There have been some reports in the mainstream and social media claiming that the long time politician, former Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, won the first US 2016 Presidential Debate against the billionaire and businessman, Donald Trump.
Unfortunately, proponents of this claim, even commentators and experts on the international media platforms have failed to submit reasonable and logical arguments and explanations about why exactly Clinton won that debate.
For instance, speaking on Al Jazeera Professor Jocelyn Sage Mitchel, a specialist in American politics said that Hilary won because she apologized for the email scandal. But, come on! Where on earth do you win a debate for apologizing on an issue which needs an explanation?
The reason these people can’t give tangible evidence about the win of Hilary is that her victory in the debate is only an issue of perception and attitude towards the debaters not reality; And Let me explain this by assuring you that if Trump simply apologized for his not-yet disclosed tax returns instead of explaining and defending himself as smartly as he did, that would not have in any way made him the winner in the face of those seeking apologies from debaters. Instead, they could have attacked him for admitting a wrong doing and interpret it as his consent to incompetence and unworthiness for the Office of President.
Now, ignore that and allow me the honor to join many across the world that have declared that in reality Donald J Trump won the debate. I will not submit all the reasons but here are some of the main points why and how I strongly believe that he won:
1. CLEAR AND RELEVANT MESSAGE:
Trump won the debate because unlike his opponent, he had a clear message and he debated and argued based on that message consistently throughout the debate.
His message was that the US is falling and he is a better Presidential candidate than Clinton to make the nation great and safe again because he is an indisputably successful and smart businessman with new ideas to change the political landscape of the United States unlike Hilary who is a recycled politician who has failed over and over again, and just like her fellow politicians must be blamed for the mess that the USA is going through.
This message was also very relevant because it is coming at time when the American people and government are faced with a lot of political, economic, social, security and other challenges within the States and globally, and other nations especially in the East are outgrowing, outbuilding, and outsmarting the USA.
2. BRILLIANT, FACTUAL AND LOGICAL ARGUMENTS
Yes, Trump won the debate because his arguments were brilliant, factual and logical. He argued not like the politicians he blamed, but like a real businessman and entrepreneur that he is.
For instance, on the issue of NATO, Trump argued that the USA funds more that 70% of the cost of NATO and protects rich nations like Japan, which is the third richest country in the world or Saudi Arabia, which is the tenth richest in the world per GDP per capita, and etc. Trump argued that this is illogical and not good for the USA. He further argued that if anything, member states of NATO that get protection from the USA must spend for that protection towards the USA because they can manage instead of the USA spending too much to protect them.
Trump was very right on this argument. The USA has raised this concern before against bigger member states of NATO like Germany to pay huger funds to NATO because they are rich enough to do that instead of putting the burden on the USA.
Even Saudi Arabia which Trump mentioned as a beneficially of the USA protection, spends millions of dollars sponsoring terrorist groups, and the Saudi family is one of the richest in the world basking in untold wealth of the nation. And in early 2015, in a leaked recording the Egyptian President, Al Sis while instructing his officials to beg money from the Saudi government to be deposited into the Egyptian military account in 2014 said, “they have money like rice.”
And if you think critically about it, you will notice that it is such type of realistic thinking which prompted the Brexit. The UK felt as a bigger economy they were spending more and being burden by their membership in the EU and felt they needed to exit to lighten themselves of the burden and focus more on building themselves. That’s the argument Trump was making for USA. It’s that simple and very logical and brilliant
Trump also refused that NATO is not fighting terrorism. This is a matter of elementary common sense. NATO has at least 28 mostly rich and powerful member states. If these nations were really fighting terrorism, we could not be having ISIS and other terrorist groups terrorizing the world. Not even Boko Haram in the west or Al-Shabab in the east of Africa. But NATO is really not serious about terrorism. While Hilary argued that NATO effected article 5, and went to war in Afghanistan to fight terrorism and hunt down Bin Laden following the September 11 2001 terrorist incidence, in true sense, NATO only succeeded in bombing and destroying Afghanistan and they have nothing to show for it in as far as fighting terrorism is concerned. They have toppled regimes and destabilized nations not fought terrorism. So Trump is talking about the simple truth as it is. And there are several examples we can give to support Trump on this point and dispute that NATO does fight terrorism.
Trump argued that the USA cannot police the world. This was a very brilliant argument. History will tell you that all empires fall for expanding too much beyond control. It is not possible for one man or one nation to rule the whole world. The world is too big for one nation. In its attempt to expand and rule the world, the USA has reached a point where all empires before it have always fallen.
By trying to maintain its hegemony, the USA is overspending in military bases across the world, and fighting wars and getting involved in conflicts which must not be solely its burden to bear. As a result, as Trump said, the USA is trailing behind in growth, development and other advancements. Trump talked about the USA looking like a third world country and talked about beautiful airports in Qatar, Dubai, etc. But this is a sad reality which most Americans who can’t match the thinking of Trump ignores.
