The first Presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump unraveled on Monday night at Hofstra University in New York, as moderated by NBC’s Lester Holt. We cover it, and the fallout, on today’s BradCast. [Audio link posted below.]
Joining me to make sense of it all (though I can see it makes no sense at all), is award-winning journalist Heather Digby Parton of Salon and the Hullabaloo blog, and by David Dayen, Fiscal Times’ financial journalist and author of Chain of Title: How Three Ordinary Americans Uncovered Wall Street’s Great Foreclosure Fraud
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Digby, writing at Salon earlier today, believes Clinton “dominated” Trump who “demonstrated not only that he didn’t prepare but that he has no underlying knowledge of the subjects a President is required to know.” For his part, Dayen argues today that Clinton performed an important public service by “attacking the false premise that government is just like a business and should be run like one,” adding “And it probably wouldn’t have happened without Donald Trump facing her behind the other podium.”
Tune in for our rollicking (and, at times, hilarious) hour of post-debate coverage, clips and analysis of the first Presidential debate between Clinton and Trump, wherein the former exceeded the expectations of many and the latter met expectations by falling apart in rather extraordinary fashion on live TV in front of the largest U.S. debate audience in television history.
Trump isn’t just unpatriotic because he doesn’t pay taxes, it proves he doesn’t believe in democracy. He doesn’t believe that through the democratic process his taxes will go toward programs that will benefit society. That the decision by the majority is not what he wants so he both buys the votes and avoids paying taxes so he doesn’t feel he is contributing to things he doesn’t like. With the money that should be going to taxes that are then spent on programs decided by the majority of the society, Trump is not paying through legal or illegal means and then using that and other monies to buy favor and undermine if not change the policies and programs away from what the majority wants. That is not a process that endorses or contributes to democracy, it is a process that supports oligarchy or fascism. Trump wants a sure thing, he doesn’t want to participate in an unrigged game or a free and open market.