US Election: How many plan to vote AGAINST someone, rather than FOR them?

I thought this would be a fun debate to watch, but so far I'm just uncomfortable. Donald Trump is just so... Mean. He is a bad, bad man.

OK that pissed me off. How can Hillary sit (stand) there and ******* blast Russia and Syria for injuring a boy when US backed Saudi Arabia have spent the last few months killing tons of civilians? The US has also done damage itself too.

I hate the double standard.

Imagine if Hillary said even half the awful shit that Donald says. She would be given no second chances. What a fucking joke.

Now they want to hold Syria and Russia responsible for war crimes in Aleppo?

Meanwhile...

Did anyone explain the rules to Trump before the debate? On one side, you have Hillary carrying herself with grace and good common decency. On the other side you have Trump barking, sniffling, lying and interrupting.

I feel like Trump is two steps away from going full Palin. I realize he's always diverged a lot when speaking, but this is on the edge of being incomprehensible.

Crash-zoom makes its debate debut.

When Trump doesn't know what Aleppo even is...

That's the core of it. But American's love to pretend this isn't the case. Donald is a bad guy and everyone else is great. And lets laugh or recoil in terror if someone brings up being peaceful with Russia or just openly blame them for hacking when you have no proof of it.

It's such a clusterfuck, get the **** out of Syria and stop interfering. Jesus, Syria has only gotten worse and worse, the US don't know who they are even funding. CIA backed rebels (terrorists) fighting against Pentagon backed rebels (terrorists) and now Hillary says to arm the Kurds, who Turkey consider terrorists.

That's going to work out great I'm sure! Meanwhile Libya is worse than ever but that's old news now.

@jasoncooke: American foreign policy is embarrassing to me and sadly it's the area our the President has the most impact. Like you say, just talking about arming certain factions and training foreign soldiers as well which she said was a successful endeavor in the past but has actually been a disaster.

Both of them are lost and our country is too. Like I said before, sadly most Americans just bury their head in the sand on all of this.

Fantastic last question :D

I loved the audience reaction, basicallly "OH SHIT"

also Radditz/Cooper pro moderator team

I am very curious to see how things hold up between Trump and Pence after this. Pence already seemed about done, getting thrown under the bus on live TV certainly isn't going to help.

Sorry to say this, but you seem to be one of those people. Just the fact that you compare Trump and Clinton as equally bad for the country shows your bias. Hillary Clinton is a competent, accomplished and experienced politician, while Trump is a inexperienced, rude, lying and frankly stupid person. I'm Norwegian, and thus have no vested interest in the election, other than the fact that I hope my nation's strongest ally, an ally I've been overseas and fought with, doesn't degrade itself by electing that racist and sexist man. I'll be honest I literally view any person in the US who chooses to vote for someone else than Hillary Clinton as intellectually inferior. Just take his stunt before the debate into account. He lined up for women who claimed that they have been raped by Bill Clinton in a attempt to shift the focus from his infidelity (let's face it, everyone knows he's been as faithful as Bill Clinton).

When Pence of all people starts backing away slowly, you know things are fucked.

I didn't think the first debate could be topped in sheer insanity, but here we are.

@bojackhorseman: Nothing you said makes Hillary Clinton not a complete war hawk. I do not support someone involved in drone assassination and huge arms deals to completely objectionable countries. And in her responses today, said she wouldn't put US troops on the ground in Syria even though her plan would require it and also just put forth the same ideas of arming any rebel faction that seems to be your best bet at the moment when this has been a complete disaster in the past. Then acting like she has some lesson learned from Iraq. Give me a break.

You really highlight the joke of this election with your post. Because I call out Clinton, I am supporting Trump right? Except I think Trump is a disgusting person and don't support him. Unfortunately we have the two worst candidates in my lifetime and because one is so cartoonishly awful the other can just waltz right in.

You didn't respond to anything specific in my post which means you might not understand the realities of America's current foreign policy. Unfortunately most Americans don't either.

