Apologies for the delay, but here goes: I posted the following motion in the Fight Club Challenge thread: Donald Trump is a better candidate than Hillary Clinton for the next POTUS. Elfdude graciously lifted the gauntlet I threw down.
Elfdude and I have agreed some limited groundrules for this debate. Nothing too fancy:
- osts should consist of a series of separate points. The debate will consist of these points being put, and then dissected individually by the opponent, and vice versa.
- Each point should be responded to, points not responded to will be viewed as a concession, if you've already responded to something be sure to mention it.
- Every point which does not have a credible response will result in 1 pt.
- Responses can be dismissed via standard appeals to fallacies unless someone can show good reason why a fallacy doesn't apply.
The points will be added up at the end, but will be advisory only, let's see how things pan out.
Full disclosure: I am arguing Devil's advocate here to some extent, although I thank my lucky stars that as a Brit I don't have to make the choice between Trump and Clinton (I'd probably choose option 3, emigration to Canada). Anyway..
Preamble
Donald Trump has shocked the world with his meteoric rise to the candidacy of the Republican party, and the world will be watching in November as the USA decides whether to entrust him with the presidency of the world's only superpower. He has been accused of polarisation, misrepresentation, aggression and even racism, and his primary policies are vague at best, and barefaced lies at worst. However, he has risen to power on the back of a wave of resentment of many ordinary Americans at what they see as the corporate and financial elite's strangulation of mainstream American politics and exploitation of ordinary American people. They feel furthermore that this has led to a decline in their living standards, to a lack of strong leadership, and to a general reduction of America's status in the world. But I would argue, despite the arguably populist rhetoric Trump employs, and the real questions about his honesty and integrity, as well as his rather colourful personal life, that he represents someone who could offer a genuine sea change in American politics, both domestically and abroad, and who might provide a way of averting a coming catastrophe of global economics and geopolitics.
1. Reversing an unethical policy of globalisation by the backdoor, and building a better Latin America and a more united US
First off, we can pretty much forget the great wall of Mexico which is obviously , but I think we might see a genuine push in a Trump presidency to deport many illegal immigrants and do something towards securing the border. Now he may not be doing this for entirely the right reasons, but still, there can only be one effect of this: improving the rights of Mexicans in the USA by ensuring that more and more of them are officially recognised and on the radar (and not undercutting wages of native-born Americans, as there is some justification for believing they do), and forcing the region to face up to the fact that the current situation in Central America is not sustainable: right now America is watching its Southern neighbours bleed slowly to death, meanwhile it is collecting the blood and drinking it in. Perhaps America does need immigration, but it does not need unregistered illegal immigrants falling through the cracks and turning California and New Mexico into third world countries (America's biggest internal security risk after all is not even Islamic terrorism, it's Hispanic drug gangs such as MS13, and a proper attempt at securing the border and not allowing people to slip throught the cracks will help that too).
The current situation benefits nobody: not Americans, and not Latinos either. It just means Mexico will continue to be a drug-addled warzone and an underclass of Latinos (Democrat voters, for the most part) will form that will have all the same problems we see in the black community. The Democrats turn a blind eye to this problem, and Donald Trump will at least make more of an effort to combat it than Hillary would. Perhaps his protectionist policies will damage the economy a little, but let's not forget that Hillary is also something of a protectionist. And so Trump's contribution will be to at least cut levels of illegal migration, perhaps have some kind of an amnesty, and in fact ultimately end up helping both immigrants and their countries in the long term by forcing a change.
2. Letting the world's wounds heal
It's pretty well known in foreign policy circles that Hillary Clinton is not so much a hawk, as a peregrine falcon. By which I mean, she is an advocate of a new age of American militarism. The consequences of this for the world are perhaps the most important thing to come out of this election from my position as a non-American. The fact is, the Middle East right now has gone from being a powder keg to being a fully fledged inferno. Syria is hell on earth, Turkey is spiralling into the void, Palestine is likely to get another hammering from Israel in due course, Islamic State is proving more of a tangible threat to the security of Western countries than Al-Qaeda ever was, and the Iran-Saudi Arabia conflict is proving far more devastating to the global economy and to global security than the Israel vs Muslim conflict ever did, with ramifications from terrorism to oil prices to the refugee crisis.
Donald Trump's response to all this, besides 'bombing the Hell out of ISIS' (and let's be honest, there can't really be anything worse than ISIS, better that somebody just goes in all guns blazing and installs any other kind of government than what is there right now, it still won't be as destabilising as what is there now) would be one of isolationism. He does not intend to be a military expeditionist, he wants to strengthen the military but he also does not have any intention of a lengthy imperialist project in the Middle East, nor in Russia (he would be rather friendly with Putin after all), nor in the major conflict of the near future: the South China Sea. Hillary's position on the South China sea is really quite scary. She had to be slapped down by Obama when he explained to her that sending an aircraft carrier to threaten North Korea was probably not a great idea, because it would offend China, who as anyone who has been following recent events will know, are aching for a fight. Her exact words were '“We’ve got to run it up the gut!”. Combined with her actions in Libya, and her general attitude towards foreign policy (she has been described as having “a textbook view of American exceptionalism”) it's obvious that she poses a real threat to world security, which is likely to turn out even worse than the disastrous intervention in the Middle East.
