Comments

Sunday’s ordinarily my day off, but…DEBATE. — 99 Comments

1. You should make the effort, neo-neocon. This is the most important debate of our lifetime! ;P

2. I’m averting my eyes again, Neo. American League playoffs with Toronto &Texas. The Blue Jays, whom I love except when they’re playing our Rays, took Games 1 & 2 in the Rangers hometurf in Arlington, Tx.

   The Felon & King Baby don’t even come close tempting me away from Post Season Baseball.

3. NeoConScum:

   Well, the sinking Red Sox have had today’s playoff rained out.

   I’m actually enjoying the rainy day. The entire summer was dry and sunny, so sunny that it felt wrong to stay inside and do all the little chores that have slowly been building and building. Today I made a small dent in the pile.

4. Neo – don’t you just hate having to attack those things that are put off!

5. Stan on the Brazos:

   I have so many things on my lists that I have lists of my lists.

6. I’m in Taos sitting in a comfortable hotel bar and sipping a B&B, while a big thunderstorm is hitting the Sangre de Cristo mountains.

   The TVs are only showing sports. I’ll be curious to read how Trump does, but I won’t be watching.

   It continues to be difficult to find decent wifi in New Mexico.

7. I’m also reading the best book on Leonard Cohen I’ve seen, “I’m Your Man: The Life of Leonard Cohen,” by Sylvie Simmons.

   Knowing neo is a fan of His Cohenness.

8. Every day I feel more like Cassandra, even though I know many of my readers believed my predictions.

   I stopped watching these debates years ago — and think almost everyone should do the same — but this one would be especially painful to watch. I take no pleasure in seeing a disaster I predicted, but couldn’t prevent.

   (I may read the transcript later, which I can do in 20 or 30 minutes, max.)

   If we must have these absurd spectacles, we need better rules and enforcers. I suggested a 5 minute penalty for the first interuption, and ejection for the second. Joe Queenan suggested getting someone like former Baltimore linebacker Ray Lewis to enforce the rules.

9. Queenan made his suggestion in his column in this weekend’s WSJ.

10. I suggest 45 minutes of having the candidates whack each other with Nerf bats.

11. Brian, a more accurate version would be to have both the democrat nominee and the moderator whack the Republican candidate with feces filled bags.

12. Is there a Republican present at the “debate?”

13. Is this “debate” a trial? Does Trump have counsel?
    No, not a trial – more an inquisition.

14. Tuvea; I agree.

    Interesting, but not surprising, how the “moderators” tell the audience to be quiet when they cheer what Trump says, but, remain silent when the audience cheers Clinton.

15. Neo, I know how you feel now trying to watch…this. I’m literally squirming in my chair. This is almost obscene. It makes me want to grab Trump and pull him to safety. It’s disgusting to put anyone, even Donald Trump, through this.

16. No one expects the hispanic inquisition!

17. Charles, that’s exactly when I clicked off. Especially after Martha Radich said we have to move on to other questions cutting Trump off, then asked 2nd question in a row on Trump and his thought-to-be-private utterances 11 yrs. ago. instead of, oh, maybe a question concerning issues or policy.

    (Plus, Hillary’s absurd moral high ground attitude. Why am I certain that her words to her husband through all of her public humiliation as accuser after accuser came forth would scorch the very earth she stands on. And her public condemnation of the women was bad enough. (Never mind the actions taken to intimidate them) Can you imagine what she said privately? We’ll never know because no one would dare use any “hot mic” recordings if there were any. Or they might end up like, say, Seth Rich–the young DNC employee who was mysteriously shot dead right near his apt. in DC shortly before Wikileaks published emails DNC emails (Julian Assange was very interested in, and offered financial reward for information on this murder. And surprise, surprise: Obama Administration (which late last week was proven to be in cahoots w/ Clinton campaign to cover up private server scandal as per FOIA requested copies of email but story was buried in the wake of Donald Trump audiotape) is now publicly “confirming” the hacks were made by the evil Russians who are (according to Dems) are Trump’s best buddies.

    Now, I never liked Donald Trump (having nothing to do with this latest– that kind of stuff was no big surprise). I lived in Manhattan for 30 yrs. where one could hardly avoid reg. press about him.
    But I passionately detest HRC and whereas Trump nomination was, to me, abysmal, Hillary’s nomination and ensuing campaign leave me completely disgusted. Never mind the prospect of her becoming President and having to watch as she picks up where Obama leaves off.

18. That woman from ABC just decided to debate Trump by herself. Why doesn’t he attack her for her bias?

19. I’ve watched the whole thing and in my opinion Trump has done pretty well. Will he convince the undecideds? No telling but the less well people are doing, the more I think they’ll be open to what he’s saying.

    On the other hand, Trump just said that electing Hillary will be 4 more years of Obama. Whose approval rating is currently in the mid 50s…

20. Trump is much better than I expected, aided by the naked bias of the moderators against him, and Hillary seems so awful, so inhuman and unlikeable… well, we’ll see what happens. I didn’t intend to watch. Couldn’t stay away.

21. The Flies have it…
    beelzebubs seal of approval…

    While partisan devotion can often result in overstatement and hyper-ventilated rhetoric, something is different this year. The political and media establishment have become far more vicious. They have dropped any pretense of impartiality, they openly brag about their willingness to break the law in order to score a few points against Team Trump. And the degree to which they throw away what little credibility they still have with the diminishing number of people who even bother to listen or read them is breath-taking.

    All of this begs the question, why? Why risk everything on one election? Why impale yourself on lies, criminal behavior and outright deceit on an historic scale? The answer gets mentioned every now and again, always in passing or in some oblique reference; never head on and openly direct. The establishment and their hirelings in the media are afraid that the election of Donald Trump would, in the words of the Washington Post, “bring about the end of the era of American global leadership that began in 1945.”

    So, what exactly are they talking about here? The Post and the herd of similar outlets are referring to the movement toward a world government enshrined in the Temple on Turtle Bay, the United Nations. They are talking about the end of independent nations, what Ann-Marie Slaughter – a devoted Hillary Clinton zealot – has called the “global administrative state.” And, they are referring to the corporatist economic model that pumps trillions of dollars into a handful of international banks and corporations that are free from any government rules or regulation.

