I Score the Third Debate
I watched the third and most boring presidential debate last night. Here are my thoughts.
Clinton’s goal was to stay vertical for ninety minutes and sound more well-informed than Trump while framing him as an unstable monster. She accomplished all of that and won the debate, in my opinion.
But it wasn’t a big win.
Trump only needed to act semi-presidential, and he did. We don’t expect him to have the same mastery of the facts. The bar is lower for the outsider. He needed a knockout punch but there was none.
Persuasion-wise, the most emotionally powerful moments involved Clinton describing Trump as a sexist/racist monster who can’t be trusted with the nuclear codes. “Scary” was the only message she needed to drive home, and she did.
Ask Clinton voters why they prefer her over Trump and few people will mention the economy or any specific policies. Almost everyone will mention Trump’s “temperament” or alleged racism/sexism. Those were the only variables that mattered. Clinton reinforced those messages and Trump did little or nothing to counter them. The rest of the debate and all of the policy questions were largely irrelevant to persuasion.
Trump mentioned Clinton’s various scandals involving email, Wikileaks, and pay-for-play. But the public assumes all career politicians trade favors and say things in private that they wouldn’t say in public. The public also expects some dirty tricks out of campaigns. The Wikileaks attacks are toothless so far. So toothless that Clinton’s “Russia did it” defense is good enough (for a debate) even though it is ridiculous.
The biggest buzz from the debate seems to be Trump’s refusal to say in advance that he would accept the election results if they went against him. The pro-Clinton pundits are framing that as another example of Trump’s terribleness. But of course it is nothing but Trump keeping all of his options open as he does in every other situation when he can. He wants to maintain the right to complain later if the result looks rigged to him. That seems reasonable to me, and no real danger to the Republic. But the Clinton-friendly parts of the media will make it a thing this week.
If you want a reason to be worried, ask yourself why the mainstream media is so keen on framing the election as “not rigged.” The message I’m getting from them, collectively, is that they think it will be. (Because it will be.) We just don’t know how much the rigging will matter.
Why do I say it will be rigged?
Because whenever humans have motive, opportunity, a high upside gain, and low odds of detection, shenanigans happen 100% of the time. Our vote-counting systems have plenty of weak spots. Rigging (to some degree) is a near guarantee.
And keep in mind that Team Clinton has framed Trump as the next Hitler. That gives every citizen moral cover to do outrageous things to stop him. The stakes are sky-high. In this environment, it would truly be a miracle to have an unrigged election. But again, we don’t know how much rigging there will be. It might not be enough to matter.
There will almost certainly be election rigging for the same reason there has been debate rigging. If you don’t believe me about debate rigging, ask a woman who did some of that debate rigging herself. Allegedly. Unless it was Russia’s fault.
—
You might like my book because I blame Russia for rigging it.


Scott Adams's Blog
- Scott Adams's profile
- 1258 followers

I'm watching the whole election mishmash from France, mainly because of you and because you defended Trump and analyzed him through a reading grid that is neither anti-Clinton nor stupidly pro-Trump.
Trump is probably doing really well in terms of making his own brand even more exposed and famous now that he managed to drag every politician from both Republican Party and Democratic in the mud.
And we most likely know he doesn't want to be President. He just wants to show off the world he has gigantic balls and that he can shake the establishment so hard that for the next presidential election none of the guys that were smashed by him on both Republicans and Democrats side will ever dare to hope winning in the next decade.
Hilary will win the election as being the lesser evil from a political and international relationship standpoint, she will never pass second mandate.
We faced this situation in France when Chirac was elected since he was facing the extreme right wing party Le Pen, who was a history revisionist and ultra mega douchebag super populist and whatnot .
Anyways I wanted to know whether you watched South Park last's season. Parker and Stone are geniuses to me and I reckon they nailed the whole thing from a high-level perspective.
They depicted Trump has someone who stirs up the hornet's nest but would be clueless if he wins the election and that's definitely what he is doing which is great because thanks to him no election in the future will ever be the same.
Trump obviously refuses to say he would accept the election results because that is the straw that will break the camel's back and make sure to sabotage his election.
He went there not to be elected and now he makes everything possible not to win.
Trump still wants people to open their eyes on the fact that politicians are merely just talking technocrats who just talk the talk. What is your take on that?
Cheers from France.
Simon.
PS: I read your books.
PPS: pardon my french, my grammar and the structure, I don't write for an occupation.