot for sharing any details of her plan whatsoever” — and this person has previously floated ideas for achieving winning condition Y that were about flouting current law, lying about the emissions of our car’s engines, or some other such (“You have to take out their families” / “Bomb the **** out of them” / etc.)…
I would probably vote for the first candidate. And sell all of my stock in the company if the board voted for the second.
Ooops, meant Roger instead of Robert. But while we’re on the subject…
So Hillary was insulting you (as a Trump supporter), but you decided to support Trump AFTER the debates? That’s some interesting logic “If I become a Trump Supporter Hillary will retroactively be mean to me, and that’s bad, so I’m going to support Trump.”
@Rogark
IP said what I was gonna say vis a vis hiring a jackass with less rambling. Read that again
Just asking questions, which culture, higher how, you very well do know
Seeing as the shoe fits…
@IP
🙂
To be honest, if I was hiring a CEO I’d be more interested in their system of thinking than their specific ideas.
If I was qualified to assess the specific ideas, presumably I could be the CEO myself.
I want someone who I trust to make the decisions. How are they going to make decisions.
That’s the question.
Schnookums –
“That’s some interesting logic “If I become a Trump Supporter Hillary will retroactively be mean to me, and that’s bad, so I’m going to support Trump.””
Have you ever been in a shop where the staff are bad-mouthing some *other* customer?
Makes you wonder what they are saying about you, too. Bad service – wouldn’t give them a job.
@Roger, correct! That is indeed what the OP was talking about. My comment addressed:
– why you feel that your feelings are enough justification for deciding your vote, especially in the face of so much evidence to the contrary;
– why you brought up any sort of reasoning beyond “I prefer how he makes me feel” when those reasons are irrelevant;
– and, why his behaviour makes you feel more secure instead of less, from a personal development angle.
Would you care to address any of those?
(And, frankly, you were a Trump supporter before the debate, it seems, so I’m not surprised by your replies. I’m just asking *why*)
If you do not believe you are qualified to assess the ideas, then perhaps you shouldn’t be voting for the CEO.
Roger,
Not so much:
George Habash and Wadi Haddad of the PFLP were MD’s.
Ayman al-Zawahiri is a surgeon, Orlando Bosch was a pediatrician.
Six of the eight persons arrested in the June 2007 attempted attack on Glasgow Intntl Airport were either doctors or medical students, the seventh was a med tech, the eighth had a Phd in design and technology.
Faisal Shehzad, the guy who tried to bomb Times Square had an MBA.
And the most popular profession for (at least the Middle Eastern variety) terrorists? Engineering.
It appears that even the well educated can be murderous assholes. Go back to the drawing board.
Also, holy noodle, yes, the whole “need to have tighter restrictions on immigration” thing. The United States has incredibly restrictive immigration policies. People coming from war-torn areas under refugee status have to go through over two years of screening before they set foot on American soil – and the restrictions and tests have been increased in recent years, too!
I’m sorry to all of my American friends, and it’s not like we’re perfect up here in Canada by a long shot, but… when did the United States of America become so cowardly? From the golden door of freedom to … this? All out of unjustified fear? I’ve lived with and worked with refugee immigrants – Somali for the most part – and they’re wonderful people who feel blessed to be given a shot at peace and prosperity. They’re hard-working, and it’s been objectively proven that they’re a net gain for the societies that accept them.
Open your heart, Roger. Stop being afraid.
And this is what it has come down to. Trump’s specific ideas have been garbage fires, so it comes down to vague bullshit. His “System of Thinking”. It’s just the new “I’d rather have a beer with him” (although in his case he’d spend all the time talking about himself and then stiffing you with the bill.) I’d have more respect for people saying they’re voting for him because he was a Gemini, because at least we’d get a lot less desperate justification for that nonsense.
((aside: wouldn’t it be fun if Roger was actually Scott Adams?))
Scildfreja Unnýðnes –
Why shouldn’t my feelings be relevant to the decision?
It’s a question of the wisdom of crowds vs. their madness.
I guess you think that the emotional man would be victim to mob mentality – the feedback loop.
I think the same for those too plugged into the intellectual feedback loop.
Yes. And I’d give it business over the shop across the way that also badmouthed Mexican customers by calling them rapists and criminals, and oh the owner of the shop also refused to pay the people who built the place as well and then later bragged about it.
Roger:
Trump bad-mouths everyone who doesn’t agree with him; just as you have done, here (saying that you think anyone who disagrees with you is being “intellectually arrogant”). He comes up with taunts and schoolyard names for all of his opponents. He calls women he doesn’t agree with pigs and slobs, attacking them for their physical appearance. He has called for violence at his rallies, bragged that he could get away with murder, and offered to pay the legal bills of those who do assault protesters at his rallies. He threatens to sue press outlets that run unfavorable coverage. He doesn’t respect freedom of the press, or freedom of religion.
Why is Hillary’s deplorables comment, which was more limited in scope than the constant stream of insults and violent, our-way-or-the-highway rhetoric coming out of the Trump campaign and a very large percent of his supporters, somehow worse?
Why do you point out the speck in your neighbor’s eye, and ignore the log in your own?
Scildfreja Unnýðnes –
“Open your heart, Roger. Stop being afraid.”
It’s a major change that you can’t take back. Don’t you think we should be at least a little careful?
Um, anyone who cares to? You could, for instance. Politifact is pretty prominent, so I’m sure there’s a ton of people from each campaign checking for things they could challenge.
Edit: Ninja’d by a mile by IP
What ever will I do, plugged into the “intellectual feedback loop”?!?
Heavens be, what is this intellect thing you speak of, and how do I stop listening to it???
I think Hilary’s comment was more general than Trump’s have been. As an ordinary person I’m not in the same group as the people he’s talking about.
It’s like your hair dresser gossiping about Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt vs. them gossiping about another customer’s private life.
OK – I’m going to go and check polifact.
No, it’s not a major change. It’s continuing to do what we have been doing.
A major change would be something like, oh, I don’t know…abolishing the First Amendment to the Constitution, and instituting a religious litmus test for those applying for citizenship.
Of course your feelings should be a factor. Just not the only factor. Demagogues are very good at manipulating feelings. The only defense against demagogues is cool, rational consideration and selflessness.
I’d be happy to hear you describe the “intellectual feedback loop” if you’d care to.
Roger, honey, I just wrote in my last quote that the US currently has one of the most stringent security policies for evaluating refugees. That’s more than a little careful, it’s paranoid. Making it more stringent goes against the very principles of your country. What was it, that quote about selling freedom for security?
Frankly, not only would it be a violation of the core ideals of the United States, it would also be useless. No terrorist in their right mind is going to go through two years of scrutiny when they can just take a vacation. Why immigrate? Most o these terrorists have been intelligent and relatively well-off, with high paying technical careers, as has been noted. There’s zero reason for them to immigrate to the US.
It’s nothing but a knee-jerk fear reaction, Roger. Calm down and unplug from the InfoWars conspiracy machine.
Here’s one of the problems with Trump: