Tonight at 9:00 PM ET the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton will begin, expected to be the most viewed presidential debate in history, occuring at time when a "insurrection" against the establishment is occurring across the globe.
A MASS AWAKENING
According to Financial Times, the Brexit referendum where the UK voted to leave the European Union, offers insights into how the U.S. political establishment is repeating the same mistakes as the pro-EU proponents made in attempting to manipulate the masses with the use of fear and opinion polls, failing because the "unpredictable electorates will no longer be cowed."
The FT article highlights a few "lessons" learned from the Brexit vote that directly apply to what we are witnessing in the U.S. during the presidential campaign season, which includes: "do not insult or provoke the voters and; do not scare the voters. Project Fear was a disaster in the UK."
FT specifically highlights "Hillary Clinton’s infamous depiction of half of Mr Trump’s supporters as deplorable" saying it fits the "do not insult voters" category, stating "the more you insult the other side, the more you end up driving undecideds into their camp."
In regards to Project Fear, they write: "When I saw a study claiming that Mr Trump’s trade polices would cause a US recession, my immediate reaction was: oh no, not again. The problem with scare stories is not just that they no longer work with unpredictable electorates. More often than not they are also not true or vastly exaggerated."
The reason the electorates are being called "unpredictable," is explained below by Former Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, detailing why he thinks Trump is rising in the polls over the past few weeks, stating "There is a huge shift in momentum, and the American public are starting to really wake up."
THE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE
While we are seeing a number of articles detailing the chaotic lead-up to tonight's debate, with the Clinton campaign and liberal journalists asking for special treatment and attempting to pressure the debate moderator, Lester Holt, to insert himself into the debate as a "fact-checker," rather than following the advice of the executive director of the Commission on Presidential Debates, who says that the candidates are the ones that should fact check each other, and stating "I don't think it's a good idea to get the moderator into essentially serving as the Encyclopedia Britannica."
Clinton has also been granted permission to build a larger podium than the one Trump will have on the debate stage in order to "make up for height disadvantage."
While Hillary Clinton has been preparing for tonight's debate, sometimes doing two sessions a day, Trump has eskewed the normal practice of rehearsing full mock debates in favor of advisory meetings as he continues on the campaign trail, which some believe will be a severe disadvantage for Trump, but others like Newt Gingrich disagrees, stating "His instincts are so different than everyone else's that I think trying to coach him will screw him up. He won every debate he was in by saying things no one else would. Don't mess with that."
Interestly enough we note that Democrats are playing the gender card ahead of the debate as evidenced by Former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who states "There's a slice of the voters who are very sensitive about a man appearing to bully a woman. So whether it's in your physical space or verbally, I think it sets off alarms bells and it's something that Donald Trump has to worry about."
Judge Jeanine Pirro vehemently disagrees as heard in her advice to Trump and Clinton below in her Staurday evening opening statement, where she makes it clear that gender should have no effect whatsoever on how Trump debates his opponent. Pirro says "Stay on offense, without being offensive and do not let the fact that she's a female stop you from going after her. She wants to be the leader of the free world... gender is irrevelant. Make her prove that she is up to it."
Moderator: Lester Holt, Anchor, NBC Nightly News - The three topics to be discussed during the debate, held at Hofstra University in New York, will be "America's Direction," "Achieving Prosperity," and "Securing America," per a release from the Commission on Presidential Debates. The debate format calls for six 15-minute time segments, and each of the topics will take up two of the six time slots. The debate will start at 9 p.m. will run for 90 minutes without any commercial interruption
Below are a couple of livestreams for the Monday, September 26, 2016 debate for viewers to choose from.
As always readers are encouraged to leave comments during the live event with their real-time insights and impressions as the debate progresses.
