Luke Ford

Peter Grant: “What did strike me was the contrast between the candidates’ approaches to the rest of the world. Donald Trump was emphatic about protecting American jobs and our national economy, if necessary by renegotiating international trade agreements, restricting immigration, etc. Hillary Clinton was much more globalist in orientation, looking to admit more refugees, work together with other nations (whatever that means), and so on. She basically saw the United States as just one nation among many, whereas Donald Trump saw it as the ‘first among equals’ with the right to put its own interests first.”

Charles Krauthammer: “It was not exactly the knock out fight that we thought. It was a spirited fight. I think in the end it was something like a draw. But I do believe that the draw goes to the challenger in the sense that Trump did not go over the line. And the very fact he could go 90 minutes on the same stage ultimately elevates the challenger, that’s just automatic for any debate of that support.

I think he did allow himself to get very defensive and she exploited that. She kept coming back for things where he wasted a lot of time on taxes, on some of the other issues he felt personally about, and, as a result, he missed a lot of opportunities. She presented herself as she always does. Solid, solid, knows her stuff, not terribly exciting but reliable. I think that is the best she can do. Likable, she couldn’t but that is not something within her reach.

He contained himself in the sense that I don’t think he committed any gaffes but he allowed himself — she could find out something personal about him that would make him down rabbit holes at a time when he had wide openings to go after her on e-mails and other items, and let them go.”

Comments at Steve Sailer:

* I swear, my son spent more time prepping this past week for his job interview at Ford this morning (entry level engineering job) than Donald Trump seems to have bothered to spend to become the leader of the free world and perhaps save Western Civilization.

* What did he lose? Did he lose the debate on points? Perhaps. Did he lose because he disqualified himself by fulfilling the MSM narrative that he is temperamentally unfit for office? No, he most certainly did not.

Trump’s main objective was to show the nation that he belongs on this stage and is not the buffoon they say he is. He did that. Do I wish he would have had more debating skills and wiped the floor with Hillary? Heck yes. But he did endure 90 minutes of attacks by Hillary and a moderator that was clearly on her side. And he came through without disqualifying himself with any showstopping gaffes.

All I can say now is let’s see how this plays out with the voters. Hillary supporters think it’s over. Trumpers like me think he pulled through. It’s now up to the 15 to 20 percent of the voters who don’t care too much one way or the other.

* The basics for a change election are obviously in place. Voters overwhelmingly see the country on the wrong track. We’ve had two terms of the Democratic Party in the WH, and the current Democratic candidate is the quintessential status quo candidate. Her opponent is the quintessential change candidate.

Hillary can win only if Trump can be made to look like a wild, risky, out-of-control man. Whether Trump “won” the debate is mostly irrelevant if he managed to come across as a rational character. And in this debate I think he did. FWIW, I watched the debate with two people who, beforehand, regarded Trump as simply a “clown”, but who declared afterwards that he came across as a lot more reasonable than they had expected.

I think that if Trump manages a similar performance in the final two debates, and generally sticks to the knitting, it’s going to be very difficult for Hillary to win.

* Trump could use what Jane Austen called “command of countenance.” Too much smirking, pursuing of lips, head shaking, eye rolling.

Overall, though, I think Trump did fine. Not as well as I might have dreamed, but that would have required someone who is not Trump. He rambled incoherently a few times and failed to make a few strong points when the opportunity arose, but he didn’t shoot himself in the foot.

Thinking about it a few hours later, the point that remains with me is, “Hillary may talk a good game, but she’s not going to deliver. People like her have been running Washington for 30 years, making lot of promises, and nothing ever changes.”

That’s what it really boils down to, not the birther issue or tax forms.

Scott Adams writes:

Clinton looked (to my eyes) as if she was drugged, tired, sick, or generally unhealthy, even though she was mentally alert and spoke well. But her eyes were telling a different story. She had the look of someone whose doctors had engineered 90 minutes of alertness for her just for the event. If she continues with a light campaign schedule, you should assume my observation is valid, and she wasn’t at 100%.