Proud to be libertarian as messed up as Johnson is. You have a bigot dunce verses a scary criminal politician who will stop at nothing (like threatening Bill Clinton"s rape accuser Juanita Broaddrick) to retain wealth and power. The depressing fact is that no matter who I vote for, the public will vote for one of these two shit shows. I wish reading and research were more popular than trigger words or mindless tv.

This line of thinking is why politics is so fucked in the first place. Candidates don't have to represent the views of the people, they just have to be less reprehensible than the other guy. If I was American the is no way in hell that I'd be voting for Trump, but I would definitely have major apprehensions about voting for Clinton. Whats good for America in the short term is most certainly not good for a lot of the rest of the world and in turn may not be good for America in the long term. ISIS exists because of the wests appalling foreign policy, more of that is going to suck for everyone, and by all accounts Hillary isn't going to stop doing what America has been doing.

Considering I've fought in a war fronted by the United States in the middle east, I'd say I know quite a bit about the realities of both current and past foreign policy. But a lot of people are idealists. Today we say incursions like the one in Libya was wrong. I know better. It was the only right move, and you'd be hard pressed to find anyone in the service, either here Noway or in the US, who thought that was wrong at the time. And that's just the thing. A lot of people sit at home in their sofas with perfect 20/20 hindsight vision and say we should have done this or that, but the reality is that they know nothing. They criticize the western interventions, and think that the native population of Libya or Iraq preferred Gadaffi and Hussein, but having been over there for almost two years combined, I can tell you that the population welcomed us, and grieved when we left.

Proud? Of this?

If reading and research were more popular, there would be a lot less libertarians.

Anyway, Trump was slightly less incompetent this debate, I suppose. He's right about Hillary's foreign policy being an abject disaster. The only issue is that he's given no indication that he wouldn't be as bad or worse. That obviously doesn't excuse Hillary's fuck ups but I'm not sure it's gaining him any votes either. Trump's biggest problem is honestly that he's just an annoying person. The constant interruptions, the dumb snide remarks, he's just not likable at all. You can get by with not knowing what you're talking about if you're at least able to show that you're charismatic but you watch him speak and you just want to punch him in the face.

The election was decided months ago. Watching the pieces continue to collide for the next month is just "entertainment" value. Maybe we'll get another tape of Trump saying something racist or sexist before election day. That should be fun.

@bojackhorseman: I never ever will think America should have invaded a country under the lies of WMDs and completely bungled the whole thing and caused so much death and misery.

Do you even realize the reason a lot of Americans thought this was okay was because they were lied to about the reasons to invade Iraq? That war does not have support like that around the country. You brush off hindsight... which is hilarious because the reason the hindsight lets us say that was a mistake was because we realized we were all lied to. Hindsight, if it means having the correct information, is not something to brush off as idealism.

Yes there could be death and misery anyways, but we are not the world police and at least we weren't sowing and now reaping it. If you believe all that then I know we will never see eye to eye on any of this and I get why you are pro Hillary. I am not. I am against war mongering and constant intervention.

@bojackhorseman: Are you at least willing to say that the war in Yemen is wrong?

What I am about to say might sound weird and contradictory, but this is my opinion. I do not think the reasoning behind heading into Iraq was just. I didn't at the time, and I still don't. But I'll tell you this; I'm fucking glad we went in. As I said, I was there myself, and I know how it was down there. And most natives of Iraq will tell you that their lives improved after the invasion. Life under Saddam Hussein was living hell. Removing Saddam Hussein as head of state was the absolute right thing to do, and the same thing goes for Libya, which was on the brink of genocide.

Of course you should learn from your experiences, but criticizing something one has no idea about is not learning. It's ignorance. It's the opposite of learning. The invasion of Iraq was not just, but I do not believe it was a mistake.

As for who I support in this election, of course I support Hillary Clinton. The republican candidate is a racist, sexist, rude, ignorant, inexperienced asshole, the libertarian candidate is a stoner who doesn't even know what Aleppo is (video above), and the green party candidate is basically disqualified by being a one-issue candidate.

A vote for anyone but Hillary Clinton is a vote to Donald Trump, especially if you live in some of the contested states.

You mean the war itself or the US contribution. Because the war itself is a civil war that I honestly don't know that much about, but as for the US contribution it is limited to logistical support to Saudi Arabia as far as I know.

