OK, lets fast forward and assume the nominees are Clinton and Trump.
How will the debates go?
I will assume that it’s a given that Trump will pivot to the center, and try to position himself as the “anti-establishment” candidate.
But how will he deal with what he’s said in the past? I think he will simply deny saying what he said. He’ll just bluster forward and lie blatantly, more than any candidate in history.
How will/should Hillary deal with someone who is willing to simply lie and make shit up as he goes along? It’s not like a normal debate with someone who has any shame, or realizes that he can’t just blatantly lie; Trump does this with startling regularity, and his fans seem to love it. His statements are mostly lies, and then he actually denies saying stuff, when he has actually been recorded saying it.
So how does she prepare? Trump can say virtually anything. He could conceivably say that she cannot be president because she lacks a penis. How on earth does one respond to that? How does one prepare to debate someone who could blurt out ANYthing at all at any time?
She has forty years of experience dealing with a guy who matches that description.
The first debates will be starting in September. Hillary Clinton will mostly win that debate, it’s about economics. The town hall debate format will be the big one in my opinion. That’s in front of undecided voters.
OK, LOL’s to you.
But politicians are politicians. They ALL make shit up. But usually they couch it in ambiguous terms. They use dog-whistles. They allude to things.
Trump is different. He says complete, unadulterated Bullshit. And he’s proud of it. And his fans love his lies. They don’t mind that he lies.
When Trump said that thousands of people were cheering 9/11 in New Jersey, he was lying. He knew he was lying, everyone knew he was lying, but HE DID NOT CARE. Most people don’t want to be caught lying. They get embarrassed. But not Trump.
How does anyone deal with that?
I’ve seen it noted that Trump had the audience on his side when he belittled Jeb, and when he’s gone after Rubio, and so on, and so on – and that it didn’t work out all that great for him against Carly Fiorina, and it also didn’t work out all that great for him when he squared off against Megyn Kelly.
So as good as he’s been at putting lies out there and cutting off responses with dismissive interruptions, he might well be minus the dismissive interruptions.
Fingers crossed.