If you haven't seen Monday night's Presidential Debate, I'm not sure where you have been hiding out. No matter whether you are for Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, or considering a vote for Jill Stein or Gary Johnson, everyone was watching last night.
I was live streaming the debate, and at the same time on social media, watching the constant commentary coming in. I had a friend at a yoga conference watching the debate on her Kindle, I had a friend that came prepared to the debate with a feast of appetizers and drinks, and another friend of mine was playing a drinking game where every time Donald Trump interrupted Hillary, she took a drink (I'm sure she was late to work on Tuesday). I went on Snapchat, and a friend of mine who goes to Emerson College was there at her school watching the debate unfold, complete with a snap or two of her thoughts on the debate, one of which, she quietly mouthed the words "What the -----" ...you can guess the rest. Last night at some point, I think we all said those same words. I happened to notice that the Campaign for Donald Trump, even purchased a Snap filter for the event. I made sure not to use that one. It's a trick, he's trying to get your endorsement!
Run!
Last night's debate had the largest viewing audience of any political debate in history to date!
According to an article on al.com:
"The first in a series of three presidential debates brought in about 70-80 million viewers. With cable and online streaming factored in – and those numbers will be coming in throughout the day – the Clinton/Trump showdown will have attracted the largest viewing audience of any political debate in history."
Well... I'll be damned...
People are finally paying attention! too bad it took us this long!
This afternoon, we had a viewing party at my community college. I have to be honest, I wasn't expecting many students to turn out. However, I was wrong!
Students from government, history, and criminal justice classes banded together along with people who were just interested in this election and politics in general and watched the debate play out. This worked well for a lot of us who could not watch it at home, either because of our work schedule or being too committed to do our homework. Professor Ronald Weisberger and Professor Jane Warren Esq. , facilitated the meeting and immediately following the debate, fielded questions from us.
"How many of you that supported Hillary, are still supporting Hillary?" Says Professor Warren.
A sea of hands went up.
How many of you that support Donald Trump, are still supporting him?" four hands went up. In the middle were rows of students who did not raise their hand for either candidate.
As we walked outside, we were asked to give our opinion by a reporter from FRCMedia. "Do you feel after watching that debate, your opinion may have been swayed a bit?" asked the reporter.
I responded, "I will forever be bitter over the fact that Bernie Sanders did not win the Democratic nomination. As a full-time college student with a son and multiple jobs, I still made the effort to get up off my butt and go out and phone bank, canvas door to door, attend rallies and debate watch parties, write articles, and hold signs with my son. This was also the first presidential debate, where I donated money not once but twice to Bernie Sanders, and I do not have much money to begin with, but that is how much I believed in him. However, taking all of that into account, I know for sure that I WILL NOT BE VOTING FOR TRUMP. My vote was not swayed in any way. If anything, I realized just how much of a pompous ass Donald Trump really is.
I sat there in the cold auditorium in complete awe that this jackass could really be our president. Hillary starts to talk, and he just starts to talk over her and shout out WRONG!
I am hoping that everyone is paying attention here and realizes the importance of this election, and after finding out that this debate was the most watched political debate to date, I have high hopes that America will make the right choice!
I don't know about anyone else, but I know that I cringe at the thought of having a president as rude, disrespectful, and unintelligent as him. People are blinded by the fact that he has money as if they will get a share of his money when he can't even be bothered to pay his federal taxes or the fact that he has had a reality TV show, where he is just as much of a pompous ass there as he was on the stage last night.
C'mon America! We can do better than this!!!