Some will say Clinton outperformed expectations because she didn’t cough, collapse, or die right on stage. That would be true if she also looked healthy in general, and her campaign schedule from here on out is full. We’ll know more this week, based on her schedule.

Clinton’s smile seemed forced, artificial, and frankly creepy. I’m already hearing on Twitter that mentioning a woman’s smile is sexist. I understand the point. But when someone goes full Joker-face and tests the uncanny valley hypothesis at the same time, that’s a bit different from telling a woman to “smile more.” My neighbor Kristina hypothesized that Botox was making her smile look unnatural. Science tells us that when a person’s mouth smiles, but their eyes don’t match the smile, they look disingenuous if not creepy. Botox on your crow’s feet lines around your eyes can give that effect. But whatever the reason, something looked off to me.

To be fair, Trump’s physical appearance won’t win him any votes either. But his makeup looked better than I have seen it (no orange), his haircut was as good as it gets for him, and he was otherwise his normal self that some voters hate and some like.

But the most interesting question has to do with what problem both of them were trying to solve with the debate. Clinton tried to look healthy, and as I mentioned, I don’t think she completely succeeded. But Trump needed to solve exactly one problem: Look less scary. Trump needed to counter Clinton’s successful branding of him as having a bad temperament to the point of being dangerous to the country. Trump accomplished exactly that…by…losing the debate.

Trump was defensive, and debated poorly at points, but he did not look crazy. And pundits noticed that he intentionally avoided using his strongest attacks regarding Bill Clinton’s scandals. In other words, he showed control. He stayed in the presidential zone under pressure. And in so doing, he solved for his only remaining problem. He looked safer.

By tomorrow, no one will remember what either of them said during the debate. But we will remember how they made us feel.

Clinton won the debate last night. And while she was doing it, Trump won the election. He had one thing to accomplish – being less scary – and he did it.

Tom: “Dear Red America. Having lived in many of your regions — geographical, psychological and economic — I used to have a lot of respect for your wisdom and fortitude. I thought I understood you, and that you often endured a lot of unfair and even prejudicial scorn. That you cannot now see through this huge tub of flaming horseshit and are willing to play dangerous games with the country’s existence is a mystery to me.”

Luke: “Come on, Tom, you can do better than this. Do you think one person who disagrees with you will be persuaded by that? Or are you only virtue signaling? People not only see the world differently, but more importantly, they experience it differently because of differing biology. How much do you believe in free will? I don’t think most people can choose their politics. It springs from their genes. I think Jonathan Haidt’s perspectives of understanding where the different sides come from is more fruitful. Why do people react differently to the same stimuli, such as Trump? It’s more important to understand than to get angry.”

Tom: “This is an expression of how disappointed I am in my countrymen, that they would let this dismal spectacle get this far.”

Luke: “Well, why have they done this? How do you understand that?”

Tom: “I confess it’s a mystery to me, because I don’t think it’s rooted in anything having to do with actual policies, as Trump has nothing coherent to say. I suspect darker motives: latent bigotry, sexism and freewheeling frustration without a clear target. It’s not a good look.”

Luke: “Come on, Tom. You can do better. Use your ability to empathize. People have different politics because they experience life differently. Outside of religious faith, there are no good guys or bad guys in the universe. There are just different forms of life competing for survival and to propagate and they use different evolutionary strategies. Here is a good liberal academic [Jonathan Haidt] who always votes Democratic expending some effort to empathize with those who view the world differently from him.”

David: “You can be an atheist utilitarian and still find room for Good and evil. Go reread Cicero.”

Luke: “Yes, but it is subjective, unless you ascribe it to a transcendent source, which requires faith, and there is no point arguing over faith.”

Tom: “That’s charitable of you, Luke, and I agree that facts are processed differently by everyone, but these kinds of awful and self-defeating political decisions need to be called out.”

Luke: “How much time have you spent in real life listening to people voting for Trump without arguing back against them, but only trying to understand? I find there is nothing human that is alien to me. With some effort, I can see where anyone is coming from and why they act and think the way they do and I can describe what they see and feel without using any negative words.”

