Political Irony

On Friday, Trump accused Hillary Clinton of rigging the presidential debate schedule, tweeting:

There’s just one problem with that — it is a complete fabrication. “Hillary & the Dems” had nothing to do with the presidential debate schedule. While the primary debates are scheduled by the political parties, the debates for the general election were scheduled back in September 2015 (almost a year ago) by the non-partisan Commission on Presidential Debates. That was before either candidate was known, and long before the NFL schedule was revealed in April 2016.

But Trump doesn’t care about facts.

So why is Trump complaining? One answer is that he is afraid of the debates, and is looking for an excuse to skip out on them. Just like he came up with lame reasons to not release his tax returns. He reminds me of a petulant child.

Maybe he is too lazy to spend the time preparing for the debates, or he’s afraid that Clinton, the policy wonk, will make him look like a fool. Trump is probably still smarting from when people made fun of him because he didn’t know what our country’s nuclear triad meant.

Even if Trump doesn’t remember, Mark Cuban is happy to remind him. Cuban tweeted “Im going to go out on a limb and say that @realDonaldTrump will do everything possible not to debate @HillaryClinton” and “Trump’s biggest debate fear is that @HillaryClinton will make up an acronym for a non-existent agency & DJT will respond thinking it’s real”.

In addition to not knowing anything about our nuclear deterrent, Trump has also confused the Quds (the Iranian Revolutionary Guards — bad guys) with the Kurds (good guys), and wasn’t able to tell the difference between Hamas and Hezbollah, two principle adversaries of Israel.

When Trump screws up answering a question, he almost always attacks the questioner for asking “gotcha questions”. That may have worked during the Republican primary, but it is debatable whether it will play when the stakes are higher and the two candidates to be our commander in chief are facing off on national TV.

Or Trump may be afraid that if he crudely attacks a woman during a debate, like he did Carly Fiorina, it could backfire on him. During a primary debate, “the audience, especially women, erupted in cheers” and Fiorina got a “roaring ovation” when she responded to Trump’s attack.

UPDATE: Electoral Vote points out how disastrous a debate could be for Donald Trump. Just imagine what could happen if Trump gets asked one or more of the following questions:

• In a debate, you boasted of your close relationship with Jordan’s King Hussein, who had died 20 years ago. What is your relationship with his son and heir, King Abdullah?
• You have confused Virginia’s Tim Kaine with New Jersey’s Tom Kean, as you did Hamas with Hezbollah, the Quds force with al Qaida, etc. Should a president have difficulty distinguishing things with similar names?
• The most respected nonpartisan fact-checking organization finds less than one out of every six things you say to be true. In one of your books, you wrote about the advantages of exaggerating, of saying things that are not true. Why should anyone believe what you say?
• You have said that you are 100% pro-choice. You even asked your pregnant mistress if she was going to have an abortion. More recently you said that the law should punish any woman who has an abortion. What do you believe now and why?
• You have accumulated wealth by stiffing contractors, saddling investors with the burdens of your bankruptcies, manufacturing products overseas, and importing workers for your casinos. How have you demonstrated your concern for American workers?
• Why do you think Americans will be safer if Japan and South Korea develop nuclear weapons?
• Why would you like Vladimir Putin to absorb the Crimean peninsula and the Baltic countries into Russia?