Trump's Winning Debate Strategy Vs. Hillary Clinton

It seems to be the general consensus--at least among Democrats--that when it comes time for the Presidential debates, Hillary Clinton will wipe the floor with Donald Trump. There's evidence that Trump himself is worried about this, already hemming and hawing about the debate schedule. If you'll recall, he actually sat out of one of the Republican debates because he didn't like the results of the previous one.

There is little doubt that when it comes to knowledge of government, public policy, and the issues at stake in this election, Hillary Clinton has a better grasp. But the Democratic nominee would be wise to study Trump's past debate behavior and rhetoric--the angry orange man may not know how to "win" a debate, but he certainly knows how to derail one. And for Trump, that could be as good as winning.

Here's how Trump "beats" Clinton in a debate:


1. Attack the questions and the moderators.

Not even Trump's biggest defenders believe he has a great handle on the issues (the most common defense is, "he'll have the best advisors.") One of his best strategies to buy time to formulate answers and distract from his lack of knowledge will be to go after a group that most of his supporters uniformly hate. No, not Muslims... the Media. He will most likely be called to task for previous things he's said on Twitter, in interviews, and rallies, and his winning strategy will be to accuse the moderators of bias (remember Megyn Kelly), the questions for being unfair, and the debate process itself as being rigged. By de-legitimizing the debate, he seeks to mitigate its impact. Instead of losing the debate, his supporters will be able to say he successfully withstood a character assassination attempt. Expect that any pointed question about his temperament, behavior, or prior statements will be parried with a defense that the media is out to get him and deliberately skewing the coverage.

2. Interrupt, mug for the camera, and talk over Hillary.

Donald Trump loves attention. He thrives on it. As we heard in their respective convention speeches, there's quite a contrast between Hillary and Donald's speaking styles. You'd think a calm, well reasoned argument typically wins out over an unhinged ramble. Usually, you'd be right. But to use the Republican debates as an example, Trump uses his demented charisma not to make a powerful argument, but to steal the stage. He's consistently robbed other candidates of speaking time. Look at what he did to "poor" Jeb Bush, an experienced politician who certainly speaks more coherently on the issues--Trump silenced him, again and again, in front of a national audience, and made him appear weak. Trump set the rhythm of the debate by never allowing his opponent to make a point uninterrupted. Trump will attempt to deny Hillary the time to make a reasoned argument and bully her off the stage, For him, it's better if viewers are distracted by him muttering, "Crooked Hillary," or if the network cuts away to catch him mugging for the camera, than if the audience is able to focus on Hillary's words. The more focus he can pull toward him--even if its negative--the more he makes Hillary disappear.

3. Mock Hillary with nicknames and attack lines.

Trump doesn't want a debate. He wants a circus. Debates favor the best arguments and the strongest speakers. A circus is pure entertainment. John Kasich made some inroads--too late--among Republicans because he mostly stayed out of the ugly fray and stayed on topic during the Republican debates. Meanwhile, Little Marco and Lyin' Ted fell by the wayside because they stopped looking Presidential and started looking like damaged little boys on the playground. Trump got them to play in the mud, and they soiled themselves. Trump's goal is to get Hillary agitated and get her to break decorum. As Michelle Obama said in her convention speech, "When they go low, we go high." If Hillary forgets this, and goes low, Trump will be able to feed a narrative of name-calling and childish bickering to the news media. That will dominate the headlines the next day, instead of his debate failures and lack of substance.

4. Protest, then Parrot

Otherwise known as the Mitt Romney debate strategy. Also a strategy well-known to Melania Trump's speechwriter. And it's the best way for Trump to seem Presidential and "take the high road." The "Protest, then Parrot" strategy boils down to this. First, accuse your opponent of being out of touch, of just not getting it: America needs a change from politics as usual. Then--nearly word for word--lay out the same exact strategy your opponent supports. For added effect, one up it. For example, Hillary lays out a $275 billion dollar plan to put people to work rebuilding America's crumbling infrastructure? Accuse her of selling out the working class, redistributing wealth, and raising our taxes... and then propose spending "at least double" to put people to work rebuilding America's crumbling infrastructure. Time and again, if Hillary lays out a plan, Trump will say it will raise our taxes and sell out America, and then will recite the same plan, except he'll do it by cutting taxes and saving America. Trump won't need to bring any of his own ideas--other than The Wall--he can just steal from Hillary. Most political commentators and the audience watching at home thought Mitt Romney won the first debate in 2012, even though everything he said on stage was wildly out of character and ran counter to the policies he'd advocated for his entire campaign. It's winning by blurring the lines--sound just like your opponent, and some people won't be able to tell the difference. Even better, your opponent is caught off guard and has nothing to say.