Tom: “Luke, tons. I listened to reams of it without saying a peep while working as a reporter in Wyoming, Georgia, Utah and Arizona. I have never seen the vox populi go so wrong or ugly as this year.”

Greg: “Facts are processed by rational people. The irrational, the ones who make up the nationalist base, do not process facts but feelings. The problem begins when they demand that those feelings be given parity with facts in any kind of argument. Vox populi, indeed..”

Luke: “Nobody processes facts without regard to their genetic make-up. We all have instinctual pre-rational reactions that determine our politics. We then rationalize our instincts. Nobody just looks at the facts from a blank slate and idealistically pursues the true and the good.”

“Forgive me, Tom, if you have written this up already, but can you describe the reasons people are voting for Trump using only objective language? No slurs such as racist, bigoted, etc.”

Tom: “Luke, I can’t. I feel like I am living in a parallel reality, because Trump is such an obvious liar and sociopath that I just can’t see why a rational person would want to give him the most precious office this planet can offer.”

Luke: “Of course you can, you just don’t want to expend the effort of empathy. There is no POV on politics that I can’t articulate in objective language.”

Tom: “I have tried many times over the last 12 months and it still doesn’t make sense in the final analysis. Since you seem to have the advantage on me here, can you do it in a few sentences?”

Luke: “People with a strong disgust reflex (it is stronger on the right than on the left) have a stronger reaction against diversity.”

Tom: “So it comes down to the GI tract? Not sure about that.”

Luke: Wikipedia notes: “There is evidence that conservatives are more sensitive to disgust [7] and the insula is involved in the feeling of disgust [8] On the other hand, more ‘liberal’ students tended to have a larger volume of grey matter in the anterior cingulate cortex,[5] a structure of the brain associated with monitoring uncertainty and handling conflicting information.[5][6] It is consistent with previous research suggesting that individuals with a larger ACC have a higher capacity to tolerate uncertainty and conflicts, allowing them to accept more liberal views [9] The authors concluded that, “Although our data do not determine whether these regions play a causal role in the formation of political attitudes, they converge with previous work to suggest a possible link between brain structure and psychological mechanisms that mediate political attitudes.”

Tom: “I’ve read some biological determinalism studies on this — and keep meaning to look at the work of John Alford at Rice U. but it still doesn’t explain the gullibility. Otherwise tough-minded businesspersons in the heartland are willing to take the nation to Trump University because they have a gag reflex? WHY?”

Doug: “Luke Ford, how’s your empathy level with folks like ISIS followers who adhere to an ideology that justifies cold blooded murder in the name of their religion? Surely they have many justifications for their existential conclusions. Do you give them the same benefit of the doubt, “describing what they see and feel without using any negative words?” It seems to me that there is sometimes a manifestation of evil within the human experience that transcends our desire for tolerance and attempts at mutual understanding.”

Luke: “Evil is a statement of religious faith, which is fine. Otherwise, ISIS are just following their group interest.”

“Tom, what percentage of people do you think have free will in their political choices? I’d say almost none. We all have instinctive reactions that the more intelligent try to rationalize. Do you think half the population has free will with their political choices? Tom, do you think you have free will with your political choices?”

Tom: “I sort of see Luke’s point about group interest, though. Last night watching the debate, this quote from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein came to mind. “No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.””

Luke: “Exactly. ISIS has many reasons to believe it is doing the will of Allah. If Hitler had allowed his generals to go for Moscow in August of 1941, Germany would have won WWII and Nazism would be the dominant ideology of the West.”

“When I look back on my life, I don’t I could have ever chosen otherwise based on who I was at the time. Given who you were at the time and your level of understanding? Could you really have chosen differently?”

AR: “This is circular logic, Luke. We all could have made different choices in the past. The fact that we didn’t doesn’t obviate free will. And we’re living in the present, not the past.”

Luke: “We may think we’re living in the present, but the past is never past. I suspect that most of us most of the time have less freedom than we imagine and that we are more in the grip of our genes, our history, our social setting than we would like to admit. Freedom of choice is a faith statement, like good and evil.”