By Jerry Mooney
After watching Monday night’s presidential debate I had an obvious reaction. It was one that was shared by my people talking and writing about the event. I, like many, was amazed at how brazen, unrefined and shallow Trump was. Although this is not a departure from his character, I held a thought briefly that he would prepare and his handlers would refine his approach so that his true character would be camouflaged, even if only for 90 minutes. Nope.
Trump held it together for about ten minutes before his unraveling. The problem with this is that it became the only story. Sub-stories, or excuses, being that his microphone didn’t work or that he was on Adderall or that Hillary Clinton had an earpiece (how this would impact Trump I still don’t know). All of this greased the narrative that Hillary didn’t have good answers to the questions. It was all Trumps gaffs and Hillary’s shimmy. This isn’t true, however.
When Hillary was asked about growing the economy, she began to elaborate on how sustainable development creates jobs through a circular economy. This is a very important point as we bring our economy into the modern era. The days of building unwanted battleships must end, and the jobs could easily be transferred into the creation of renewable energy. It’s not hard to understand either. Instead of spending public funds on old economy things, like ships that the Generals don’t want or other war machines, take the same affected areas and hire the employees to build things like solar panels and windmills. These endeavours would be better use of public funds and address mounting environmental needs.
Yes, Trump tried to get in a dig with his Solyndra comment, but Solyndra’s failure wasn’t an indictment of alternative energy in general. In fact it was because the US didn’t make a major commitment, while the Chinese did, that cause Solyndra to be uncompetitive. Additionally, there are legitimate tax benefits that can be used for alternative energy that Donald Trump might want to be aware of.
The fact that he bragged about not paying taxes and then criticized the attempt to use public efforts to bring our economy into modern times not only showed his lack of insight, but it also distracted from Hillary’s proposals. The key, that was lost though was how Hillary pointed out what his taxes might reveal. She stated that there are a few obvious reasons why Trump wouldn’t want to reveal his taxes: either he’s not as rich as he says, he didn’t pay taxes or he has shady businesses.
If he didn’t pay taxes, the only real excuse would be that he showed a loss of money. This idea would damage his reputation and ego, but according to this Quickbooks tax calculator, that’s really the only way he could avoid them. So, is he willing to admit that the amazing business mogul lost money or that he cheated on his taxes? Either way it doesn’t look like is concerned with paying his fair share.
Like normal, Trump remains the story. Even if the story is he lost. It would be nice, and probably effective to begin changing the narrative to what Hillary did well instead of what Trump did poorly. This makes her candidacy a positive instead of merely the better choice among two evils. And when we sincerely look at what happened in the debate, she did bring well thought out answers to the forum. They just weren’t as entertaining as Donald sniffing and bullying.