    All of this and more is in fact on the line. When Trump denounces bogus “trade” deals, he is exposing the true nature of the corporatist economy; an economy that deindustrializes America and then tells the displaced workers to train their foreign replacements. It is an economy designed to build the capacity and wealth of foreigners at the expense of the United States. “But, the overall levels of income are great and we get all those cheap goods,” the so-called free traders exclaim. This macro-level of income, of course obscures the fact that virtually all the gains have gone to the top of the economic pyramid and that middle America is dying before their eyes. And those cheap goods? Is it really better that we can buy a dishwasher or flat screen TV for less when the true price does not include the devastation inflicted on thousands of towns and communities across the nation? Does it really end up costing less; or, are the true costs hidden in drug overdose statistics, depressed real estate values and countless broken lives.

    When Trump questions military alliances that were built in a different era and asks if the rationale is still valuable to the United States, the left and the media shriek in horror. But in point of fact many of those alliances have become little more than shakedown operations; con-games where American treasure and American lives get plundered so rich European and Asian nations can continue to prosper. Defense of the United States has become in a real sense secondary to defense of the “system” built up since 1945, a system of world entanglement and outright theft of American assets.

    And, when Trump – like so many now in Europe – attacks the “open borders” lunacy of the global elites, the shop-worn insult of “racist” gets hurled. But it is not racist or wrong to want to defend the borders of our nation, it is for us as a people to decide who comes in and who does not. It is the most basic and fundamental right of a sovereign nation. But that, of course, is the whole point. The elites and their running dogs in the press don’t want sovereign nations, especially a sovereign United States. Trump exposes that and they hate him for it.

    Trade policy that benefits American workers, policies seeking peace and not perpetual war, and a strong sovereign nation – these are the principles that outlets like the Washington Post and the New York Times cannot abide. These so-called press outlets embrace the world vision of those that would destroy nations, that would give the owners of capital complete control while workers and communities are pressed down into eve deeper debt-slavery. They are the drooling zombies of the “administrative state” that denies the people any rights independent of what some body of unelected “experts” grants them. They are, in every meaning of the term, propaganda pushers of tyranny.

    So when the press howls, screams, insults, demeans and sneers, remember – it is a sign of their fear, fear that the American people have caught on to their con and that their day of reckoning is near.

22. I think Trump won, and since he’s promised to appoint a special prosecutor for Hillary, I’ve changed back into the Trump camp (assuming he doesn’t do anything stupid until Nov 8).

23. Tonight’s moderators were way better than Lester Holt.

    Yes, they seemed to give Hillary more time (and I used my stopwatch app to time most of answers), but they did do some follow up on matters that were negative to Hillary.

    In my opinion, Trump won this debate. I don’t know what effect this victory for Trump will have on the electorate.

24. Agree with Matt – ignoring all substance for the sake of appearances, Trump won. On Fox, I see Juan Williams agreed.

    He started off somewhat rough under an impossible line of questioning, but once he shifted to Bill and Hillary’s emails, he hit hard. Hillary’s mouth got conspicuously dry aftter he leveled his charges, a sign that he’d got her dander up.

    The moderators were awful, particularly Raddatz.

    I’m not sure what difference this will make, but I think it will at least stop some of the bleeding.

25. I’ll second what Matt_Se said – Trump won.

    I’ve been in the “not Hillary” camp. But, I’ve only slowly come around from the “I guess I’ll have to vote for Trump” camp to the “Hey, I actually might like the guy” camp.

    However, I don’t think any of this would help an undecided make up his/her mind.

    And one of the reasons for that is that what I originally took to be self-centered behavior on his part (and it some extent it still is) now comes across to me as part of his strategy – call them out on whatever it is they got wrong.

    So, Neo, what you see as “whiny” when he complained about the timing, I see as his calling them out on it. Many Americans are tired of being lied to, we are tired of being disrespected by our self-appointed betters. And it is good to see that someone will stand up to them. Sure, I think those who don’t like Trump (and I was one of them a while back) would have seen it as whiny; but, now I think many will see it as some one who is strong and willing to call others out on their bad behavior.

    Oh, and I loved it when Trump said Hillary should be in jail. That will get many riled up – both for and against him. But, I thought it was great; because it is true.

26. charles:

    Actually, I didn’t see it as “whiny.” When I wrote “his complaint makes him sound whiny” I meant “sound,” and what I was thinking was that a lot of people would hear it as whiny. In other words, it came across as whiny.

27. Folks, a reminder: When you begin with “Trump said” you lose everyone who remembers that he is a pathological liar.

    And anyone who doesn’t recognize that little fault of his needs to look at the evidence.

28. Here’s a sample for those who’d like one.

    Note that Trump continues to say he was against the 2nd war in Iraq from the beginning, even though his claim has been debunked, again and again.

    He keeps saying it because he thinks you and I are suckers.

29. Jim Miller:

    Yes. I do not trust Trunp, his word, or his promises, and the only way I would ever trust him is if he had been president for several years and had consistently done what he said he would.

    The only significance what he says has to me is that it helps me figure out his possible effect on other people, his style—what he projects to people, and whether it will help him win.

30. I think what I like most about the prosecution line is that it promotes the idea that Hillary should be prosecuted. That the public is right to demand it.

    Public virtue is more important than anything else, because everything starts with the public.

31. @ neo-neocon:

    One other thing is that Trump made the explicit pledge on stage. That somewhat obligates him to follow through.

32. One interesting thing in post-debate coverage on FOX was Frank Luntz’ focus group of “undecideds” in Megyn Kelly’s segment (she seems to have co-opted these focus groups somehow even tho’ I believe they began on Hannity’s show). Some of group leaned clinton or leaned a little Trump but most were supposedly really undecided. After debate, Luntz asked 2 questions: Who decided to vote for Hillary? Who decided to vote for Trump? I was pretty much bowled over when only a very few raised hands for Clinton, and almost everybody else raised hands pro Trump. Pre-debate there were 8 leaning Hillary, 9 leaning Trump. Post-debate, 4 for Hillary and 18 for Trump. I had quit watching for most of debate beyond a couple minutes at beginning and then went back to watch the assessments. I was pretty shocked. I really must have missed a lot!

