dpowell3543 (PRO)First off, I would like to thank my opponent for accepting this debate and I look forward to discussing this topic with them.
Section 1: What makes Donald J. Trump a good President?
Now I know some readers may think:
"How can Donald Trump be a good President?! He's a racist, sexist, xenophobic pig who's going to destroy us all."
Well that just isn't the case and we'll get onto how that's not true a little later.
In the section, I shall point out some of the things that President Trump has done during his time in office and then go further into those actions in the following sections.
In his time as President, Donald Trump has boosted the economy greatly, helped the black community, moved the U.S embassy to Jerusalem, ended the war with North Korea, worked towards bettering healthcare for everyone and much, much more. Unfortunately, I don't believe I have the time nor space to discuss everything he's done and I'm sure my opponent wouldn't want to read all of that anyway...
Jokes aside, let's get on with the next section.
Section 2: President Trump helps the Economy!
Now to start this section off, I, hopefully much like everyone else, am aware that the President in no way actually helps the economy, though they can make policies that can either help or damage it. President Trump has, according to numerous news articles, deregulated some areas in the economy, enacted several pro-business policies that have really helped our GDP growth, "created lots of jobs" and enacted a major tax reform. The tax reform will be our point for this section.
While President Obama made no efforts to help Americans and tried to implement stricter, higher taxes, in the year 2017 President Trump introduced and passed the "Tax Cuts and Jobs Act". This bill had a lot of mixed feelings from both sides and for good reason. Much like most economic theories, this policy sounds really good on paper, but we've yet to see if it's really good or not. The reason I bring up this policy is because it's only part of his plan.
This policy performs a large tax cut for individuals, but a bigger one for corporations and the wealthy. Now, I'd like to point out before everyone gets upset, that at the time the presented article (below this paragraph) was written, President Trump and his administration have begun discussing another policy that ought to help the American people. On that note, what gives this first policy the potential to be good really depends. Sure, according to the policy, a family of 4 earning the median wage could get up to $2,000 back in their pockets but that's not the point. Though some tax cuts can be really bad, they also have the potential to be good. Tax cuts remove some of the money from the government and give it back to the people and corporations. What's good about that? A lot. Tax cuts not only bring money back into the economy, effectively giving it a boost, it also brings back a lot of jobs. Corporations and other companies may not hire many people because of high taxation preventing them from affording to pay their employees, especially in small businesses. Tax cuts however, give them the money they need to pay more people, which can motivate them to be willing to hire more people, therefore creating more jobs. Now, I'll save my opponent the trouble of having to create an argument about this point and save both of us the trouble of refuting it. As I stated before, this is just an economic theory. Only time will tell if it's true or not.
https://www.investopedia.com/taxes/trumps-tax-reform-plan-explained/
https://www.thebalance.com/tax-cuts-definition-types-and-how-they-work-3306328
Section 3: The Black Community.
Now I know that I said that he's "helped" the community. If anyone here likes to the President for the record low of the black unemployment rate, you could say that he has. But more so, he's been trying to improve relations with the community. Doing things such as designating Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthplace a national historic park and designated Camp Nelson a national monument to honor black soldiers in the Civil War. Other than that, he has been getting some help due to his relations with Kanye West, but unfortunately it's not much. Given what I have said and what's been all over the news, it may seem like this point is invalid. But, it's the fact that he's trying to better the relations between himself and the black community is what makes him a good President.
https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/mlk-50/trump-designates-martin-luther-king-jr-birthplace-national-park-n836221
https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/civil-war-era-site-camp-nelson-designated-national-monument
https://www.thewrap.com/black-male-support-trump-doubles-kanye-west/
Section 4: Moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem.
This is pretty self explanatory. After 4 or so Presidents have promised to do this and failed, President Trump actually kept it and succeeded.
https://dailycaller.com/2017/12/06/flashback-all-the-times-past-presidents-promised-to-move-us-embassy-to-jerusalem/
Section 5: Ending the war with North Korea.
This is another self explanatory section. After 68 years, 65 of which were under a cease fire, the war is finally officially over thanks to President Trump and his meeting with Kim Jong-Un.
