One topic that many pundits, strategists, and media outlets agree upon is that this is an unconventional election cycle. The “Trump Effect” hasn’t been easy to evaluate using the conventional standards and wisdom we’ve come to rely on in traditional presidential races.
Last night, Donald Trump lost the debate among the typical political class, however, he won with the voters.
Most people don’t recognize that this election is really about change. Donald Trump hit on the heart of that change several times last night when he said Hillary Clinton is a politician who has been around for 30 years with nothing to show for it. Don’t just take my word for it — S.E. Cupp, a CNN commentator and “never Trump” conservative, summed it up perfectly.
She said, “Trump mostly did the job he had to do. To move undecideds, he had to hammer one point home: Clinton is a politician who doesn’t get it. Over and over again, he attacked her as more of the same, out of touch, and a politician who hasn’t gotten it right. He didn’t go after her character or personal issues, for the most part — which voters know well. She outmanned him on specifics and details. But his attacks were far more effective than hers.”
Poll after poll has shown that Americans are hungry for change and they know that Hillary Clinton won’t be the one to give it to them. They are tired of the media narrative that says they are not hurting financially and the economy has fully recovered. They are tired of the lie that they feel safe and ISIS is the junior varsity team.
In the debate, Trump stuck to the issues that truly impact average Americans, such as trade, jobs being sent out of the country, unemployment, taxes, and the debt. Clinton’s narrative that we are on the right track and should continue with Obama’s policies is counterintuitive because mainstream Americans don’t feel that way. I believe Trump struck a cord with independents and undecideds when he said she is, “all talk, no action. Sounds good, never going to work. Our country is suffering because of people like Secretary Clinton.”
The Clinton campaign seemingly doesn’t get that if you put lipstick on a pig, it’s still a pig, and millions of Americans are unhappy with the direction our country is headed. At the end of the night, Hillary Clinton supporters were still with her, and Donald Trump supporters remained on his side, but some independents and undecideds moved over to the Trump column.
Trump debated two people last night: Hillary Clinton and Lester Holt. Holt’s outrageous fact-checking, which some media outlets have already proven incorrect, and his lack of questions about the critical issues surrounding Clinton and her numerous scandals, were problematic for a presidential debate moderator. In the next debate, expect Trump to show up unapologetically bringing up every scandal and lie Clinton has been involved in, regardless of whether the moderator is fair or not. This debate lived up to the hype and left many people hungry for round two.
