“Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
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Paul Krugman: Trump’s Fellow Travelers
Donald Trump has just had an extraordinarily bad week, and Hillary Clinton an extraordinarily good one; betting markets now put Mrs. Clinton’s odds of winning almost as high as they were just after the Democratic convention. But both Mrs. Clinton’s virtues and Mr. Trump’s vices have been obvious all along. How, then, did the race manage to get so close on the eve of the debate?
A lot of the answer, I’ve argued, lies in the behavior of the news media, which spent the month before the first debate jeering at Mrs. Clinton, portraying minor missteps as major sins and inventing fake scandals out of thin air. But let us not let everyone else off the hook. Mr. Trump couldn’t have gotten as far as he has without the support, active or de facto, of many people who understand perfectly well what he is and what his election would mean, but have chosen not to take a stand.
Let’s start with the Republican political establishment, which is supporting Mr. Trump just as if he were a normal presidential nominee.
E. J. Dionne Jr.: Could national service bring us back together?
So much attention was showered on Donald Trump’s appalling early-morning tweets on Friday that an important speech by Hillary Clinton on national service was almost entirely wiped out of the news cycle.
In the short run, Clinton probably didn’t mind — the damage Trump did to himself was enormous. But the episode showed how little notice is being given to the substantial number of policy proposals being put forward in this campaign, almost entirely by Clinton. It is one of the many costs of Trumpian reality-show politics. [..]
If the past six years are any guide, Clinton will face enormous legislative obstacles, even if one would like to hope that this campaign would have a sobering effect on the Republican leadership. The purely political incentives could lead Republican congressional leaders to a new round of obstruction, the easiest way for them to appeal (or pander) to what would be at that point an angry Trump wing of the GOP.
Can anything bring us together? Clinton’s service proposal is certainly something that should. Her plan was very specific and included an important innovation.
Lucia Graves: Alicia Machado told the truth about Trump, and the backlash is terrifying
The story of Alicia Machado is many things but as it pertains to the presidential election, it is a story about the time Donald Trump smeared a woman and riled up a media circus to spread the gossip. That was back in the 1990s and mostly fodder for tabloids. Now it’s happening all over again – only as part of a presidential campaign. [..]
Until recently Trump wasn’t denying any of it – when the New York Times first asked Trump to respond to her story, he replied simply: “To that, I will plead guilty.” But on Wednesday, his campaign released talking points claiming the story was “totally baseless and unsubstantiated” and that Machado was merely attempting to “gain notoriety at the expense of Mr Trump’s name and reputation”.
The irony of course is that we can verify Machado’s story not in spite of Trump but because of him. It was he who made sure her weight-gain and his treatment of her was documented around the world; what’s changed is simply public perception.
Robert Reich: The Real Scandal Of Trump Paying No Taxes
According to the New York Times, Donald Trump declared a $916 million loss on his 1995 tax returns — which could have allowed him to legally avoid paying any federal income taxes for 18 years. [..]
Trump didn’t do anything illegal. Real estate losses are notoriously easy to create. Trump bought buildings with borrowed money. He could then deduct interest paid on that debt. On top of that, he could take depreciation deductions, even when his real estate was appreciating in value.
Presto! Trump claimed almost a billion dollars of losses that would cancel his gigantic income gains for years to come.
Bankruptcy is also easy to utilize, if you’re wealthy enough to find a good bankruptcy lawyer who can use the bankruptcy code repeatedly to shelter your fortune and avoid paying your debts. Trump has used bankruptcy to stiff his creditors at least four times.
The real scandal here is that Trump and other hugely wealthy people can get away with this, and do so all the time. It’s just another way the system has been rigged — by rich people who buy off politicians to alter tax, bankruptcy, and other laws and regulations to their advantage, just like Donald Trump has done.
Robert Kuttner: Notes For Next Time
The consensus is that Hillary Clinton won the first debate handily. Yet despite Donald Trump’s bizarre behavior during and after the debate, the polls show only a modest bounce in Clinton’s favor.
We have been here before. Trump has a bad week, Clinton takes the lead — only to have the race fall back to a near tie.
What might she do better in the next debate, October 9, which is a Town Hall format with spontaneous questions posed by an audience of undecided voters?
Seemingly, this format favors Clinton, who seems to think better on her feet than Trump when confronted with questions her advisors might not have anticipated. At the same time the town hall leaves a little less room for the sort of direct give and take at the Hofstra debate, in which Clinton was able to bait Trump into losing his initial cool and becoming steadily more reckless.
I am in a minority of commentators, in that my experience was that Clinton won the first debate, but not overwhelmingly. In the first half hour, Trump clearly had the upper hand.
There were several missed Clinton opportunities. She might have scored more decisively had she not stuck so closely to pre-scripted talking points, especially when Trump gave her huge openings for ad libs
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