    I’ve also been thinking about something else: I think all of the machinations by Clinton & Company (from her deeds, actions and nonstop lies to the uncloaked aid on part of other Dems, the MSM, and the current Administration itself) could possibly –possibly, I’m not counting on it–have a reverse effect on voters. That being, they’ve (we’ve) been taken for chumps now for quite a while with bait and switch politics and I’ll-take-your-vote-thank-you-very-much-and-do-what-the-hell-I-want tactics and there just might be a movement as Trump likes to claim, not necessarily just for Trump but against the ruling elite, the political correctness that has invaded all our lives, consciously or not and slowly but surely changed the way we used to think about every little thing, evaluating who we are talking to and what we are about to say before we utter a word. And for some, I think the mass hysteria over this “lost” Billy Bush tape with Trump might just be a tipping point: the most obvious manipulation yet, timed perfectly, sourcing stories laid out supposedly by unbiased news sources (yeah, right) which was designed to shame voters into not voting for Trump.In other words, telling them who they must vote for. And that may be anathema to enough prople–certainly can’t be sure– that is keeping this a real race. Most of us, at least here, were really not surprised at the tape or hearing cringe-inducing words coming (again) from Trump’s mouth. And yet, the nos. have not moved the way they traditionally would have in recent memory. I just wonder…

33. Matt_SE:

    I don’t mean to insult you, but that seems rather naive. Trump could sign it in his own blood, pledge on a stack of bibles, it would not mean a thing to me. He is one of the most blatant liars I have ever witnessed, utterly shameless. He can say something one moment—on camera—and deny that he ever said it the next moment. There is no accountability.

34. I thought the fly was a stroke of genius. How better to signal that Hillary is dead in the water?

35. I didn’t watch (can’t stand to listen to Hillary or the moderators, and prefer keeping peace in the family), but the comments here line up with PowerLine’s bloggers.

    Art: do you have a link?

    Heather MacDonald is livid over the rampant hypocrisy of the Left (not excusing The Donald, but pointing out that vulgarity only causes vapors when it’s not coming from a Dem).

    http://www.city-journal.org/html/trumped-outrage-14777.html

    Interesting point here:
    http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/10/is_trump_a_goner.html
    “From a logical position, what Trump said is demeaning and insulting, and an unacceptable way for a male to express himself in public. The fact that this was not expressed in public matters not. The fact that Bill Clinton has said and done (on camera here) much worse also matters little.

    We are talking about the modern presidency, where fitness for the role buddy-in-chief deriving from television is more important to many voters than the commander-in-chief responsibilities deriving from the Constitution. We have to live with the face of the POTUS in our living rooms, as the cliché reminds us. People want a president they can like.

    Donald Trump, as he now exists in the public mind in the wake of the tape, is unlikable. So two possible countermeasures suggest themselves as the recourse for the Donald.

    Make himself likable, and/or
    Make the case that times require an honest SOB.”

    Sounds like the debate moved the needle somewhat on both.

    Another call-out on hypocrisy from a former Navy officer:
    http://libertyunyielding.com/2016/10/08/trump-truth-will-now-come-politics-status-women/
    “The old-consensus, status quo establishment sees women as exploitable political causes, exploitable economic units, and votes. I’m sure some politicians and pundits mean better than that. But regardless of the personal sentiments of individuals, that’s how the status quo of our polity sees and treats women. It is built to bait and trigger and exploit women. Having polite-spoken men and women in charge of it doesn’t change that.

    The people aren’t stupid to see that, and to see that Hillary will just accelerate the exploitation of that status quo, against the people, both women and men.

    That’s kind of the genius of this whole election cycle: the people keep trying to make it about the real issues that now deform their very lives, whereas the establishment “elite” keeps being distracted by all the Pavlovian red herrings, and demanding that the people join them in being silly.

    I know the MSM are trumpeting the Trump audio as the thing that’s going to bring him down. But “Trump and the women” is probably going to go the way of all the other “Trump truth” moments. Ultimately, it won’t bring Trump down. The voters will overlook it, not because they have no character, but because their government, which does have no character, is out of control — and that’s what has to matter.

    Even when defenders of the status quo say the right things, the people know that they aren’t saying them for the right reasons. It won’t be Trump who was “exposed” here. It will be the emptiness of our terribly, even vilely over-politicized vision of human life.”

36. Ok, ok, ok…. I confess I watched expecting hrc to bait djt, but djt turned the table on the dnc-msm axis and ‘won’. IMO he managed to put a pressure bandage on the grab the pussy wound. But there will be other wounds inflicted. Did djt win over the undecideds? I think not, but what do I know, beyond nothing much?

    It is a strange season. Tomorrow I will return to normal activities such as prepping the garden for winter, plant greens in the cold frame, and slaughter 3 hens who are no longer laying. I yearn for flyover normality.

37. “One other thing is that Trump made the explicit pledge on stage. That somewhat obligates him to follow through.” – Matt SE

    As much as I would believe (and desire that) trump would follow through with a special prosecutor (as he is just that type of vengeful guy, not because he feels honor bound to fulfill any promises he has made), that is far from enough to move the needle with independents, given all else that he brings.

    It seems more like red meat for his “base”.

38. Not a disaster for trump, but given his “normal” self, then might seem he beat expectations.

    This is a good case of “normalcy bias” I believe someone brought up recently.

    But, measured on how he moved the meter with independents / undecideds, one wonders if it helped him at all.

    That said, Luntz focus group says “trump is back in the race”.

39. Interesting point floating around that a trump “win” tonight helps clinton by keeping trump in the race (vs trump dump and replace with Pence).

    Based on recently leaked emails, it seems very much in line with the dem strategy of “elevating” the campaigns of those GOP candidates they think they can beat.

