A collection of posts, with some participants offering more than one, collectively titled What We Saw During the Debate and subtitled “How Donald Trump vs. Hillary Clinton looked to Times Opinion writers — before, during and after.”
At the bottom is a button saying to Display All posts which if you click takes you here where you can scroll to the bottom, and then from the right, going right to left and then up a line, provides all the posts starting from before the debate.
The first actually during the debate is by Roxane Gay and is titled “Clinton and Trump Side by Side” and was posted at 9:18. This is interesting because it comes during the part of the debate where some pundits thought Trump was holding his own. Not Gay, who write
Watching these two candidates side by side is striking because only one of them deserves to be taken seriously, and yet. In the early going, Hillary Clinton has stated clear and well-defined ideas about improving American prosperity while Donald J. Trump is playing on fears. Mexico, China, “other countries,” he says.
At 9:31 John Sasso put up a brief post titled “'Just Business Nothing Personal” worth quoting completely:
Hillary Clinton’s answer to the job-creation question — and her responses throughout the crucial first 15 minutes — shows she has approached this debate with the mind-set of a challenger.
She has been aggressive, but in an appropriate way — without a trace of anger. She has taken the fight to Trump, on substance, like a pro — “just business nothing personal.” She has drawn a sharp contrast with Trump and at the same time importantly gone a good ways toward answering that fundamental question in voter’s minds “does she care about people like me.”
From a personal standpoint, I found by ten to 15 minutes in Trump was already behaving in a way that I knew was going to turn people off, and thus I am sympathetic with these two posts.
There is far too much to go through all of it.
Allow me to offer some more snips that caught my attention and then suggest when you have time you browse through to you heart’s content.
A brief one by Paul Krugman comparing Clinton’s wonkiness to Trump’s “Know Nothingness”
On the economy: Clinton, as always, full of wonky stuff. Trump: well, aside from having just one note – trade, trade, trade – he doesn’t know much. He thinks China is devaluing, when it’s actually supporting the yuan in the face of capital flight. I think he believes that Mexico’s value-added tax is a tariff, when it’s actually just a sales tax levied on domestic as well as imported goods.
Also, amazing how Reagan still held up as the ultimate job creator. More jobs created under Bill Clinton!
I was actually surprise that Clinton refrained from pointing out how many more jobs were created under her husbandthan under Reagan, more than 22 million compared to 15 million Might have been a chance to make the point that Dems have a better track record on that subject.
Peter Wehner has a number of posts, and the final paragraph of his first post, written in the context of when Clinton had hit Trump on taxes, seems in retrospect very prescient:
Her strategy looks to me to be working. Trump started out calm — but he’s become increasingly agitated, aggressive and rude. In other words, he’s reverting to who he really is. What Clinton wants to do is to expose the darker side of his personality. The darkest sides may well remain hidden, but we’re seeing some elements of it become more visible. As the evening unfolds, the unmasking of Mr. Trump may well continue. If it does, it’ll hurt him and help her.
There are some posts I struggle to understand what the writer was watching, for example, Viet Thanh Nguyen writing that he thought Trump’s comments about minority communities living in hell might appeal to some conservative minorities, following that with
As long as Trump doesn’t alienate people of color, he doesn’t lose ground. So far he’s demonstrating he’s a traditional Republican, and that helps him with hesitant Republicans.
I’m sorry, but I don’t see how that statement was supportable at that point, and by the end of the debate it clearly was not so.
Roger Cohen decided that Clinton was unruffled, writing:
On every issue, from jobs to trade, she is clearly more knowledgeable with real and specific plans. He is vague, jabbing with occasional effect, as when he attacks her flip-flopping on trade deals. She is unruffled. “I prepared to be president and that’s a good thing,” Clinton says. Yes, it is.
By the end of the debate Roxane Gay offered this further thought
In this election cycle, competence, intelligence, and common sense don’t seem to hold the currency they should.
I realize that is a concern of many here, who seem to think that by now Clinton should be well ahead.
Mark Schmitt concluded a piece titled “Clinton’s Effective Wonk Strategy” with this line:
For once, the wonk strategy seems to be working
Gail Collins reacted with a somewhat longer post titled “Night of the Terrible Trump,” which begins
Trump lost. Really, I think we can work under the assumption that when a candidate is accused of cheering for the housing crisis, it’s not a good plan to reply: “That’s called business, by the way.”
and which concludes
The night was totally about Trump. Clinton is not a very interesting speaker, and her failure to say anything stupid made her side of the debate all the more unexciting. People tuned in to see Trump and he didn’t disappoint. Not every politician would respond to a comment about how he got his start in business with $14 million in family money with: “My father gave me a very small loan.”
Remember when we made fun of Mitt Romney for his privileged background? Hahahahaha.
Now I would disagree about Clinton as a speaker. To say she is not dynamic might be fair, but even in the measured way she speaks, she can be quite interesting.
There is a lot more.
Take your time.
Browse to your heart’s content.
Some final thoughts from yours truly.
Sometimes after debates the initial reaction by voters gets somewhat changed as a result of the commentary from pundits and how things are covered — in the past by news broadcasts, nowadays I suppose as well by what appears on social media.
Despite the strong efforts by Fox News and the Trump folks on spin, the vast majority of what people will encounter is going to be negative on Trump and positive for Clinton. Her folks were better prepared to react immediately, such as getting MS Machado out on video and live.
Strong Trump supporters won’t be dissuaded by this debate. Clinton supporters will in general be encouraged.
And those on the fence? I think we will continue to see what was indicated by the Morning Consult release of movement to Clinton. What we don’t know is how much and how lasting.