Do you know what that threat was? From Broaddrick's own account, it was weeks later at a campaign rally, and Hillary shook her hand and thanked her for everything she had done for Bill. Broaddrick took the handshake as a threat. You are correct about one thing. I do wish people would research things.

I really don't get the hate for Clinton and wonder if it might even be a bit of unconscious misogyny. She's accomplished a lot of amazing things throughout her political career and is really an excellent politician. Isn't that what you want in the leader of your country? People really seem to be blowing up any mistake she's made and making it sound like some horrendous, major problem when they're really not. It's impossible to be a politician for as long as she has without making similar mistakes.

I get you may disagree with her policies and think her foreign policy is garbage, but saying she's one of the worst presidential candidates in history is just absurd.

Unless all of the polls showing a lack of trust and positive thoughts towards Hillary were only taken part in by men I would like to know why you would bring up misogyny.

I think Trump did slightly better than his first debate. He didn't get baited as much, and got some of his talking points in. He still lost the debate. The sniffing, the glowering over her while she engaged with the audience, not answering questions, still interrupting her and complaining about how long she took when he took longer, accusing the moderators of ganging up on him, being factually incorrect, a lot of terrible answers that visibly turned off the "undecided" voters in the room, but the biggest mistake was saying he would imprison Clinton. That might play well with his base, but that won't get him any more votes. Jailing political opponents are the tactics of dictators like Putin.

Clinton did the Presidential look that Pence did during the VP debate, but with actual facts. She engaged well with the audience. A couple of the answers weren't for the questions asks, but because it was already off track because of Trump.

Watching on delay, and this is about what I expected so far.

It's funny how Donald keeps mentioning Bernie Sanders. Also a bit depressing to be reminded of what could have been.

Neither candidate is great, but I'm struggling to understand how anyone takes Donald seriously. Putting personal stuff aside, what evidence is there that he'd be able to accomplish anything? Lucky for me I don't have to choose (I'm in the US on work visa). Not to mention he is an utter laughing stock internationally.

Well, political "discourse" in the US has been declining for a long long time. The party system has sucked rationality out (both sides) and elections are run entirely on appeal instead of substance. I mean, the tone of debates should be about deciding what direction is better for the country, not who is a worse person. Both parties screwed us over and now we're stuck with *these* two candidates.

@sergio: You gotta admit, that "You'd be in jail" rebuttal was pretty hilarious.

Can't really comment on the subconscious misogyny thing, cos if I was subconsciously a misogynist I'd be the last one to know. Thats how the subconscious works innit? But as for this point I'd agree that the idea of her being one of the worst in history is a stretch. I think she's getting a lot of backlash because people are getting sick of the endless parade of politicians who are doing nothing more than re-shuffling the same old decks that the politicians before them have left. The rise of people like Bernie Sanders in the US and people like Jeremy Corbyn here in the UK, as well as figures on the right like Nigel Farage and, well, Trump himself shows that people want their politicians to be radical not rehashes (this is not to say that I think Jeremy Corbyn is particularly radical mind, I think he just seems that way because of the complete shower of Blairite fuck boys who've come before him). People are not content with the system anymore and for a lot of folks HRC represents a continuation of that.

@jasoncooke: We have different sense of humors. I don't find fascism funny.

I was coming at it from a "Trump is crazy" angle and not "Nazi Germany".

(and according to leaked information, the FBI said she would be jailed)

Edit - can't find the exact source

It was originally a civil war, but Saudi Arabia intervened last year. The United States has been giving Saudi Arabia diplomatic and military support. It has turned into a humanitarian catastrophe.

Read more here: The Atlantic: Yemen: The Graveyard of the Obama Doctrine.

You cannot say your going to jail your political opponent and then win a general election... that is a thing that just straight up can not happen.

And regardless of how he "performed", none of it erases that tape or any of the other racist Islamophobic nonsense he spouts.

