Debatable debate

I watched the Clinton-Trump debate on TV and I'm feeling depressed now. To call this a "debate" stretches the meaning of the word to its limit and then some. I would characterise this as more of a playground spat, a word-salad of name calling, childish interruption and hyperbole, a rich vein of sound-bite babble. In summary, plum pickings for those simply watching to play bullshit-bingo.

Trump didn't actually complete a whole sentence, he spoke in the most annoying (and unintelligible) style ever imaginable, it was like a stream of chopped-up, disconnected consciousness just spewing out into the microphone devoid of any cohesion or sense. Unfortunately for Clinton, Trump was so ridiculously illogical and incoherent that he rendered reasonable argument almost impossible; you can't argue (sensibly) with someone who has no structure, content or logic on their side, and worse still, when HC attempted to point out the obvious fallacies it made her look arrogant and/or smug.

Trump would say something asinine like "every country in the world is ripping us (USA) off" and depressingly I sensed that somehow he scored a point with that. After all, how could you respond to something as infantile as that without coming across as patronising? The whole thing quickly descended into a pointless back and forth of "yes it is", "no it isn't" sniping, a place from where the only winner becomes the person who's most cocky, belligerent and bullying (which is clearly Trump) I'm left hoping that rational, bully-hating Americans turn out like they've never turned out before, Hillary is not perfect by any means but we cannot have this dangerous buffoon in charge of the free-world, we could lose everything.

For the avoidance of doubt, here is the final tally of lies, half-truths and "pants-on-fire" statements made during the campaigning so far..