    This theory for tonight would have to assume that clinton is just that good at moderating her own debate performance – just seems implausible.

40. This theory for tonight would have to assume that clinton is just that good at moderating her own debate performance — just seems implausible.

    Politics isn’t chess. That’s the problem when people try to analyze it as if it were.

41. Neo.
    Trump’s suggestion that Clinton didn’t do, as a senator, what she could/should have done is faulty, since a senator needs other senators, possibly a lot of them if the president is going to veto the effort.
    Nevertheless, in campaigns, politicians promise to “do” things. Not participate in joint efforts which may or may not actually happen.
    Hillary reminds us, then, not to take campaigners’ promises to “do” one thing or another seriously, which may not have been the intent.

42. I was watching past episodes of the Louis C.K. show instead of the debate, but I followed the comments on other discussion boards as the debate progressed.

    “Because you’d be in jail” was one of the best lines of the night. Trump gets it. He’s in touch in a way that others are not. And in the debate, Trump’s answers on foreign policy, with Russia and Syria and so on, were far better than Clinton’s.

    As unlikely as it may seem, Donald Trump is the right man for the country at the time. I am so looking forward to voting for him in November.

43. “Because you’d be in jail” may be regarded as the “best line” or the “sick burn” by many, but is it not also highly revealing in a deeply disturbing way? Has not PresidentPseudonym placed his big paw on the scales of justice such that Mrs. Clinton escapes proper examination for crimes? And does not that expression from the mouth of a potential Chief Executive show that he has no appreciation of the meaning of term prejudicial? It’s a pity Trump has this thoughtless manner of speaking — ach — but there he is.

44. WaPo today is unanimously declaring Trump the loser. From the ed board to fact-checker Kessler, to other op-ed regulars, to Jen Rubin, all are ready to point out Trump’s faults, but no one seems to blame Hillary for anything. As much as I hate Trump, this unwillingness of the left to examine teir own consciences (assuming they have them) puses me more into his camp.
    And to all the commenters I’ve seen who blame Trump’s problems on Never Trumpers, I can only say STFU. Trump hasn’t done a bit of homework to back up and fill out his rants. Don’t blame us doubters for Trump’s failures.
    After all of Clinton’s comments on Putin, Trump could easily have stuck in a “Your reset didn’t work so well, did it, Hillary” line. I will give him points for the Lincoln line, though.

45. sdferr
    Whatever Trump said, he reminds us that the scales of justice have had many paws on them and they’re all going Hillary’s way. What he claims he’d do is secondary, imo, in the campaign compared to reminding the voters that Hillary, Obama, the DoJ, are all corrupt. And then there’s the IRS….
    It’s not that he’d put her in jail, or get a special prosecutor that’s important.
    It’s that there are things going on which are anathema to ordinary citizens.

46. Jim Miller:
    “Note that Trump continues to say he was against the 2nd war in Iraq from the beginning, even though his claim has been debunked, again and again.”

    That criticism is weak sauce that distracts from the chief defect of Trump’s position. More relevant regarding President Bush’s decision for Operation Iraqi Freedom than his 2002-2003 position, Trump’s current position is based on blatant legal and factual error: Explanation.

    Contra Trump, Bush’s decision was objectively correct on the law and facts. The US case versus Saddam is substantiated. Iraq was evidentially in categorical breach of the Gulf War ceasefire in its “final opportunity to comply” (UNSCR 1441). Unlike Obama with Assad, Bush enforced the ‘red line’ with Saddam.

    Regardless of whether Trump supported the President’s decision in 2002-2003, Trump’s current position on the issue disqualifies his basic judgement to be Commander in Chief and takes Clinton off the hook for ‘evolving’ about her 2002 Senate vote by blatantly misrepresenting OIF’s AUMF and grounds. Trump’s distraction also serves to obscure that Clinton opposed the OIF Surge for election-year politics and she reneged on her promises as Secretary of State to Iraqis to honor the Strategic Framework Agreement.

47. I have to disagree about the relative importance of things, I suppose Mr. Aubrey. Of the hierarchy of needs in America, politically speaking, that is to say.

    But on the lesser merely rhetorical front, and again from my point of view, the assertion that “[she’d] be in jail” can’t be the least bit salient in the absence of widespread knowledge of her corruption, albeit merely charges of corruption without conviction. So reminders, if reminders are actually needful, can take other and better shapes without giving voice to the one proposition least fit to a republican form of government.

48. The con man found his element it seems. Back to selling the Trump brand (casino, hotel, university, ,,,,) in a format that he is comfortable in.

    The “Trump is Rape” or “Trump is Rape Culture” will continue from the Dems until the next “surprise” is released to the media.

    But Hillary will be in jail, and should already be, even though the Donald didn’t know she was a crook back when he was singing her praises. /s

49. expat:
    “As much as I hate Trump, this unwillingness of the left to examine teir own consciences (assuming they have them) puses me more into his camp.
    And to all the commenters I’ve seen who blame Trump’s problems on Never Trumpers, I can only say STFU.”

    They are now who they’ve been. The ‘varsity’ Democrat-front Left and ‘jayvee’ Left-mimicking Trump-front alt-Right are sides of the same dys-civic coin using the same playbook.

    The ascendant need brought into stark focus by the cultural event of the GOP primaries and general presidential election is that conservatives of the Right must stop passing the buck on the activist game to the GOP. They need to urgently become a real competitive social activist movement in their own right.

    But instead of realizing the necessary solution of activism in order to compete for their preferred social paradigm, NeverTrump conservatives have chosen to depend powerlessly on the Democrat-front Left while NeverHillary conservatives have chosen to depend powerlessly on the Left-mimicking Trump-front alt-Right – sides of the same dys-civic coin using the same playbook.

    If the 2016 election moment isn’t enough to galvanize conservatives to compete for real, I don’t know what can shock the needed action. Apparently, the most sacred principle for typical conservatives is preserving their aversion to competitive social activism at all costs.

