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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
He appeals to you because you’re the right kind of ordinary person. Got it.
Reminder that Markov’s spent many an hour stomping his feet over how “Easily insulted” we are.
Goodthink over crimethink, eh?
“When Mexico sends its people,” Trump said during his presidential announcement, “they’re not sending the best. They’re not sending you, they’re sending people that have lots of problems and they’re bringing those problems. They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime. They’re rapists and some, I assume, are good people, but I speak to border guards and they’re telling us what we’re getting.” ”
“What can be simpler or more accurately stated? The Mexican Government is forcing their most unwanted people into the United States. They are, in many cases, criminals, drug dealers, rapists, etc.”
Yeah, that’s just like gossiping about celebrities. No broad generalization there.
As a sidenote, I do love that Mark never even tries to deny being Mark. Makes David’s job so much easier.
Markov
heeeee
And the vast majority of the us, especially on this blog but also in the US generally, therefore aren’t ordinary people. Got it…
Of course not! Here at WHTM we are building a fighting force of EXTRAordinary magnitude!
(since I’m at work I’ll leave linking to the appropriate movie as an exercise for the reader.)
OK – the information that politifact gives seems interesting, but I don’t really agree with the rating system they’ve got.
Examples:
1)
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/sep/28/donald-trump/debate-donald-trump-says-stop-and-frisk-constituti/
I feel like the information they have provided there is really good, but I’m not sure how you can say it’s “mostly false” – or anything else really. It isn’t absolutely clear what Trump was trying to say – there is always a bit of ambiguity in conversation.
When I heard him say that, what I took it to mean was that “it was ruled unconstitutional, but it was a bad judge, so it would have been possible to get it overturned.”
That’s a speculation – you can’t really clearly say whether that is true or false, and I think most people would understand that.
(As it is, having read that, it seems to me like the debate moderator was more “false” than anything else.)
2)
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/sep/27/donald-trump/donald-trump-wrong-again-about-nato-increasing-ter/
Yeah, that seems pretty false. I don’t know, maybe it is wrong, but I just take that kind of statement from Trump with a grain of salt.
3)
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/sep/27/hillary-clinton/true-hillary-clinton-says-federal-government-sued-/
I dunno, if he was already president of the company, could it be called “the start” of his career?
Also, Trump said: “Again – as far as the lawsuit, yes, when I was very young, I went into my father’s company, had a real estate company in Brooklyn and Queens, and we, along with many, many other companies throughout the country — it was a federal lawsuit — were sued,” shouldn’t he also get a “true” rating for this?
So – in conclusion – politicfact – the facts are interesting, but I’m not going to put too much store in the ratings.
Well, only about 31% of the population of the U.S. are ordinary people anymore.
Could you tell me a little more about this “Mark” ?
@Roger
When the moderator said stop & frisk was ruled unconstitutional, Trump said “no, you’re wrong”. How in the fuck is that ambiguous. Reeaaaally reaching now, dude.
http://m.popkey.co/d792ba/0xj5W_f-thumbnail-100-0_s-600×0.jpg
(With apologies to WWTH.)
Yeah, but if you look at it, stop and frisk wasn’t ruled unconstitutional – certain specific practices were. So, in fact, Trump was being more truthful than I gave him credit for there. The moderator was wrong.
@Roger
Mark is one of our trolls. We like to greet him with gifs from Tommy Wiseau’s The Room, like this one:
http://40.media.tumblr.com/92b75cbff2e57dd907511d7cbcb258ae/tumblr_n9j5vqvAYr1qeb8xho3_1280.jpg
You’ve said enough similar things to what Mark says that people think you’re his latest sock puppet account. I’m not sure, though; you haven’t once thanked us for driving MGTOWs away by being feminists.
OK, well that’s not me.
@Roger
Ok, but have you seen The Room? It’s pretty amazing and I think you might find the story even more compelling than Trump’s debating skills.
Roger, why did you claim to not be sexist and racist in your first post under this name? You’ve just admitted that you see white thin able bodied men as the default ordinary person. That’s racist and sexist as fuck. When you say Trump doesn’t make generalized insults, you’re just dismissing all the generalized insults he’s made against women, black people, Mexicans, Muslims, fat people and disabled people. Please explain how those of us who fit into one or more of the demographic categories he’s insulted are not ordinary or common people.
@Roger
Yeah, it was.
Source: Reuters, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-newyork-police-idUSBRE97B0FK20130812
This is how fact checking works. Trump and his supporters don’t seem to realize that it’s very easy for normal people to expose their lies. Not everyone is as gullible as you, Mark.
To be honest, if I was a hiring CEO, I’d wouldn’t pick a man who declared bankruptcy eleven times (or was it four times? Who the fuck knows at this point) and was actually competent but I would be more interested in running a successful, long-lasting business and not just a money laundry scheme.
But that’s just me. We all have our own priorities.
Roger, you’re being a textbook example of directed reasoning right now. You’re searching for holes in what Politifact is saying. That’s not how to evaluate evidence. If you want to find truth, you evaluate what’s being said squarely – you’re looking for places in whcih your views and the evidence don’t mesh, and then try to determine why they don’t mesh.
I’ll walk you through these three cases as an example.
