First US Presidential debate:A Review

 If one was seeking a winner of Tuesday’s Presidential debate all one witnessed was political suicide of decorum, dignity and respect for a democratic tradition that was designed to give substance to process of electoral choice. Instead of a statesmanlike debate one saw two men in their seventies bicker, abuse and insult each other in manner that even ten year olds would not do in the school yard. Each side will claim victory when in reality both should shamefully reflect upon how low the stature of candidates for the highest political office has sunk to. 

That aside the performance of each candidate needs to be reviewed. 

It was clear that President Trump came out really hot with the intent to not only control the rostrum and tempo of the debate but to provoke Joe Biden into losing his temper and balance. The moderator, Chris Wallace, at times struggled to control the floor, largely on account of Trumps interruptions, and could have been better served if the format would have been more like a college debate; each side two minutes per issue and then two minutes each for a rebuttal with microphones turned off when  it was not a candidates time to speak.

The review of this nasty and disgraceful debate would nevertheless be essential as some interesting statements and messages came across:

Trump:

High points : attacking Biden of his lack of bringing the change he promises now when through his 47 years in politics and 8 years as Vice President failing to implement the change. 

Missed arguments: Biden seemed hesitant to discuss his economic plan and Trump should have pushed him on that. 

Low points: attacking Biden’s family, failure to condemn white supremacists, (instead telling them to stand by) and failure to state that he would accept the election result.

Biden:

High points: not to get lose his temper over the family attack, not to retaliate against Trumps family, bringing some humanism about his sons addiction, clearly stating he would accept the election result.

Missed arguments: pressed harder on Trumps handling of the pandemic, pressed on Trumps refusal to confront Russia.

Low points: telling Trump to ‘shut up’.

Interestingly the whole debate was fact checked with Trump having a 80% false rating and Biden 20% false. Sadly this election is not going to be about facts it’s about emotions. 

The chilling messages one reads into this debate are worrying for then tradition of US democracy. It is clear that this election may well be decided in courts especially if it’s a close election. If there is an overwhelming Biden victory this may well be avoided but who knows what unfolds in the next 35 days. In some respects we must be braced for politically motivated street violence especially if Trump loses the election and hence the ‘stand down and stand by’ remark has a significance one should not brush aside.

For an independent observer, especially from abroad, the debate was a sad reflection on where the US political tradition has come to, and one cannot get to terms with the consequences of what we are seeing unfold. While it’s an exhaustive subject on its own it would seem America might well be irrevocably divided and in a decade or so a unifying charismatic leader might emerge. 

Letter to President Trump: Some Common Sense advice.

Dear Mr. President,

First of all congratulations for making it to the Oval office, a year ago it seemed as remote as Donald Duck making it there, but you out foxed the GOP candidates and then contrary to what was expected worked on the fears of the people to get where you have. Well done. I doubt you read my blog, and if you do you may think I support the other camp! Well on the contrary I support humanism and empathy and care for the people, not rhetorical words, but actions, and in all earnest some of what you have uttered has been against the grain of my values. So yes in that sense I do not support you, but it does not mean I am a Hillary supporter. (its not a zero sum game, look it up).

Given the reality you are the most important man on the planet it might not be my place to give you advice, but then who knows in the sandpile of wisdom, or the lack of it, one never knows where the surfing of the net might lead the President of the United States.

So here is some honest advice, not because I admire you, but because I am scared you will mess up and cause some catastrophe from which human kind may not recover too easily. (Study history, read up Donald there were a few men in history who single handedly caused more damage than 100 divisions of crack troops could not.)

So this list might be something you want to put on your mirror and glance it each morning as you put that clump of strange colored hair into place.

1. Stop Tweeting: President's tweet once in a while, to inform and encourage, not to denigrate and ridicule.
2. The White House is not designed to promote business interests; let Ivanka's fashion line problems stay outside the Oval office, they are not your concern especially to stop during an intelligence briefing to tweet your anger at Nordstrum.
3. Stop Feeding the American population doses of fear. Terrorists kill more people in one week in the Middle East, Pakistan, Afghanistan and elsewhere then the entire number of people killed by them in the US.
4. Putin is NOT your friend, have the courage to condemn what he is doing in Ukraine before you launch an attack on other countries. He loves you because you are making America weak on the international stage. Here is what Putin thinks "Donald make American great again, and leave the rest of the world to me."
5. Mexico and Canada are your neighbors and for most of modern times have been good friends, dumping crap on them will not serve your cause, and a country with weak neighbors eventually becomes weak itself.
6. Take a language course, in English. There are more expressions in the english language than 'very very' 'bigly' etc etc.
7. Read the Constitution very carefully, your attack on the judges and your attacks on the press forget that there is a thing called the separation of powers.
8. Bring some empathy into your heart, this is not like some reality show and the country is not your personal company where you can do what you like, say what you like. Humility might help.
9. The elections are over so making false statements again and again don't make them true.
10. Most important learn to lead, not just have people sitting around agreeing to you, listen to the other view, there is merit in that, especially as the majority did not vote for you and you are now their President too.

