Your Daily Trump––Post Debate Edition

William Saletan at SLATE explains Trump in a few short sentences:

"Donald Trump delivered a clear, consistent message: It’s good to be selfish. It’s good to cheat. It’s good to steal.Trump has campaigned on his business savvy all along. He says he’ll do for America what he’s done for his companies: make a killing."

Of course there’s some debate about how good a businessman Trump has been. Kurt Eichenwald at Newsweek gives us a thoroughly damning history of Trump the businessman.

He’s been sued 3500 times. He’s avoided paying many of the people who have done work for him. Success? And he’s bankrupted ventures several times to avoid paying the debts caused by his failures. Is that business? It’s Trump’s kind of business. And it’s how he promises to run the country. Worrying.

And then there’s Charlie Pierce at Esquire:

"This was true 21st century Know-Nothingism. He plainly had not done even the most rudimentary preparation for the most important political night of his life. He spent the whole night drunk on the applause he's had from his frothing, adoring public over the past 18 months. His entire appearance was an insult to his supporters, to the audience, to everyone watching at home, and to the entire concept of democratic governance going back to Pericles. He is running for president as a guy who doesn't care enough to do the real work.
"And, whatever you may think about HRC, she gave you all the respect of actually preparing for the debate. The examples are numerous and almost beyond belief…"


Joan Walsh at The Nation sums up how a fully prepared Hillary outdid an unprepared and poorly focused Trump in what had been set up as an asymmetrical contest, one set up to favor Trump.

The LATimes describes how Trump has re-rigged the political game to make lying and cheating commonplace. And the news media has let him do this.

Even the rightwing white supremacist websites said Hillary beat Trump badly. From DeadSpin.

One of those angry white Americans was interviewed on NPR recently. He’s tired of being governed by a black man and is promising if we try to let a woman govern America he and all of his heavily armed patriots will rise up and overthrow the government. Because this is what patriotism means in 21st century America.