Section 6: President Trump is pushing to make health care more affordable for everyone.
Unlike the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), which was designed to increase the prices of insurance and a lot of money from Americans, President Donald J. Trump is doing his best to make insurance affordable for everyone. His latest endeavor on this was a new rule that increased the amount of time that people can be covered by short-term insurance as well as making them more appealing and cheaper than Obamacare. He is also pushing for insurance companies to cover individuals who have pre-existing conditions which has been a major issue for a lot of Americans.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/08/01/634539877/under-new-rules-cheaper-short-term-health-care-plans-now-last-up-to-three-years
I do believe this should be it for now. I look forward to reading my opponent's arguments then refuting them. Again I would like to thank my opponent for accepting this debate and I wish them luck.
Return To Top | Posted:
2018-12-01 09:48:23
| Speak Round
Johannes (CON)Hello everyone, I would like to thank PRO first of all for their courtesy and participation thus far in this debate.
I think it should be evident that my case lies mainly in refuting what PRO claims to be good about President Trump, thus that will be the main portion of my argument.
To address your first opening point/joke about, 'How can Donald Trump be a good president when he's a racist, sexist, xenophobe', etc. etc. Whether or not Trump truly is these things is an argument about semantics but certainly, you will agree that Trump has said some pretty controversial stuff regarding these sorts of things that are obviously being interpreted by some as racist, sexist, xenophobic, etc. (or else he wouldn't be consistently called racist, sexist, xenophobic, etc. in the first place). To bring up specific examples: on his travel ban (which is supposed to be about terrorism), he specifically mentioned Muslims on numerous occasions (and also prohibited the wrong countries); he remarked that the Mexican judge who presided the Trump University case couldn't properly do his job because he was Mexican; and in regards to Trump and the African-American community, I want to get more in depth on this later, but let's just for now agree that Trump is not receiving the best reviews from the African-American community at the moment.
I would agree that Trump has helped the economy in the ways that you mentioned, upper class and small businesses. The problem with this is that most people are not upper class or a small business. People with four kids who are making $25,000 a year don't care about GDP growth. The problem with trying to measure success by these statistics that are seemingly and axiomatically reflecting a good is that when you analyze them empirically they're really not helping the people that need it most. When you're walking down the street you should give your $5 to the homeless man, not the guy with a Ferrari. Now, I don't think there's anything wrong with small businesses and wealthier people increasing their success but I think it would be a lot better if we saw that growth in the lower class. The definition of good is 'to be desired or approved of'. So when you say that Trump is a good president you've really made the entire debate subjective, meaning, is Trump 'good' for me? In that, has what Trump has done in office benefitted me or not? For most people, this will be a no.
In regards to Trump and the Black community, I hate to say it like this -- but you're just wrong. First, let's just assume for a second that Trump is responsible for the record low 6% black unemployment rate. The problem with this statistic is that the BLS doesn't count people who aren't actively and currently seeking a job as well as incarcerated persons. So, you're missing out on enough people here to make this statistic negligible. In regards to the MLK historic park and Nelson national monument, these are nice and all but they are really just little anecdotes that Trump wants to be able to bring up when he gets called racist. I think you have to go a long way to argue that making MLK's birthplace a historic park and making Camp Nelson a national monument actually helped the black community. It may be nice for them, some of them might appreciate it, but it's kind of like you telling someone to 'Have a nice day'. Obviously, it was kind of you to say that, but it didn't really do anything for them. For the Kanye West thing, I think what you're concerned with here is the African-American perception of Trump and that because he has good relations with Kanye West, he's trying to improve those relations. I would actually agree that that is a good thing he's doing, I think he's also challenging the idea that all black people have to be liberal but ironically, and I disagree with this, a lot of black people have denounced and went as far as to exile Kanye from the 'black community'.
Obviously, Trump did indeed move the US embassy into Jerusalem, but I think you need to clarify why that's good first before you use it as an argument.
I think I will concede that Trump is probably responsible for some good in regards to ending the war with North Korea, but you could also argue that he was responsible for a lot of that war and that him ending it was really just taking responsibilities for his actions. Also, on an international level, most people would agree that Trump has done more harm than good, for example, China, the Middle East, etc.