Mr President, we look to you for leadership, not for entertainment, we want you to be a statesman not a character the comedy shows will lampoon week after week. This is a serious job, all the most because next to you is a suitcase with some nuclear codes and you can destroy in one afternoon all that God has created on Earth. So be careful with this power, you owe that to the next generation.


God Bless Humanity.

Trump's Slash and Burn Strategy.

Faced with a mounting wave of allegations from women about sexually inappropriate behaviour Donald Trump has gone to the trenches to do the one thing he knows best to do; hit back! A characteristic of Trump through this campaign has been to fight criticism with fire and never actually answer the critics. He went after Megan Kelly, perhaps his first tirade which should have made us balk and think what is this man up to? When the father of fallen US soldier confronted Trump the result was an almost all night Twitter tirade against the fallen hero's father. More recently and after a better performance at the second US Presidential debate, Trump thought the most important thing for him to do was to defame a former Miss Universe on Twitter at 3 AM!

In the past four days the Trump campaign has announced the 'shackles are removed' and the result is that the tone and the tenor of the Trump camp and more his words have spiralled into a school boy tantrum. However, school boy tantrums usually start and end in the back yard or the school parking lot. Here we are talking of the GOP Presidential nominee who has blamed the Press, the System, the women who accused him as being 'horrible horrible liars'; almost as if his saying it makes it true. In a final coup degrace he has even gone after those within the GOP political set up who would have dared to have found his lewd remarks on tape as offensive.

This is the profile of a sore loser, but not a sore loser in the making, a sore loser in character and temperament which is ingrained into his personality. His vision of 'make America Great Again', while emotionally appealing lacks his own understanding that the die hard supporters who will ignore his sexual predatory personality or his offensive attacks on the under privileged, are not the only ones who will cast their vote on November 8th.   The electorate Mr Trump is much larger and much more silent than you can fathom at the moment and each of your tirades is alienating them from your cause.

Trump has already started talking of a rigged election and short of saying he will not accept any result other than him being the winner, he has worked up his fanatic (and perhaps gun toting) supporters to believe that his loss will not because he messed up but because the system was rigged against him. Side by side he has gone after the media and accused them of being a part of the fix against him. The result has been for the first time in a US election media attending Trump events have had to have police protection. Many weeks ago when Trump said at a rally, on hearing a heckler "Get him out of here I tell you I would punch him in the face", most of us thought he was being light hearted in and in a strange twisted way funny. Now the reality of his twisted mind seems to be coming to roost as it is clear that Trump has decided that if he is to go down he will make sure a great many other elements of the US political system and some good things about it will also go down with him.

Trumps new slash and burn strategy is aimed and taking down the independence of the media, calling esteemed newspapers as crooked, even when some of them have told him if he wishes he can sue them for their revelations about his predatory exploits. Trump is also taking down tolerance, family values (which the GOP always said was a cherished ideal of their party), openness to debate the issues and most of all he is working more like a dictator of a banana republic telling Hilary that she will go to jail, (not be tried by a court of law). One of the biggest casualty of the Trump anger machine is the Republican Party and many of its stalwarts must wonder what the party will look like in the months and years ahead.

Trumps myopia is such that he believes he is ahead in the polls, he believes everyone is lying, he believes that media is out to destroy him, he believes that only he has the solution and is somehow genetically more intelligent than anyone else and knows how to defeat the ISIS, fix America, and fix the world. All fine Mr Trump, but step back, think if you can through your Twitter temper, and see that all you had to do is stick to a script, stick to the issues, lay out your plans in more than just ideas, engage with the people you would not normally sit with, and just show us that to be President you need a sense of embracing differences more than just slashing and burning all those who oppose you.

US Election: The Final Stretch.

The US election on the face of it is looking closer than most would have thought it to be a month or so back. Based on the electoral college and the key states race it would seem Hilary Clinton does lead the race. However there are a few unique challenges to both sides and the next 50 days is really the make or break. Each candidate has from now on to look more presidential and most of all keep the eye on the ball. It might be worthwhile seeing the issues forward.

