The Plural of Anecdote is Not "Data;" It is WINNING

Okay, this is a little hackish, even for me, but I just don't buy the claims of the Twiddiots that Trump lost badly.

McClatchy held a focus group to watch the debate in North Carolina. Who won? Well...

Presidential debate surprise: Clinton loses ground among some voters in swing state

Kae Roberts and Jay Eardly were leaning toward Hillary Clinton before Monday night's debate.

By the end, they had both pulled away.

John Kokos and Hank Federal were undecided going in, potential Clinton backers.

By the end, they'd ruled her out.

Indeed, while polls said that Clinton won the first general election debate with Donald Trump Monday, she may not have won actual votes. And she may even have lost some, at least in the battleground state of North Carolina.

In a focus group of 21 voters from around Charlotte conducted by McClatchy and the Charlotte Observer, four who were up for grabs before the debate moved away from her by the end.

...

For the four who emerged less impressed by Clinton, it was the seeming familiarity of her proposals for the economy and national security that was a turnoff.

Roberts, who is unaffiliated with a party, wrote in her notes several times during the debate that Clinton offered "pie in the sky" ideas. By debate’s end, she had moved from leaning toward Clinton to undecided.

"The things she says she’s going to do, there’s no substance behind it," Roberts said.

And in a bar in Youngston, Pennsylvania...

Letosky entered the evening undecided in a town that is heavily Democratic in registration. Her sister and father are on opposite sides of the political aisle. Donald “Trump had the upper hand this evening,” she said, citing his command of the back-and-forth between him and Hillary Clinton.

Reed, 35, is a registered Democrat and small businessman. “By the end of the debate, Clinton never said a thing to persuade me that she had anything to offer me or my family or my community,” he said, sitting at the same bar that has boasted local icons as regulars, such as the late Fred Rogers, and Arnold Palmer, who had his own stash of PM Whiskey hidden behind newer bottles of whiskey for his regular visits.

"Have to say Trump had the edge this evening, he came out swinging but also talked about specifics on jobs and the economy," Reed said.

Reed said Clinton came across as either smug or as though she was reading her résumé, adding there was nothing on her resume that touched on his life.

One thing that has impressed me more and more over the past two years is how powerful the left is in colonizing the thoughts of all citizens -- including commentators on the right.

Andrew Breitbart used to say -- he said this the first time I met him -- that the left creates a "Matrix," as in the movie, a prison of illusion and reality distortion. When you are in the Matrix, he said excitedly, you can't see the Matrix itself.

Many commentators on the right -- I included -- are thoroughly colonized by leftist memes. How could we not be? We are constantly mesmerized by them, a thousand cult chants a day whispering at us from our electric soma boxes.

Many are looking at Hillary Clinton's answers and saying "She won on points."

Did she?

Because what did she really say? On national security and ISIS, she offered the novel thought that we must work more closely with our allies.

Really. You don't say? I'm glad someone had the guts to finally say it.

Now, those whose brains are colonized by leftist viral memes will call that a "good answer." It's the accepted Conventional Wisdom answer of the Davoisie and the Davoisie wannabes.

But is it a good answer?

Or is it just insect-talk? (Insect talk being my own word for something so trivial and brainless it doesn't even rise to the level of small-talk.)

Clinton said a lot of crap like this last night -- she said that to improve race relations, we needed to build more trust in the community in police, and more trust in police in the community.

Um, that is not an answer. That is simply a way of re-stating the problem. Her husband used to do this a lot. How do we improve education? Why I have a five-point plan. (Ticking off points on each finger.) One, improve the curriculum. Two, improve the administration. Three, improve teacher-school relations. Four, encourage children to learn. Five (now put up the thumb in a big thumb's up like Fonzie) improve education.

Um, you didn't say how we were going to improve education. You simply broke the problem into several sub-problems and said we have to solve each of the sub-problems.

We know that. And we also knew all of the sub-problems associated with the main problem of improving education.

You said exactly nothing, but took three minutes to say it.

Yet people were always impressed by this -- at least among the chattering classes -- and praised Clinton for being soooo detailed.

Hillary tried this last night with her various bubble-headed Unsweet Nothings responses.

She's not as good as it as her husband.

People have heard all these non-responsive no-answer evasions before, and I don't think they're more impressed with them on the umpteenth repetition.

I think that our current politics has been organized around the central concept of Emptiness for a long time, and I think maybe this year, a year of rejectionism, is the year when people begin to see through the Emptiness.

So I would just suggest to the Chattering Classes and the Twitterati:

Are you really judging what she said, or are you simply regurgitating the Conventional Wisdom as to what is credited as counting as an "informed answer" in these moronic affairs?

Because people less colonized by parasitic, invasive leftist memes might have seen this show differently than you did.

Just because you know the Matrix exists does not mean you can see the Matrix.

To see the Matrix, you actually have to escape the Matrix.

You have to purge the Matrix from your brain.

posted by Ace at 12:38 PM

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