As a matter of fact, early in 2014 Vice President Joe Biden had already made this remark on “third world country” about some American airports in his ‘rebuilding America’ campaign with President Obama whereby they admitted that the USA is way behind in infrastructure development wanted to convince Congress to approve some money to rebuild the USA, which Trump insisted its possible even the USA stopped wasting money on meaningless foreign military missions and similar expeditions and deals.
3. RESPONDED TO ALL ATTACKS OF HIS OPPONENT
Another major strength of Trump in the debate was that he had answers, brilliant answers to all attacks that his Opponent and sadly even the Moderator threw at him. Let me give you just some of the attacks, and see how Trump responded smartly, logically, and thoroughly enough.
Hilary said that Trump was not fit to be the Commander in Chief. Trump responded that he was already endorsed by more than 200 military experts; admirals and generals, and that many more were coming forward endorsing his fitness to be Commander In Chief. He also added that 16500 border patrol agents had also endorsed him and that he was also the only Presidential candidate in the history of the USA to be endorsed by ICE.
Hilary, in a typical stunt of a politician, attempted to buy the sympathy of the audience by showing that she grow up in a poorer family than Trump who inherited 14 million from his father in 1975, and did not pay some of his workers. But Trump responded without owing anybody apology for getting capital from his father and building a business empire wealth billions and one of the greatest business empires in the world. Trump argued that it was still out of his own judgement and ingenuity that he made a fortune out of what he took from his father because he has a winning temperament. He knows how to win and he understands money.
And on not paying a certain worker, Donald responded sincerely that he has standards of performance and delivery he expects from those he employs and could not pay for a mediocre performance and delivery. He also made it clear that where he did not pay somebody he actually paid them a lot of money, and that he followed the laws made by the politicians like Hilary.
And on the issue of Obama’s birth certificate which surprisingly even the moderator seems to have had personal special interest in, just like on Iraq invasion, tax returns and other areas where he pressed Trump too much and never pressed Hilary on anything, Trump still managed to take pride in the fact that he managed to get Obama produce the certificate, and said that he was no longer interested on the issue because there were more important issues he wanted to talk about like ISIS, immigration, jobs and etc.
And he could not allow the politician in Clinton to score a cheap political point on the issue of Obama by challenging her that she was practicing the holier than thou attitude when she praised Obama of being a very good man who agonized over attacks of Trump on his not being American. He reminded the American people that when Hilary was running campaign against Obama towards the 2008 Presidential elections, she attacked Obama disrespectfully and attacked him on the issue of his birth too. This was not Trumps attempt to justify his attack on Obama, but to show Americans that Clinton was just a politician who changes stories and pretend to be holy in order to get votes.
Trump may not really have been wrong to continue pushing against Obama’s identity. It is clear that a lot of information about Obama has never been released to the American public. Before he dropped out of the 2016 presidential race, Dr Ben Carson, had accused the mainstream media of vetting him too much unlike they did with Obama towards 2008 who until today still has classified information which they did not care to dig into.
Trump’s tax-returns was one of the very critical issues of the debate, Trump did not just apologize like Hilary did on her 3300 emails of national interest which she deleted on her private internet server.
On the contrary he responded that he was going to release the tax return and disclosed that his legal team advised him against it but he was ready go against them. Now, Trump may not really have meant it, that he was going to release tax returns because he later said that Hilary must release her deleted emails first as a way of showing that her opponent has uglier secrecy that the public ought to know than his tax issue. But the point is that, he did not see an apology as an option because he is not a politician who confesses without really feeling repentant or remorseful about their mistake like Hilary did.
4. HE REBUTTED ALL STRONG POINTS OF HIS OPPONENT
Some of the strong points that Hilary attempted to put forward, had to do with defending herself as having the stamina for presidency because of her political experience and that she has a plan to deal with ISIS and managed to have stricken foreign deals while she served as Secretary of State. But Trump trashed these points brilliantly, and with facts which can’t be denied.
For instance,
Trump admitted that Hilary has vast political experience but it is horrible and bad experience. He challenged Hilary that she failed to deal with ISIS while it was only an infact establishment, how could she succeed to deal with ISIS now when it has grown to dozens other countries outside Iraq and Syria. He also reminded Americans that it is actually Hilary and Obama who are responsible for the formation of ISIS because of their poor judgement on how they left Iraq and created a vacuum which birthed ISIS.
And on the Iran nuclear deal, Trump crashed Hilary. He called it the worst deal ever. And he was right. Many experts have argued about how the deal is dangerous and funny in the manner it was stricken. Factors that made the deal unreliable included the fact that it is not really clear why the US government paid Iran $400 million in cash in the process of the deal and the deal has an expiry period of 15 years whereby Iran will not be bound to the agreements of the deal and it is uncertain what would have come of Iran and what will happen next. In other words, the deal did not solve the problem but transferred it to another time not so far away.
Therefore, if what Donald Trump did to Hilary is not beating her in a debate, then I will never understand what beating somebody in debate truly means but Hilary did nothing to Trump in the debate which explains why her supporters fail to explain how she won.