Opinions do not necessarily reflect CUIndependent.com or any of its sponsors.
It was the most watched presidential debate in U.S. television history, shattering all competition from the last three decades. At 84 million viewers, it drew enough to rival Super Bowl-sized audiences between 1990 and 2005. Even the ratings for the debate analysis afterward blew most of the night’s primetime TV out of the water.
Sept. 26’s debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton garnered an audience that could only be a product of this nation’s disdain, anxiety and — sometimes — hope for this election. Would undecided voters finally catch a glimpse of light between the two most unpopular candidates in modern American polling history? Would Clinton silence those who criticize her likeability? Would Trump finally court the traditional conservative Republicans he’s got shaking in their boots?
The answer: Probably not — but this debate was still important. It accurately framed this campaign for what it is: a contest of personality, social beliefs and morals more than a battle between policy discussions. Race, taxes and gender issues all defined what’s at stake. Here are the most important takeaways.
Taxes took the spotlight in a standout way.
Ever the most visible breaking point between Democrats and Republicans in their economic policy, taxes marked the key difference between Trump and Clinton in a bigger way than usual.
Trump bragged that his tax cut-fueled economic plan would create 25 million new jobs. Clinton claimed that her plan, which includes raising taxes on the wealthy, more spending on infrastructure and more immigration, would create 10 million. Both claims are disingenuous, as we’ll see in a moment.
Is it true that tax cuts for businesses and the rich create jobs? Yes — more money in businesses’ hands leads to more growth, and thus, more hiring power.
But should you pass them? Not necessarily. As we’ve written before, the success of “trickle-down” tax-cut economics under former President Ronald Reagan was largely spurred by other factors. To safely cut taxes, you either have to cut spending enough to make up for it, or suffer the consequences of raising the government’s deficit — the yearly addition to the debt — which can hurt spending and investment in the economy. (We break down when it’s acceptable to cut taxes here.)
Trump’s plan to cut taxes fails to address that — over the next 10 years, it could cost the government up to $3.9 trillion, which is more than the entire 2015 U.S. federal budget. That makes Trump’s plan nearly impossible to actually enact. There is reason to believe that Clinton’s whole plan, which includes investments in infrastructure and increasing immigration, would create more jobs, but neither plan is likely to live up to the candidates’ promises.
Philosophically, though, taxes defined the personal difference between Trump and Clinton.
Both candidates waved the usual party flags on the tax discussion, which turned out to be the debate’s most substantive policy segment despite its inaccuracies. But Clinton also hit Trump for not paying any federal income tax in multiple years, and somehow, Trump admitted to it.
Yes, Trump, the man who openly denied multiple facts that debate moderator Lester Holt called out right in front of him.
When you read the transcript, the exchange sounds like a Clinton campaign ad: Trump said not paying the taxes makes him “smart.” Trump came out as the loser there even though he agreed — cleverly — to finally release his tax returns once Clinton releases the emails she deleted when she was secretary of state.
But Clinton pressed on with her criticism and confidently admitted she “made a mistake” on the emails, and Trump ended up flustered. His complaints came off as irrelevant and moot, regardless of the email scandal’s actual weight.
More importantly, the exchange cast Clinton as someone who cares about the middle class — Trump floundered in business jargon and ended up sounding arrogant about how much money he has.
Race and police issues were a misstep for Trump and an important moment for Clinton.
No matter what your opinion on the issue, the push by Black Lives Matter to put criminal justice discrimination at the forefront of this campaign culminated in this debate.
It gave Clinton a chance to sound sincere about reforms to address the disproportionate punishment of blacks — and we’d be remiss not to say it is a real issue. Activists earlier in the campaign criticized her over a 1994 crime bill that they say sharply increased incarceration of black men.
That law was passed by her husband, former President Bill Clinton, and although it probably didn’t have the effect on prison rates that critics say it did, it became a symbol that has weighed Clinton down. She had won some activists over by the time of the Democratic National Convention in July.
Trump could have easily hit Clinton for only pushing criminal justice reform after she felt the pressure to — and he did mention her racially charged “super-predator” comment — but instead he doubled down on his vague, Nixon-esque message that the nation must uphold “law and order.”
That’s largely an empty tactic to scare up votes, though, as it’s difficult to see how Trump plans to do that. He said the country needs more police — how that would be paid for isn’t clear — and that it should take guns away from criminals, even though he’s offered a conflicting stance on background checks.