50. Eric,
    I agree that conservatives need to get their act together. If you read tat Heather Mac Donald piece at City Journal, you will find some good grounds for supporting social conservatism. How is what Trump said worse than having Beyonce a favorite guest at the WH? How is it worse than having all the rappers call women bi***es and HOs? How is blaming whites for the lack of black college grads gpoing to solve the problem, since Libs and te artsy craftsy crew has been supporting radicals who tell kids that learning to read is acting white? On just this front, we have to make a concerted effort to confront the conventional wisdom, and we have to do it with more facts than the Donald can come up with between tweets.
    Then we can move on to tackle foreign affairs, victimology, and ignorant celebrities who try to teach us science. We have to stop fallling for ignorant candidates who know how to press a few butttons in their congressional districts. We need a set of standards and we need to apply them at all levels.

51. @ artfldgr

    That was excellent! Thanks for posting it.

52. Trump is just a Clinton’s Nemesis – a proper punishment for all her criminality and hubris. Here I with Spengler: Go, Trump, jail the bitch!

53. “. . . conservatives of the Right must stop passing the buck on the activist game to the GOP.” [Eric @ 9:44]

    I couldn’t agree more. There was a coalescence of conservative will in the Tea Party several yrs ago. That, however was “shouted down” as much by establishment Republicans as it was the left.

    I think it’s time for a Tea Party resurgence. I still see numerous people displaying their Gadsden flags (as do I) so I suspect the underlying spirit has not died. Where is Rick Santelli when you need him? Seriously though, how does one catalyze this resurgence without falling into the same lack of political support that we see with the Libertarian party?

54. If you believe this round was terribly dirty, you have not seen the real thing yet. The best, mosts stinking mud slinging was conserved for the final debate.

55. ” Sergey Says:
    October 10th, 2016 at 11:12 am

    If you believe this round was terribly dirty, you have not seen the real thing yet. The best, mosts stinking mud slinging was conserved for the final debate.”

    Let’s hope so. Republican candidates have for so long played the willing and simpering patsy that it is almost refreshing to hear an unreconstructed blowhard throw back in the left’s face what the left has for years dished out.

    This will not please those who pine for a kind of election politics which never really existed, or ache to be a willing sacrifice, but it is at least reflective of the take no prisoners social reality which we face and was brought on us by 70 years of left-wing strategy and tactics.

    He could at least “call a spade a spade, and not a bloody shovel”. And apparently, this time, did.

56. I listened for maybe 30 seconds somewhere in the middle (I’m trying to get a fence replacement built before snowfall) when I came inside, and turned it off. Dinner was calling.

    …I was busy, and figured I’d tune in to the online post-op analysis afterwards.

    The first thing I saw later in the evening was the bit about Trump appointing a special prosecutor.

    And then saw the YouTube snippet where she says Trump she’s glad he’s not president, and he remarks “Yeah, because you’d be in jail”.

    Bril’.

    I watched it a few times. Felt good. I watched it again this morning. I bet I watch it a few more times ….

    Easily my favorite line of the entire election.

    Take that, pathetic media b!tches.

    I posted that snippet to my [pathetic] Facebook page.

    …she needs to be in jail. The country needs for her to be in jail. Dem’s won’t understand this, but they need for her to be in jail.

    The mighty should not be above the Law.

    Hubris. Greeks. Tragedies. America. Equality. That sort of thing.

57. “I couldn’t agree more. There was a coalescence of conservative will in the Tea Party several yrs ago. That, however was “shouted down” as much by establishment Republicans as it was the left.”

    You will not find too many here disagreeing with you.

    But what then is the “plan” (not referring to you “T”) when a politicized leftist IRS comes for those exercising their historical rights? Riots in the streets? Social war? Death squads?

    Especially when a large segment of the Democrat client class does not see it as a problem – moral or otherwise.

    The left’s totalitarian no-limits vector has placed conservatives in a peculiar position. They must not only be willing to get off their asses and be politically active, but to risk the kinds of social violence they in principle abhor while in the process of exercising their rights in a governing environment which has become hostile to these rights.

    The IRS targeting scandal, has made clear just how malevolently deep and uninhibited the animus of the political left toward the non-left actually is.

    I personally deplore the frustration driven loose talk concerning social violence and revolution we sometimes hear; but I am not certain how one can maintain one’s rights in an environment in which one of the parties is in fact dedicated to the abolition of those rights, and to the substitution of a no-limits program of unfettered domination and expropriation.

    The malice involved is almost stupefying.

    Huxley’s tale of a relative who for what seems to be no particular reason at all, decided to triumphantly spit a little taunting venom his way, is baffling; but I am afraid, not that unusual.

    What was his motivation in doing so, other than some nursed spite?

    I am not sure that libertarians and conservatives have even now fully appreciated the moral psychology they are dealing with when they are dealing with the left.

58. An observation from which one cannot draw any broad conclusions but one which surprised me nonetheless.

    Took a drive Sunday afternoon to get an elderly mother out of the house for an hour or so and give the old man some down time.

    The route was along a street from the outer suburbs to a mile or so south of the G.P. Yacht Club on Lake Shore drive.

    Now, there were no Trump-Pence sights in front of the shoreline mansions, but in the Shores just north of there, in front of the upper middle class 1950’s ranches and French Provincials, and colonials I must have counted 15 or 20 for Trump, and two, spaced out on the same lawn, for Hillary.

    Now this is atypical of the larger area, surely. But what I did find surprising is that people who might have every reason to feel squeamish about having a Trump sign on the lawn … just did not care.

    Certainly sheer numbers might eventually be proved missing for Trump … but even considering the problematical nature of his candidacy … the intensity of feeling among the put-upon, is obviously not.

    Of course when I last went to the pols in a presidential election, the line snaked out the door and half the people in line did not speak English; and seemed to have dropped in from outer space, or emerged from some civic woodwork, my never having seen them anywhere around in public before.

    Would not be surprised if it were not like that this time as well.

59. “Hubris. Greeks. Tragedies. America. Equality. That sort of thing.”

    Would Paul Cantor’s formulation (of Shakespeare’s political presentation of “our culture” [21:23 — 25:30~]) work for you in this context brdavis9?: “That it’s the secularization of the Christian reinterpretation of the Roman appropriation of Greek culture.”