And as I said before, if I am Hillary I am not taking part in the 3rd debate, she has nothing to gain and everything to lose from another one of these.

personally, I have the same view as bojackhorseman, if only for one reason

Donald Trump has said he'd sign a bill that would allow people to openly discriminiate against LGBT people, and as one such person? That makes me real fucking scared. So I'll be honest, if any of my friends said they were voting trump and I couldn't change their mind, I'd probably just tell them to fuck off. I get free Hormone Replacement Therapy and I even have the opportunity to get free sexual reassignment surgery (aka a neo-vagina) because my state is cool like that, but with President Trump, that sure as shit won't continue. Especially with Pence as running mate.

If anything with this election, it will probably end up proving that 90% of the people that vote don't follow anything that is happening and just pick whatever candidate matches their party affiliation.

Hey, thats entirely cool. I am absolutely not saying that voting for Hillary is the same as voting for Trump. I think she is a vastly better choice than Trump. I would happily tell anyone I know who is voting Trump to fuck off also, and I don't look down on anyone who votes for Hillary at all. What I disagree with is the idea that a vote for someone other than Hillary is a vote for Trump because that creates a situation where the Democrats can push any candidate they want, just as long as they're slightly better than the Republicans. And in terms of her policy at home in America she isn't just slightly better, she is fucking miles ahead.

I just can't reconcile the fact that a vote that would be better for me and mine would mean death for people who are not, which is why I maintain that voting third party is valid. Of course I say all this as an outsider looking at US politics. The only reason I take an interest is because Americas foreign policy is the only thing that will affect me or anyone I know, directly or indirectly. I truly hope that whatever happens Trump does not get into the white house, for the sake of everyone in your country.

How does Trump beat HRC on foreign policy when his plan to protect America is implementing a religious test for all refugees and immigrants?

I find it interesting that instead of saying he no longer is in favor of a ban on all Muslims entering the country, he emphatically stated that he has re-branded that policy as "Extreme Vetting" and never denied that this would include religion-based questioning.

I dont know who won the debate tonight (didnt watch) but I am pretty sure @fobwashed did

I don't really know why people defend Hillary Clinton.

She's more fit to lead than Trump but make no mistake, the Clintons are awful.

Trump shouldn't lead, he shouldn't be in this race, but has he laughed about a case in which a 12 year old girl was raped?

Interesting read and eye opening really. The truth isn't as terrible as Trump made it sound in tonight's debate but it's pretty fucking disgusting.

Around 2:45, how is that funny? You just fucked over a 12 year old girl who was raped, you can hear the laughter.

This election gets worse and worse the more I read and listen.

Deciding between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton is like deciding whether to be kicked in the balls or being kicked in the johnson.

This debate has brought me so much joy.

More seriously, I can't understand how a person can still be undecided after all this. You've either bought into Trump's wild ride, or you're off-put enough to bail and join the Clinton party. I mean, you can no vote (don't do this, you don't get to complain unless you have a hand in the bullshit) or you can vote for a third party (best of luck with that), but "Oh jeez I'm not sure, I need more information." can't possibly be valid at this point. The candidates are clearly defined. No amount of time from here to the election will move the needle from where they've placed it.

@mirado: Undecided at this point is probably more like "I think I'll vote for X but I'm not happy about it, and I might change my mind if something awful is revealed about that person".

There's "of course she helped an accused rapist be found not guilty, she was his lawyer" and then there's "holy shit, she didn't have to be fucking HAPPY about it!" There are ways to tell this story where you're boastful of your own success, but remorseful that your obligation to your client led to a 12 year old rape victim never receiving justice.

And yes, feeling up married women without consent < laughing about a the case of a 12 year old's rape whose rapist you helped get away with it. They're both fucking horrible, though. How the fuck did we ever end up with THESE two as our choices?

And let me get this straight. A lab cut out the part of the underwear of a rapist which they tested, found condemning evidence that he did rape her, and then destroyed the fabric since it had already been tested. Hillary knew this, took the remainder of the underwear to the world's most famous blood expert, and of course he found nothing. Then she used that "evidence," and had the original lab results thrown out, because the fabric was destroyed after testing, and being that it didn't exist anymore they couldn't consider it evidence.

If you have any kind of soul, if you even could live with yourself after doing that in the first place, that's not the type of thing that you laugh about after the fact.