So, early this morning I watched the second presidential debate between Clinton and Trump. I was intrigued. I managed to stay awake until 2am for the off.
I am astounded that Americans take this stuff seriously. I mean they are responsible for such political brilliance as is contained in Game of Thrones! But, in real life, they seem to have no idea.
Firstly, it’s seriously NOT a debate. It’s more an excuse for each candidate to have a go at each other and blame them for everything that’s wrong about the country.
This debate, in particular, features an audience mostly made up of people who have yet to decide how they are going to vote – swing voters – and they want to be convinced one way or the other (because the ‘greatest democracy in the world’ only appears to have two political parties). They ask their questions and the two candidates have two minutes to respond.
If I was an American swing voter I’d still have no idea who was going to do what except that Donald Trump is going to put Hillary Clinton in jail if he’s elected.
There was a lot of guff about Trump being caught with a live mike during filming of some forgettable TV programme 11 years ago which, while loathsome and a good enough reason not to elect him, took up more time than it needed to given it was in just about every newspaper in the world. It was also all over Twitter, where I found out about it.
When it came down to real questions regarding ‘making America great again’ there were no concrete answers; it was mostly waffle or Trump having a go…because Trump isn’t a politician. And I think that’s what the debate really proved. That Trump has no idea about politics.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m as annoyed about politics as much as anyone but I tend to think they know how to do it. Electing Trump to be president of the US would be the same as getting a plumber to restore the Mona Lisa.
The man is a fool. And I don’t hold with anyone who says he’s a very successful businessman since, by his own admission, he has made a loss of $900,000,000 over the last decade. He’s also redundant. His ‘locker room’ chat is disgusting and out of some 1950’s attitude that puts women at the level of a possession.
And he sniffs too much.
So, I managed to stay up watching this satire of what a political debate should be and finally went to bed for a few hours at 3:30am. If nothing else, it was a bit of a glimpse into the Great American Delusion.
What about Hillary?