60. Missed strike.
    Went to the “Polls” not pols ..

61. Gawd I love this blog.

    Neoneocaon: “Come for the politics, stay for the dance” lolol.

    Thank you so much sdferr for the link to the Cantor lecture …just started watching (of course “just started” lol: it’s an 1½ hrs long, ha!), but yeah, that snippet reco’ works perfectly for me.

    Cantor “…if it is a sin to covet honor …somethin’ crazy goin’ on here in our culture …the crown of the virtues is ‘greatness of soul’ …pride is this great vice in our culture that in some sense survives as a virtue …all the paradoxes of the modern Christian world are embodied here …”. How …charming? Yeah. Charming. Not nearly enough of that going around IMHO. Big “heh“.

    (I’m planning on listening to the entire lecture series, now, btw.)

    …you people pretty much never cease to amaze me. Best comment section participants evah. I only wish you all lived here, so we could barbeque and drink wine together. Even you #nevertrump’ers, as at least you’re rational about it (“agree to disagree”, heh).

    Cheers!

    (As an embryonic fence is calling, since I finally finished the retaining wall late last evening, and get to start the fun – woodworking – part …and – now – the treat of finishing an online lecture by a Shakespeare prof’.)

62. May I urge then, despite that I easily imagine you’d come to it on your own brdavis9, that when you’ve sated yourself on Henry 5, you fall back to the beginning of the beginning (the intro lecture), thence to proceed on Cantor’s chosen order, one after another after another. The effect cannot be described save to suffer it.

63. Stubbs Says:
    October 10th, 2016 at 12:49 am

    I thought the fly was a stroke of genius. How better to signal that Hillary is dead in the water?”

    Undead, out of the water.

    Lord of the Flies, or “Mistress”, as the case may be.

64. Let’s hope so. Republican candidates have for so long played the willing and simpering patsy that it is almost refreshing to hear an unreconstructed blowhard throw back in the left’s face what the left has for years dished out.

    DNW: So how’s that working out?

    Trump is down to 18% again in the Nate Silver forecast.

    Trump has only touched Hillary twice as long as he’s been running. The rest of the time Hillary has been leading, usually by a substantial margin, even though she has been the weakest, most disliked Dem candidate I can remember.

    Maybe those “willing and simpering patsies” that DNW and other Trump defenders despise know a thing or two about how careful Rep candidates have to be in the face of a highly biased media. Maybe those candidates weren’t useless, spineless tools but were trying to win as best they knew how.

    It looks like clear sailing for Hillary to win. As good as it may feel to watch Trump “fight,” what if that’s an even better way to lose?

    Will Trump defenders connect the dots that maybe fighting isn’t the magic solution they seem to think it is?

65. @ DNW

    I am not sure that libertarians and conservatives have even now fully appreciated the moral psychology they are dealing with when they are dealing with the left.

    It took me decades to understand that people on the left are motivated by death. I know that sounds harsh, but think about it. Obama wants America to die. He’s armed our enemies, abused our friends, gutted our military, run up unpayable debt, fomented a race war, and weakened our Country in every way possible. His intellectual successor Hillary has already killed people by her actions and inactions and, if her socialist policies are implemented, will kill many times more. Socialism always ends in death and destruction. It’s the philosophy of sacrifice. After all the “sacrifices” of the twentieth century, there is no longer an honest excuse for advocating socialism. By doing so, one is advocating death.

66. Eric Says:

    They need to urgently become a real competitive social activist movement in their own right.
    Since I’ve told you (as if it weren’t obvious on its own) that the rank-and-file have no desire to be activists, how do you think they’ll be motivated to do so?

    You keep telling us what MUST happen without any plan for achieving it.

67. My 82 yr old father in law Republican from IL reaction to the debate :

    “I watched the Creepy Clown Show on television last night. Oh, I was mistaken. It was the presidential election debate.”

68. I personally deplore the frustration driven loose talk concerning social violence and revolution we sometimes hear; but I am not certain how one can maintain one’s rights in an environment in which one of the parties is in fact dedicated to the abolition of those rights, and to the substitution of a no-limits program of unfettered domination and expropriation. [DNW @ 11:56]

    Hmmmmm!! I wonder how the founding fathers would have handled that?

69. huxley Says:

    Will Trump defenders connect the dots that maybe fighting isn’t the magic solution they seem to think it is?

    Here’s some interesting dots:

    WIKILEAKS: Clinton team instructed DNC with strategic goal of “elevating” Trump two months before he declared his candidacy.
    https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/784908158426869761

    Leaked Emails Show That Trump Was a Tool Used by the Hillary Campaign From Day One.
    http://www.redstate.com/brandon_morse/2016/10/08/leaked-emails-show-trump-tool-used-hillary-campaign-day-one/

    Trump won the primaries because Democrats had their thumbs on the scale for him, just like we said.
    So much for “nobody else could’ve won.”

70. Others now have taken the path to Mt. Hyperbole, enjoy your jump.

71. No matter what happens now, Trump’s Luxury marketing business is toast. Who wants to play golf at the Trump Links or tell friends you are staying at the Trump Hotel? It would be interesting to see if there is a public decorum clause in his marketing agreements.

    If you go by forbes magazine estimates of his work at $4 Billion, I’m guessing he will drop a clear billion with those tapes. And his kids will really be out of work for all practical purposes. So he has to crash his way through the election to save his ego. What a putz!

72. My fit to the 538 data as of this afternoon is still a 3rd order polynomial with Trump reaching 0% probability in 7 days. That likely won’t happen and I expect the curve to flatten out in the intervening period; leveling off at about 10% probability.

    So if you have any faith in the 538 data and model runs, it says the election is over. Long live the Queen.

73. huxley Says:

    “Will Trump defenders connect the dots that maybe fighting isn’t the magic solution they seem to think it is?”

    You know what — we’ve tried the gentlemanly approach for several elections now.

    Let’s see this through to its conclusion, and make our judgments, not by polls, but by election returns.