I don't really agree that Trump is trying to make healthcare more affordable, the only examples you brought up had nothing to do with affordability. Affordable healthcare would be much socialized (I'm not sure if this is even a word but like socialistic healthcare -- like Canada), Trump wants healthcare to be state-legislated which is just the opposite. I think the changes you brought up regarding insurance are good but they're, again, not really addressing what is needed. Trump is like a really, unintentionally, passive-aggressive restaurant who just keeps serving you kind of what you asked for but worse. For example, you ask for chicken marinara, you get a raw breast -- you ask for more money for the poor, you get it for the rich.
To advance some arguments of my own, as I already stated earlier, the definition of good is 'to be desired or approved of'. If you want to talk about Trump being a good president you need to make a distinguishment between his character/rhetoric and his policy. I think you would concede there is pretty much nothing redeemable about Trump's character and speech so what you are concerned with is policy. So I will just ask this question, do you think most people approve of Trump's policies so far?
Also, Trump has flip-flopped a lot of things that we're previously bipartisan. For example, everyone used to hate Russia -- now Trump seems to be cozying up with Vladamir Putin. The same is true for tariffs, Trump now wants tariffs on imported goods from China so we can save our manufacturing. There is a lot of stuff like this not to mention the million things he wants state legislated, like common core, that would be an absolute disaster for most people in the country.
Overall, I think if you're an above average person making a decent amount of money who is concerned with the impending threat of Islam on America -- Trump has been a great president for you. But, if you're not very sound socio-economically and you're not very concerned with Islam, it's hard to say that Trump has been good.
Thanks again and I look forward to your response.
Return To Top | Posted:
2018-12-01 18:15:34
| Speak Rounddpowell3543 (PRO)I'd like to thank my opponent for his responses.
In this round, I shall respond to my opponent's responses.
Section 1:
Let's start off with the Jerusalem part of my argument. As I stated in the first round, he, like his predecessors promised to do this, but unlike them, he actually did it. What I was going for by stating this makes him a good president, is that he actually keeps his promises. The issue a lot of people have with presidents in the past is that they all promise these great things, but never own up to, or keep those promises. President Trump on the other hand, has kept most of his promises thus far, including the Jerusalem promise. A good president would keep their promises and advance America in any field they can. If I recall correctly, moving the embassy to Jerusalem, a city known for it's religious importance, was an advancement for the religious community.
On the note of your point on how Trump may be a good president for certain groups or individuals. I understand what you're saying and agree to an extent. Naturally, being a business man himself and knowing their struggles, he would businesses a lot. But that doesn't necessarily mean that he won't at least try to help the other people. As I have stated, him and his Cabinet are still in the process of working out another bill that may help the American people. Though, naturally the President can't help everybody. Everyone's success is dependent on the individual themselves and whether or not they're willing to put in the work to accomplish their goals. I will discus this more in the next section. At the end of the day though, all I'm saying is that you can't make everyone happy, so do the best that you can.
Section 2:
Now back to what I started to discuss in the last section. The success of an individual in on themselves. They must put in the work to accomplish their goals. This is true for everyone, no matter where you come from. In no way can a President be the cause of their success, but a good president would create policies that in some way help those individuals achieve their goal. But, it's mostly the states responsibility to create these policies.
In their response, my opponent stated that state legislating everything is a bad thing. But that can't be necessarily be true. The original plans for America, were to let the states be in full control of themselves. In other words, the Federal government, at no point, was supposed to be able to control the states themselves. The Federal government's original purpose was to enforce the Constitution and make sure that the states' governments didn't abuse their power. If we know anything about American history, we can clearly see that this vision was never realized. On the note of President Trump leaving insurance policies up for the states to decide, I'd like to state that President Trump is pushing for the original vision of the United States to be realized. Unfortunately, there isn't enough evidence just yet to prove whether or not he is. These types of things are typically better analyzed at the end of a President's term. The point I'm making though is that we can't say if states being in charge of their people's insurance other fields is a bad thing, because the federal government has run everything for too long. We never got to see the states actually run themselves.
Section 3:
In this section I will touch back up on the black community.