For Hilary Clinton:

Plus side: She has kept to her message and her support seems to have galvanised with Obama throwing in more of his weight into the campaign ensure that the Obama factor amongst his die hard supporters comes to the ballot box. In addition Bernie Sanders, in his forceful manner has been imploring his supporter 'to ensure that Trump is not elected' by turning in their support for Mrs Clinton. In addition she has kept the focus of her agenda on educational reform, including reforming college student debt, pushing a fairer tax system, reforming Wall Street, getting immigration reform and controlling gun violence by reforming the gun laws (not eliminating the second amendment). She also continues to play her strong card of a better understanding of world politics compared to her rival and sees a stronger role for the US in world affairs including dealing with ISIS and other terror threats.

Negative side: The email controversy does not seem to go away and while in the scheme of things it is not a major negative it remains to the unfamiliar voter a red herring that she needs to tackle head on. While it cost her the election, perhaps not but she needs to have her camp handle it better.
Her recent short illness while has raised the issue of her health her handling of it so far has been good, but she needs to be careful it does not emerge as a major election issue again. Over all the perception that she is closely tied into with big business seems to have emerged again with questions about the Clinton Foundation. Her camp is not handling this issue with the forcefulness that it deserves and it might continue to stick to her as a smoking gun.

What Hilary Camp needs to do?

Spell out their tax and economic plan in more detail and put forward the numbers to show how they plan to make it work. She needs to close out the email controversy and while she has accepted some responsibility for it, there needs to be a better closure of this matter.  The issue is perceptional given that between Congress and other commissions there has been hours and hours of discussion and hearings on this her camp needs to issue a 'common man' white paper so the average american in the street understands the issues. She needs to push more on the issues of Trump revealing his taxes, clearly that is the achilles heel of her opponent and she is not attacking it enough. She needs to make sure that the Bernie Sanders support base also comes to the forefront as that would eat into some of the rivals support base of white workers who feel that Clinton has ignored them in the past. She also needs to formally step down from any role with the Clinton Foundation now, even though it might have academic value it will do her more good than harm.


For Donald Trump:

Plus side; He seems to have realised his off the cuff style has caused more havoc than good and has stuck to the script more effectively than before. His recent move to spell out his economic plan, and his child care reform bring an element to his campaign, which thus far was high on rhetoric and low on details. His recent trip of Mexico to meet the Mexican President while seemingly a good public relations exercise showing him in a more presidential role, actually showed mixed results apart for an embarrassing disagreement with his hosts. The steps he has taken to spell out his policies is welcome sign and he will need to spell out his policies more in detail. The benefits of his economic plan clearly are his trump card (don't mind the pun), however he has to clearly spell out how will be pay for these benefits. As one would say he has to make the numbers add up. His biggest change that has helped him has been his less mercurial attacks on his opponents and in recent interviews answer questions more than retort to a question with a question.

Negative Side: The biggest problem for the Trump camp has been his propensity to shoot from the hip with statements which either reverse his position or make claims that are contrary to facts. His biggest liability is the earlier remarks he made about minorities and he recent attempts, for example, with the black voters seemed insincere and contrived. While he appeals to the uneducated voter (the not so astute) the larger silent vote bank sees his claims that his opponent 'wants to take your guns away' is simply not true. His weakness on foreign policy issues is glaring with praise for Putin and not even knowing that Crimea was annexed by Russia are the pitfalls of lack of knowledge that cannot be quick fixed so late in the game.

What the Trump Camp needs to do?

Fix the perception that there is a racist bias to their campaign, (reinforced with some questionable appointments to his campaign staff). Spell out the economic plan and how he plans to reduce taxes and still have money to pay the debt and pay for the benefits he has promised. Perhaps appoint a respected foreign policy expert to lead the comments on foreign policy issues or hand over that part of the agenda to his running mate, Pence. Come clean on his misstatements (Iraq war, Muslims etc), like he has on the birther issue and be man enough to simply say "I was wrong" and move on. Most importantly he needs to put aside his silly argument about why he is not releasing his tax returns and should bite the bullet and do it as it is what is expected by all.


On balance the Presidential debates will be interesting and for Trump to keep his cool will be important. Apart from the prepared statements how he handles the questions will be crucial to the outcome of the race. Hilary Clinton on her part will clearly be prone to touch his soft spots and his thin skin might just get him to make one of his infamous gaffs. As for the vote bank it would seem that Trump has alienated the black and hispanic vote to the degree that wining them back is a gigantic task. His recent proposal to ban Western Union transfers to Mexico by illegal Mexican workers with the aim to negotiate with the Mexican government to lift the ban if they pay for the wall- its on the Trump website. Credit to the Trump camp they have tightened the race, the question is whether it is enough to make a difference. For the Democrats the big challenge will be to make sure that their vote bank turns out on the crucial day. Many of the Trump die hard supporters may have an edge in that regard and voter turn out in some key states could well be a crucial aspect of the final outcome.