    Right now, all I’m willing to admit is that I HAVE NO IDEA who will win this election. Trump is fighting hard and drawing blood, in his own inimitable ham-fisted thumb-fingered way. Hillary is lying out of all three sides of her mouth, as usual, and pulling out her bag of dirty tricks, as usual. So I truly don’t know where this is going. (And that’s BEFORE Hillary discovers a box of fresh ballots, all filled out for her, in a box labelled “e-mail server backup tapes”.)

    By the way — Trump may well have been Hillary’s preferred choice, and she may well have done her best to influence the Republican primaries illicitly, just as she influenced the Democratic primaries illicitly. That does not mean that Trump cannot win against her. She may well have chosen poorly, as they say.

74. OK – I voted for a more conservative candidate in the state primary, I still haven’t watched the debate but it is recorded. And, I haven’t read all of the comments above. But….

    As much as I dislike Trump, I HATE Hillary. Hillary will be given a pass on everything – see how the press has given Obama a pass these last 7.5 years. Trump will be checked out on everything he does – by the press, the democrats, the republicans.

    On that point alone, I will vote for Trump since I want some checks on the Executive Branch. Luckily, I am in my 60’s and realize that I will be impacted by decisions on healthcare and social security. But, I have a nest egg which I do not worry about leaving anything to my family since they all voted for Obama in the last elections.

    It’s hard being the last conservative in the family.

75. My impression was that assholery beat criminality last night, based on the cheer that went up when Donald said, “Because you would be in jail!”* and the Frank Luntz focus group. That was quite surprising. Of course, those people are only bitter clingers and deplorables who live in flyover country, so they don’t count. I just don’t see anyone buying the Evil Empress’s line on the e-mails any more. Definitely a TD for the Donald.

    The EE’s answer on Obamacare didn’t fool anybody.

    Classic politico non-answer on Muslims by the EE. Chain not moved.

    Nice Trump block on the tax issue – “Why didn’t you do something about it.” I just don’t see the appeal of Hillary’s tax attack, “You didn’t pay for [blah, blah, blah], while the rest of us did.” I’ve been a tax lawyer for 40 years, and I’ve never met an American who didn’t take all the deductions he or she was entitled to (and a little more!). I just don’t see who that line appeals to, except for the kids, who’ve never paid taxes. Obviously, that could be a problem.

    A good pivot and end-run for Trump with “And just how does she make $250,000 from being in office. By selling influence, that’s how.” (Not verbatim,)

    Hillary sacked behind the line of scrimmage trying her “Abraham Lincoln” play by the”Honest Abe” retort. Note that her answer was a tacit admission that the transcripts are accurate.

    Good ending for the A-hole on the last question – field goal at least.

    Could I or any other good debater have done better? Of course! But I couldn’t manage any thing for Shinola. No question Trump kept his game alive. The Superbowl is less than a month away. Will the kids come to the game? What will the famous “white suburban women” do? And how big will the zombie vote in the cities be? Stay tuned!

    * The jail thing was a great line but ineffectual — Barry will pardon Hillary and probably all her flunkies if Trump wins. He has to – if she (and/or her flunkies) were convicted under 18 USC §2071(b), as she surely she would be, part of the punishment is to “be disqualified from holding any office under the United States.” And the statute of limitations is at least five and possibly 10 years.

76. Mentioned before that some acquaintances were original trump supporters. As of today, THEY are souring on trump after this weekend news and debate.

    Incidentally, they don’t subscribe to the all is lost theory, though they absolutely do see how awful clinton is.
    .

    Strangely, in the car today, heard Limbaugh – he has now given up any pretense and is delivering the alt-r rationales: abstaining or not voting trump is a vote for clinton rationale; and, all is lost if clinton wins. He comes across as panicked.

77. @ NeoConScume & Neo: So how about them Cubs? I ain’t afraid of no goat.

78. “Will Trump defenders connect the dots that maybe fighting isn’t the magic solution they seem to think it is?”

    LOL You’re the guy whose relatives are going out of their way to piss on his back and laugh about it.

    I did not nominate Trump, did not support him in the primary, was mortified that he somehow showed up as a candidate and am on record as being perplexed as to who it was that supported him in the first place. So save your ironic flamboyance for another audience.

    I will probably vote for the pugnacious Trump for the same reason I voted for the contemptible sack-of John McCain ; because though I would not step in to save him from drowning in 6 inches of dirty ditch water, he is preferable to the alternative as far as a clear and immediate danger to my freedoms goes.

    You can posture and sputter all you want, theatrically wash your hand of the whole mess, and pout from now till Doomsday for all I care.

    But don’t accuse me of putting Trump in the position he is now in, just for enjoying the spectacle of the crash, and hoping that when it is over, he is the one limping into the office alive.

    You Gurls need to find yourselves a new act; we’ve all seen the bitter disappointment routine way too many times.

79. “Could I or any other good debater have done better? Of course! But I couldn’t manage any thing for Shinola. No question Trump kept his game alive. The Superbowl is less than a month away. Will the kids come to the game? What will the famous “white suburban women” do? And how big will the zombie vote in the cities be? Stay tuned!”

    Well, you’re playing the hand you’re dealt.

    What better option do we really have … Grandma Gary?

    We will see if there are enough peeved middle class suburbanites in this country to make a difference.

    And if there are not, I guess it’s on to plan B.

80. “on to plan B” – which is?

81. Whoa, that’s a hellofa plan B!

82. I’ve tried to explain it to my lefty friends this way:

    You’re facing four doors. Behind door number 1, a hungry man-eating tiger. Behind door number 2, an angry skunk. Behind door number 3, a confused gerbil. And behind door number 4, a fern.

    There are only two rules: 1) if you turn and run, or 2) if you open the door to the gerbil or the fern, door number 1 will immediately open.

    What do you do?