5. Go left.

The Bernie or Bust strategy. Realistically--and the polls show this--a Bernie Sanders supporter isn't going to vote for Trump. The Donald knows this... or at least the people in his campaign do. But Trump's appeals to the Bernie set aren't designed to win votes... they're designed to lower turnout for Hillary. A left-leaning Bernie supporter who doesn't vote for Hillary is a win in Trump's book, especially in swing states, where the polls are close. If he can consistently attack Hillary's ties to Wall Street, her support for the war in Iraq, the DNC's questionable ethics, he can keep the discussion about Hillary's commitment to progressive values alive. Heck, he might even go out of his way to praise Jill Stein! If he can keep a few thousand left-leaning voters from pulling the lever for the only left-leaning candidate with a realistic shot at the Presidency, he tightens the race. And as we saw in Florida in the 2000 election, that could make a big difference.

Can Hillary withstand these strategies? Can she counter them? She's certainly heard it all and faced much worse throughout her long time in politics. If she can demonstrate her mastery of the issues and keep her emotions in check--unlike Rubio and Cruz--and command attention and respect the way Jeb Bush couldn't, she should succeed just like all the prognosticators expect. But if Trump gets under her skin and steals the microphone, the debates could be a wash, doing nothing to move the needle for her. That's a win in Trump's book, and it's something the Clinton camp should take very seriously.

All Lives Matter Is Racist. Here's Why.

What do people not get?

"Black Lives Matter" is in response to a world that hand waves away the unnecessary deaths and ever present discrimination against African Americans. A majority that too often says minority issues are "not our problem." Every day, society is acting as if black lives don't matter, or matter less. That's why when you say "all lives matter," you're either completely missing the point, or an unabashed racist.

Of course all lives matter. No one is saying they don't. You're arguing against a straw man. Let's not pretend the civil rights act suddenly made everything hunky dory. Until white Americans take responsibility for the institutions, policies and attitudes that remain biased against those with different skin, and seek to change them, we can't claim all lives matter. Not when we act as if black lives don't.

When you say "all lives matter," you're not making some bold brave stand for humanity. You're just telling black people, once again, that their perspective, their experience, their lives, are worth less.

What Matters

No one is asking for perfection.

As long as police departments continue to be staffed by human beings, and not sophisticated crime-fighting robots, tragic errors in judgement, sometimes brought on by racial biases, will continue to happen. No amount of training or culture shift can ever remove incompetency entirely. I get that.

Being a police officer can be a scary job, and when a quick reaction can be the difference between life or death, the calls get tough to make. I get that too.

And sometimes, sure, even when we see the videos, we can't quite tell what happened. The instant replay doesn't quite give us indisputable evidence either way. I get that too.

What I don't get... and what I'd imagine most decent people don't get... is how police departments and our elected so-called leaders can continue to erode the public trust by acting like all these shootings are just accidents, incompetence, or tough calls. As if it was some office worker who accidentally lost a big client, or the keynote speech just bombed, or Larry in accounting fudged the numbers.

If you kill someone, you haven't just failed at your job. You've killed someone. That's should be more than a fireable offense. Officers who pull their weapon and kill someone should face appropriate punishment. They've committed a crime. Many would charitably call it involuntary manslaughter.

Instead, there's this circle the wagons thing that happens every time. The police protect their own. The people have no faith justice will be served... because it never is. From Rodney King to Philando Castile, police officers who use excessive force go free or get a slap on the wrist. Fireable offense? Many aren't even fired!

There's an old saying the police like to repeat over and over--"Better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6." Sure, we all would. The problem is, these officers are never judged by 12. That outcome is unfathomably rare. So an officer is left with a different calculus--the only thing holding them back is bad press. Shoot first--maybe be asked some questions later.

The public isn't demanding perfection. We know that's impossible. But we demand accountability. Killing someone isn't just some workplace fuck-up. Someone is dead! Why should an officer of the law get a pass? Because their job is tough? Because they got scared? Shouldn't we examine any evidence that suggests they didn't have to be? That someone didn't have to die? Those responsible for the murders of police officers in Dallas yesterday will be rightly captured, tried, convicted, and punished. What about the police officers responsible for murdering--however inadvertently--people they were sworn to protect and serve?

By all means, even up the racial makeup of the nation's police departments, so there is less disparity between the demographics of a police force and the community it serves. Put a camera on every cop, so there's a unbiased record of truth in every interaction. Train officers in peaceful deescalation of conflict and the proper procedures for securing a suspect. Work to break ingrained stereotypes and eliminate racial profiling. All that will help.

But the biggest thing that matters? When someone is killed needlessly, justice must be served. Right now, no one trusts the police, the justice system, or our politicians to do that. Of course there is anger toward law enforcement. Because they keep on treating these cases as if each victim was just a set of tragic circumstances, an unfortunate error, instead of a living, breathing person who didn't deserve to die.

I wonder why that is?

Why You Should Worry About Trump's Tweets

Is Trump a capital-R racist? Is he the second coming of Hitler? Perhaps I'm giving him far too much benefit of the doubt, but I'd say no. Hitler wouldn't associate himself with Omarosa, for example, and he wouldn't be too happy about his daughter converting to Judaism to marry a Jew. But that doesn't mean that Trump isn't a godsend to the racists and anti-Semites out there.