1) Stop & Frisk: In this case, Politifact has said that the judge ruled that the way New York was conducting their stop and frisk policies were unconstitutional, not that all stop and frisk policies are unconstitutional. The discussion during the debate were those specific policies, so that’s a fair thing to say, but not entirely precise.
If Trump knew about those policies, he would have said something like “We’d adjust the policies so that they don’t violate the constitution” or something. He didn’t say that though, he said “it was a bad judge.” Blaming an activist judge, whereas in actual fact the declaration from the judge was very cut and dry and objective.
The “Stop and Frisk” reply has been his reply to all questions of ethnic tension so far, in all engagements he’s talked about since the RNC. He should know that the policy was unconstitutional. Instead of dealing with that like an adult, he just says “activist judge” and ignores reality.
2) NATO: Glad you agree!
3) Discrimination Lawsuit: You’re searching for ways to discredit the truth of the statement, Roger. It doesn’t matter whether it was the start of his career, or whether it was a class action suit, or whether he was amongst a number of defendants. That does not change the fact that he was in that lawsuit. Trump admits that it was him that was sued, not his father – he wasn’t a cog in the machine, he was in charge. He got sued, and decided to settle instead of defending himself. Couldn’t be more blatant.
He is in debt to Russian oligarchs and is a compulsive liar. Worst. Candidate. Ever.
Very off-topic:
The dancehall artist Elephant Man has 24 children with various women. One of his sons, an 18 year old who goes by the name Ele Trunk, has now come out with a diss song against his own father, titled “Sperm Donor”. Things are getting weeeiiiirrrrddddd. I need popcorn.
http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/wordgirl/images/7/75/Objection.gif
(Sorry not sorry, I’ve been playing the original Phoenix Wright trilogy, I just got back to Justice for All, and Franziska was always one of my favorite prosecutors~)
http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/aceattorney/images/a/a3/AA_Franziska_von_Karma_Finger_Wag_2.gif
Oh, Rodger…you foolish fool with your foolish foolishness…
I just love how Rodger seems to think that Politifact “has good information” but still somehow thinks that they’re wrongity-wrong-wrong and his gut feeling is much better for pointing out the truth.
Because that’s not contradictory. [/sarcasm]
http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/aceattorney/images/6/67/AA_Franziska_von_Karma_Arm_Out_3.gif
Rodger, Politifact has provided the most important factor in this equasion that Trump has not: Evidence.
Evidence is everything. If you feel Politifact is somehow wrong in some way, the best way to prove it would be to provide some.
But you have not.
http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/aceattorney/images/b/b9/AA_Franziska_von_Karma_Normal_2.gif
Politifact uses tons of sources from all over the political sphere, from news outlets to statements straight from the candidates’ mouths and their users fact check everything. There’s a reason people go to them to double-check things and it’s because they work their asses off to make sure that everything’s honest. They have hundreds, if not thousands of users who come to their site daily to fact-check everything.
http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/aceattorney/images/2/27/AA_Franziska_von_Karma_Close-up_2.gif
Unlike your dear Donald, Politifact goes out of their way to make sure they’re not full of shit, and they’ve earned their reputation as a quality source for facts. Unlike yourself, who has yet to prove that they can reason their way out of a wet paper sack.
But, I’m already tired of this conversation. Here’s a lovely clip from John Oliver from Last Week Tonight talking about scandals on both Clinton’s and Trump’s side. It’s a little long, but watch it to the end, okay Rodger?
http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/aceattorney/images/c/cf/AA_Franziska_von_Karma_Courtsey.gif
@Paradoxy
I was replaying the Ace Attorney trilogy through the 3DS download collection game. I was midway through the third game, but now my 3DS crashes every time I scroll right to get the third title in the menu. So I can’t continue my game. :/
@IP
I don’t listen to dancehall but, like, go Ele Trunk.
I actually find myself agreeing with Roger that it’s not the specifics of the plans, but the candidate’s style of approaching a problem – which he calls system of thinking. Because specific plans need to change if the person gets the job and then finds the facts or the situation different.
In Hillary Clinton’s case, I believe she does have the flexibility and the experience (some of it hard won) to change those plans to suit new circumstances. However, showing us the plan does indeed show us her approach to problem solving – as if we needed it – we’ve seen it. It’s compassionate, it’s detailed – in the past it hasn’t always been diplomatic and engaging enough. I genuinely believed she has learned from the mistakes she made on the health care plan. A great plan but she didn’t win the support she needed to make it a reality. I’m not sure she has learned to truly trust other politicians, but given her experience with two decades of unwarranted public skewering, I’m gonna give her the benefit of the doubt on that one.
In Trump’s case, nothing and I mean nothing, he has shown me about his style of thinking or problem solving inspires ANY confidence. In fact, it terrifies me. Not only that, but he hasn’t demonstrated even basic mastery of paying attention or listening skills or a shred of diplomacy. I don’t normally like playing the ‘character card’ but this man’s character is so vile, his familiarity with truth so passing that I believe he genuinely does not have the character to be a good politician. I can only hope he doesn’t have the stick-to-it-iveness to be an effective autocrat in the American system (and there’s good reason to think he won’t). I would not vote for him for dog catcher. I would not vote for him for PTA rep at his son’s school. I certainly would not vote for him for President of the United States of America.