Trump pandered to African-Americans and Hispanics. He expressed concern for inner-city violence while at the same time embracing the controversial stop-and-frisk police policy, despite that it was both ineffective and enforced unconstitutionally in New York. Take a wild guess: blacks and Hispanics were unfairly targeted.
Clinton seized the chance to suggest improving community relationships between officers and citizens, changing minimum sentencing laws and making sure police know how much force is the right amount for the situation.
But how Clinton really scored points was in speaking to racial minorities in a cultural way — mentioning housing and education discrimination, the “vibrancy of the black church” and her opinion that everyone, not just police, has implicit racial biases. You could certainly label it pandering — but her policies are more likely to be seen as backing her words up than Trump’s would. She also criticized Trump for painting a “dire negative picture” of black communities.
Trade was a win for Trump in the debate, even if it shouldn’t have been.
Trade policy is complicated — it’s the kind of academic topic politicians rarely talk about in complete terms. But that hasn’t stopped Trump from acting like he has been.
Trump’s anti-trade deal message is one that helped him win over working-class voters in the primaries, and his tirades on trade gave him his strongest moments in the debate. He talked about jobs being “stolen” by other countries and criticized the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which went into effect in 1994. Clinton, on the other hand, said NAFTA “raised wages for everyone.”
The knock on free trade, which allows industries to easily import and export goods to other countries, is that it also lets industries outsource jobs to other countries. On the positive side, it can raise productivity in the economy.
In reality, NAFTA’s been controversial for years but doesn’t matter as much as either candidate said — and they both had some inconsistencies.
Where Trump was right and Clinton was wrong:
The deal did raise the country’s wages by about 0.17 percent overall based on a 2012 study, but that doesn’t mean everyone saw a wage increase, like Clinton said. It’s worth noting that experts say NAFTA may have resulted in a small net jobs gain in the whole economy, but its overall effect has been small.
But Trump was generally right on one thing: NAFTA lost between half a million and 1 million jobs in its first 10 to 12 years, including — as he correctly said — substantial losses in Ohio and Michigan. Clinton’s claim that overall manufacturing jobs grew in the 1990s is flatly wrong.
However, whether Trump’s actually going to help fix these issues is dubious. His talk of raising tariffs (or taxes) on products other countries sell in the U.S. risks causing recessions in other countries. It also would cost the U.S. millions of jobs as they strike back with tariffs on the U.S.’s products. Rather than starting a trade war, Clinton suggests directly investing in manufacturing, which her tax increases would make possible.
Both Clinton and Trump oppose the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, which you can read more about here. Trump was also right that Clinton switched on her position on the TPP — she used to support it.
As a whole, gender issues defined the difference between Clinton and Trump.
In the first presidential election to feature a major-party female candidate, gender politics was bound to play a role, and Clinton’s gender was an extra hurdle for Trump. The societal stereotype of viewing females as more fragile — wrong though it may be — likely factored into how Trump carried himself in this debate.
Some will chalk it up to his need to appear presidential, but his recent move to bring up Clinton’s marriage as an issue suggests otherwise. Trump was visibly restrained — his first answer didn’t attack Clinton at all, and in his follow-up he addressed her as “Secretary Clinton” and then asked, “[Is] that OK? Good. I want you to be very happy. It’s very important to me.” He took several sips of water during the debate — an amount unusual for any candidate — and we saw none of his “crooked Hillary” name-calling. (He quickly reversed that the next day.)
Trump’s restraint was likely influenced by the optics of, well, being rude to Clinton’s face. He was able to get away with it — and, perhaps, even profit from it — against stages full of GOP primary opponents, but spitting vitriol about Clinton while standing just feet away from her wouldn’t have gone as well.
But Trump still couldn’t step out of the shadow of his sexism. Holt asked Trump what he meant by saying she doesn’t have “a presidential look” earlier in September — and no amount of shifting could save Trump from Clinton’s onslaught about calling women “pigs, slobs and dogs.” She mentioned that Trump fat-shamed a former Miss Universe, Alicia Machado, who has claimed Trump’s emotional abuse caused her to develop anorexia and bulimia. And his history of insensitive and intrusive treatment of women is no secret at this point.
And although there was one question left, that was the debate’s end note.
The contest between Clinton and Trump has always been about personalities — this debate only underscored that fact. Modern America has seldom seen such a deep divide between candidates, and aside from the policy issues, there stands a clear choice — a candidate mired in racism and sexism is running against one who isn’t.
Expect to see historic gender and race gaps on election day — at this point, there’s no turning back.
Contact CU Independent Editorial Manager Ellis Arnold at ellis.arnold@colorado.edu, and on Twitter at @ArnoldEllis_.