Even if he doesn't intend to be, Donald Trump has become a very public mouthpiece for bigots, xenophobes, and white supremacists. This is not in debate. It's fact:

The tweet above? Originated in a vile white supremacist message board.

It's not the first time he's passed along a message crafted by neonazis.

Or the second.

He does this a lot. Passes on memes, photoshops, and tweets from some of the most hateful people from the darkest corners of the Internet. He does it uncritically, no filter. During a presidential campaign, when he knows every piece of communication from his camp will be heavily scrutinized, he copies things he sees and sends them to millions of people, without even checking the source or worrying about whose message he's passing on.

If he's not doing it deliberately, then he's being hoodwinked, again and again, by KKK-loving anti-government hatemongers. We should worry about someone who is continually deceived into spreading messages lovingly crafted in the backrooms and basements of people determined to wipe out everyone except for white American Christians.

How stupid can one be, really? [UPDATE: Pretty damn stupid. Trump put out an official statement saying the image was taken from another Twitter user. This is another image put out by the same Twitter user.] Trump's latest defense, that the star in the tweet above is a "sherriff's star" is absurd on its face. The image was produced by an anti-Semite for a white supremacist message board. Hillary's email problems have nothing to do with the $100 bills and Jewish star... That's common messaging from Hitler worshippers who believe Hillary is bought and owned by the so-called Jewish elite.

It's not "the media" (the Jewish-owned media, the image's creator would point out) that is twisting this image into something it's not. It takes a lot of squinting and a ton of mental gymnastics to interpret this graphic as a criticism of Hillary's email shenanigans and a reference to the FBI's ongoing investigation. For instance, why $100 bills and not emails or email inboxes as the background (those cute little AOL inboxed would be a particularly germane graphic to use)?  And why not use the FBI logo or the FBI shield (which is not a Star of David) if you intend to refer to the investigation taking place? Nothing about this image says emails or FBI. It's made entirely of anti-Jewish imagery.

Which is exactly the kind of imagery you'd expect once you know this was created for a white supremacist message board.

The fact that Trump has continually given a voice to this type of hate imagery and hate speech should worry anybody who isn't a card carrying racist. Trump's own staff attempted to take his Twitter privileges away because he repeatedly shares content from the internet's scariest trolls. So claiming the image above depicts a sherriff's badge and isn't in any way connected to anti-Semitic bullshit doesn't hold water--if that were the case, then why is Trump's communications team trying to reign him in?

If Trump retweets something, does he believe it? It doesn't matter. What matters is he is exposing these hateful viewpoints to millions of his followers. Every time he retweets a supremacist, he sends that supremacist thousands of new followers. Whether he means to or not, Trump has emboldened the once dormant hate group movements in this country.

If he's giving them such a voice now, can you imagine how loud they'll get if he ever comes to power?

It doesn't matter if Trump is Hitler. He hasn't done anything to counter these voices. He hasn't preached tolerance or expressed scorn for the people who would gas his Jewish grandchild if given a chance. For someone who talks so much, he's said remarkably little about the white supremacists who have gravitated to his campaign.

Plenty of politicians rose to power in 1930s and 40s Germany on the back of Hitler and the nazis. They didn't have to make speeches about the stab-in-the-
back myth or come out against the Jews. All they had to do was give the growing tenor of hate their tacit approval. All they had to do was go along for the ride.

Trump may not be Hitler. But he sure is enjoying the benefits of that kind of hate. He's riding on the backs of racists, bigots and xenophobes. He's echoing their voices and spreading their messages far and wide.

If we don't hold him accountable for that, then he'll only be accountable to them.

Voting on Principle is Screwing Yourself

Britain has voted to leave the European Union, and, well, some people have regrets. That happens when your economy goes in the tank overnight, and you're looking at the prospect of losing the last vestiges of your once vast empire...

“I think there have been a lot of reluctant Brexiters around, people who voted leave thinking it wouldn’t happen but they’d be able to vent and to tell all their friends at dinner parties they’d done it,” said one Tory minister.

“He thought what all those reluctant Brexiters thought: it would be a vote for remain, he would be seen as having stood up for a principle.” 

Welp. Those  people who voted "on principle?" Well... this is what they're saying less than 24 hours after voting to leave:

Been hearing people like this all day, and they're making me just more angry pic.twitter.com/NW9sfH3XWd

— Sunny Hundal (@sunny_hundal) June 24, 2016

(Of course, many of those people who voted to leave might not have even known what the E.U. was.)

It's not a great sign when mere hours after declaring victory, the leaders behind the Brexit movement are suddenly, well, backtracking on their promises:

WATCH: @Nigel_Farage tells @susannareid100 it was a 'mistake' for Leave to claim there'd be £350M a week for NHShttps://t.co/JNkl5k8IlK

— Good Morning Britain (@GMB) June 24, 2016

 and looking horrifically depressed:

These were the WINNERS!!!!!!

Remember kids, voting on principle instead of voting for your best interests is a good way to screw yourself!

(Just something to keep in mind in case a big vote is coming up and you want to make some principled stand instead of doing what's best for your country.)