Saturday, October 22, 2016

Final debate part 4, scandals

Part 4 of the final debate held 10/19 at the University of Nevada. This segment addresses campaign scandals...




3rd party responses:












Commentary:

  I honestly don't have much to say here that hasn't been said over and over. I think focusing on these scandals, while they shouldn't be dismissed entirely, diminishes from discussions on policy. The fact that nearly 20 minutes of a debate between future leaders of our country was spent arguing and "I know you are but what am I" antics is a sad statement in and of itself. I will fact check a few of the statements made, but I'm not going to spend much time here.

Treatment of General Cartwright

Also, Hillary talks about Trump deflecting and denying controversies, which is quite true, but she doesn't have much ground to stand on, as she does the very same thing (for reference, see earlier where she deflects wikileaks by talking about Russia, or in this segment where she deflects allegations that her campaign paid for people to disrupt Trump rallies by...talking about violence at Trump rallies...)

I'm not really going to dive into the spats about their respective charities, except to say that there is evidence that both candidates have misused charity funds. There is certainly cause for concern here, but it should not be a major focus when it takes time away from discussion on the economy, foreign policy, taxes, and so on. Both candidates are terrible, and both are very happy to fight over scandals because it allows them to avoid any actual discussion of the issues.

As to the system being rigged and not accepting the results of the election, Trump is right, the system is rigged, but not necessarily at the polls. It is rigged to favor the two parties, and to present and favor a system which gives us these very two candidates.

If you want to actually talk about a rigged system, I encourage you to take an hour to watch Rigged 2016, and to consider the fact that over 70% of the population wanted to see third party voices in the debates, and yet here we are, talking about a debate between two of the most unpopular choices we have seen.


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