83. Richard Saunders, 🙂

84. Richard,

    I don’t know. Does the skunk have access to the nuclear codes? 🙂

85. Richard Saunders:

    So you wouldn’t choose a fern or a gerbil? You would choose a tiger or a skunk? Seems you have a death or disgusting wish. 🙂

86. Richard Saunders:

    Or a skunk with rabies. There, fixed the scenario for you. Don’t thank me. 🙂

87. I find it interesting Trum waited until now, even without attending debate prep, to attack the Clintons on what pretty much everyone knew about.

    It’s like Trum thought he had some kind of cease fire or protection deal with Clinton.

88. But don’t accuse me of putting Trump in the position he is now in, just for enjoying the spectacle of the crash, and hoping that when it is over, he is the one limping into the office alive.

    But what are you going to do about all the other ones in the Alt Right who did do that, who will be your allies and overseers, if it happens they become the power behind Trum’s throne in DC?

    That’s a problem everyone will have to deal with, whether they side with Democrats or not. The Democrats used to be so called “moderate” as well, but their members are now obeying the shots called by the Left’s more fanatical believers. The same can happen any day with Trum as leader of the Alternative Right in the US. The moderate Tea Party reformers will be sidelined, kicked out like Lieberman was by the Left, or conformed to Obey the status quo power. People do not say that the US Presidency is the most powerful office in the world, as a joke.

89. OM – you seem to have missed the point. If you choose the gerbil or the fern, the tiger will jump out and eat you. But then again, you’ve been studiously ignoring that through the whole campaign.

90. ” Big Maq Says:
    October 10th, 2016 at 6:26 pm

    “on to plan B” — which is?”

    I expected you to ask, but as you are not included in, there is no reason to say, now is there.

91. “What’s your plan once we drive the republic into a ditch?”

    To leave you there …

92. Richard Saunders Says:
    October 10th, 2016 at 11:44 pm

    I’ve tried to explain it to my lefty friends this way:

    You’re facing four doors. Behind door number 1, a hungry man-eating tiger. Behind door number 2, an angry skunk. Behind door number 3, a confused gerbil. And behind door number 4, a fern.

    There are only two rules: 1) if you turn and run, or 2) if you open the door to the gerbil or the fern, door number 1 will immediately open.

    What do you do?”

    You remove your hand from between their heads and the brick wall they are knocking at with it.

    What they have done, and will continue to do, is make whatever choice they want since they assume you will always show up in solidarity to pad the crash or pull them out of the rut; and they don’t care how it affects your own welfare and freedom.

    What happens when you say to hell with them, and draw your hand back from between their heads and the brick wall?

    The answer is obvious.

93. Richard Saunders:

    I believe it’s you who are missing the point.

    NeverTrumpers, as well as many people who have a great deal of trouble voting for Trump, don’t believe there’s an angry skunk behind door 2. They believe there is another man-eating tiger there.

    They differ from you on their evaluation of the basic situation. And I believe this has been explained many times. But this is the source of the disagreement.

    Trump supporters seem to consistently ignore that fact, and to trivialize the objections of those who are against Trump. They try to make it out to be some sort of esthetic protest. I suppose for some it is, but that’s not what I see out there. I see much much deeper and more basic objections.

94. Richard Saunders:

    Oh, the doors open by themselves? Why won’t the tiger get out while I am chatting with the lunatic psychotic clown (who thinks he is a skunk) but who really wants to molest the gerbil and also sell the fern a lottery ticket?

    As like a thought experiment as yours.

95. Richard Saunders:

    And then of course the lunatic psychotic clown after molesting he gerbil to death, uprooting the fern, opens the door for the “kitty.” But by then no one but the clown and the tiger are alive in the room. Just looking ahead. Cheers 🙂

96. Neo – I don’t trivialize anti-Trump people and I don’t minimize their objections. I understand their objections very well, and, as I’ve posted here many times, I share many of them. I just disagree with the anti-Trump analysis of the situation. I don’t recall making ad hominin remarks to anyone, and if I did, I beg your forgiveness. For all anti-Trumpers out there, “Live long and prosper!”

97. Richard Saunders:

    Well, I certainly wasn’t talking about just you!

    But you are in fact trivializing the objections of anti-Trumpers by using the “angry skunk” analogy. That was my point re your statements. “Angry skunk” vs. Hillary’s “man-eating tiger” is the trivialization on your part that I’m talking about.

    They see Trump as another man-eating tiger. That makes the choice different than the more trivial and easy one you posit.

98. But you are in fact trivializing the objections of anti-Trumpers by using the “angry skunk” analogy.

    I thought that was a pretty funny allusion to Trum’s hair and personal mouth hygiene actually.

    Personally I don’t see Trum as another man eating tiger, meaning a life or death threat. Not even HRC is a life or death threat, although that depends on if you are on her hit list or not… humans tend to end up magically dead around her. Not just Qaddafi.

    If I could get a tool, like my favorite swords, a man eating tiger isn’t a death guarantee. There’s a good chance I’ll survive without permanent damage, 50/50 at least.

    There’s no reason to trust in some door or vote or election or DC evil capital bullsh. Humans should trust in their own powers to win a war, without relying on useless politicians.

    There’s no guarantee that opening any of the potential doors, will keep the tiger door locked. It could just be a trick or trap by Democrats. You think you are safe, well you aren’t. Demoncrats have been conning Americans for so long, now that they think they “hate the Left”, they think they are now immune to Leftist propaganda. They never were. They aren’t immune to Alt Right propaganda either.

99. You know what – we’ve tried the gentlemanly approach for several elections now.

    Let’s see this through to its conclusion, and make our judgments, not by polls, but by election returns.

    True, but it’s the Alt Right’s glory if they win with Trum, not yours, not the Republicans, not the conservatives, not the GOP E, and not the Tea Party’s.

    The fact that people are ready to get dirty, start pulling out knives, is an indication of their weakness, of their desperation. One can feel it in the air, as they cry out in defense of their savior.

    One way I know that Trum hasn’t been trying to damage Clinton, is that Clinton fired the October Surprise first. Trum has twitter and his goon of Alt Right propagandists, who will gladly stack on top of Clinton and wreck her with her voice tapes blaming rape victims and laughing at them. But Trum didn’t do that before the debates or even during it. Why?

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