"For all their bluster about bombing the Islamic State into oblivion, neither Donald J. Trump nor Senator Ted Cruz of Texas has demonstrated anywhere near the appetite for military engagement abroad that Clinton has."
From a left wing position, it's obvious that Clinton is nobody's idea of a safe option for ensuring global stability. Trump is also a straight talker: he has openly admitted that he intends to take Iraq's oil if he mounts a ground invasion. He's also pledged allegiance to Israel solidly: “They are the only stable democracy in a region that is not run by dictators. They are pioneers in medicine and communication and a close fair trading partner.” And, like his father, he said, he had always been loyal to Israel and “would do more for Israel than anybody else.” In the mouth of a warmongering radical, these might be slightly scary words, but when they come from Donald Trump, they frankly indicate nothing much more than his intention to reverse the damaging abandonment of America's allies, and a realpolitik focus without the bare-faced lies that marked George Bush's presidency (and given Hillary's record, she's not only as much of a crowd-pleasing lie machine as Trump, but also has a more sinister reputation for internal government deceptiveness). So in short: Trump will roll back the damage done by Obama, and will not cause WW3. Probably. But at least if he does, he'll be honest about his intentions, and he won't drag Europe into it with him, as he won't even try to appeal to European sensibilities.
3. What will be the consequences in the aftermath of a Trump presidency? Changing American politics for the better...
I posit that the disaffection of a large swath of the American population comes first and foremost from a very real, if misunderstood, systemic problem with American democracy. Perhaps even more than many other countries, the US democratic system is in the palm of large corporations. In the UK, our opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn has been rendered completely powerless by his refusal to submit to the powers that be in his party, and thus he has little to no power (a sitting prime minister in his position would have no choice but to resign). Whereas in the USA, the president is answerable mainly to himself. He does not have to cooperate with the ruling party in the senate or the HoR, indeed he doesn't even have to be a member of it. And of course, as Obama shows us, despite being somewhat hamstrung by having so little support on Capitol Hill, it is still possible to push through legislation, such as Obamacare, provided you know how to do a deal, and Trump at the end of the day is a businessman with a great track record in making relationships. If he continues as he has done so far, he will herald some big changes. Or, you know, he won't, and he will also be hamstrung. Leaving aside the specifics of his political goals, there remains the larger problem of how politics itself operates, and so even if Trump fails to live up to his anti-establishment rhetoric, he will at least open the door for someone else who can bring change in a less radical way.
How will Donald Trump do this? In amongst all the arrogance and hyperbole, it must be said that he really is a very rich man, and he has certainly been as good as his word in funding his own campaign and not letting the corporate backers put him in their pocket. Trump doesn't have the best track record in many respects, but in terms of remaining aloof from the usual 'you scratch my back I'll scratch yours' cadre, especially in the Republican party, he has certainly proven that he is one of the only people in Western politics to truly commit to being his own man. By its very nature, the American presidency is not given to being pushed around in the way that a party leader in a non-presidential system (like the UK) is, and although he faces obstacles, I see no reason why he would turn out to be as much of an obvious cooperator with the establishment as Hillary will be.
Now, I'm not saying we should take Trump at his word in every single matter, the pressure on him to start cooperating with the GoP elite and corporations is growing by the day and it would be naive to think he could stay quite so aloof from Wall Street and major industry as he has been so far. But we must assess him as a person: contrary to popular belief, it's quite plain that this is not just a publicity stunt: he has nursed political aspirations for some time, and he clearly wants this. He was formerly a supporter of the Democrats, and has as good as admitted that he intends to tone down his far-right rhetoric. It's pretty clear that he will do what he needs to to get the job done, and it's also pretty undeniable that he is not the neo-nazi maniac he is made out to be: he is at hear reasonably liberal and clearly does not harbour any real prejudice against migrants or foreigners. And so I think we must characterise him as a pragmatist, who is working towards an agenda that is not informed by hatred, but by a desire to change things.
And indeed, even if he does not change things as a president, he has already changed things as a presidential candidate. If he wins the presidency, it will prove once and for all that someone without the backing of corporations and party elites, and without the carefully crafted advertising strategy funded by donors with vested interests, can become president. To distill what I am saying down to a Trump-esque one-liner: he isn't as bad as ya think he is. Either he gets into government, gets castrated to some extent by the checks and balances system as Obama has been, and does no real damage, hopefully leading to a non-Hillary Democrat president in 4 years. Or, he brings his full business nous to bear, leaving behind his hate-speech at the door, and really does something to shake things up. Either way, if he wins, he will have totally rewritten the rulebook, and America will wake up to a new dawn where corporate interests have their rightful place: important, but not the be all and end all. But if Hillary wins, things will stay exactly as they are, and Trump's success will be written off as a fluke and all the positive aspects (straight talking, engaging with people who never before had a voice) will be irrelevant to future campaigns. It will be business as usual, which cannot go on.