* As I stated in my arguments, I never credited President Trump for the record low of the black unemployment rate, in fact I specifically stated that the President, in no way, can affect those numbers. That part of the argument was my attempt at arguing from the point of view of someone who does credit President Trump for those numbers. On the note of those statistics though. Of course the people retrieving those numbers aren't going to consider anyone currently in prison. This is easily dismissed by the fact that people in prison can't necessarily hold a job, let alone contribute anything to the economy. Sure, there are some prisons that have their inmates perform paid labor, but they're not paid much and there's no guarantee that they're even able to spend the money they make. If they do, we could easily argue that prisons have their own economy separate from the country and state they're in. But this is an argument for another debate. We're getting off topic here and I apologize for that.
* I am fully aware that Kanye West has been denounced by the black community. Unfortunately this is what happens to black folks who "leave the Democrat plantation" and support Republicans. And yes, those National areas Trump designated could be seen as an attempt to prove that he's not racist like everyone claims he is, but I digress. The point of the argument was that he's trying to better his relations with the black community. This can easily cause people to view him as a "good president" because he realizes that, even though the black community makes up a small percentage in the U.S., we need everyone working together to help progress America into the future. George Washington's warning about parties is extremely valid here. In a way, President Trump is pushing to stop the parties and get everyone working under the same symbol. The red, white and blue. This could easily make him a good President. It would also make him the first President to unite the country. Another way he's doing this is warning people about main stream media, which has proven to be extremely biased and has turned away from reporting news. President Trump has pretty much told Americans that they need to start thinking for themselves and figure out what they believe in, not to let the T.V. tell you what you should believe.
Section 4:
Now we'll touch up on North Korea again. My opponent stated that Trump can be blamed for a lot of happenings in the war. This is easily debunked. Despite being under a cease fire, North Korea still attempted to launch missiles and Nuclear weapons at the U.S., Japan and South Korea long before Trump took office. If we're going to blame Trump for making it worse, we should also blame every President that's been in office since the war started. I will acknowledge the fact that Trump did make threats towards North Korea, but it wasn't the kind of threat that the media would have us believe. His threats pretty much consisted of, "if you attack us, we will retaliate". In other words, President Trump pretty much stated that he will defend the country should North Korea actually manage to attack U.S. soil. Unlike former President Obama who has been quoted making plans to attack North Korea.
Section 5:
This will be a brief section to discuss the tariffs on Chinese imports and Trump being all buddy, buddy with Russia.
*First off, Trump stated that he wanted to bring American made products back. An easy argument for why this would be a good thing is simply, making our own products would be more beneficial for the economy than constantly importing products from other countries. How can this be beneficial? Keeping our money circulating in our own economy is one thing. Jobs is another. We'll need people to make these products. It also opens opportunities for small business to get foot hold, maybe a small one, but a foot hold just the same. Not to mention, we could export those products to other countries, which would bring in more money. Putting a tariff on foreign goods would theoretically motivate American businesses to sell American made products.
* I'm going to make this sub-point based on the assumption that my opponent believes the Russian collusion theory and that Trump and Putin are very good friends. On the note of the Russian Collusion theory, this has been proven false time and time again thanks to the Mueller investigation. This has already been debunked so many times that using it as an argument is kind of pointless at this point. Don't get me wrong, had this been a couple years ago and relevant, I'd happily debate that topic, though in another debate. Anyway. We can't really say that Trump and Putin are good friends, though I can see why people would think they are. They both have very similar ideals, with Putin being Russia first and Trump being America first and they both have a mutual desire to get rid of ISIS, a goal that both have agreed to work towards together. In this sense, they have a mutual respect for each other. But they're relationship is not different than that of any other world leaders. It still has it's rough spots. Russian fighter jets keep flying extremely close to our air craft and President Trump did send some troops to Ukraine in spite of Putin demanding him to stay out of it. I don't know about everyone else, but this doesn't seem that like as glorious of a friendship as the media claim.
Section 6:
I will admit that Trump has said some very controversial things. But that's what a lot of people like about him. He's against political correctness. Political correctness at it's core is a Fascist philosophy that aims to silence anyone who disagrees with whoever's using it. Political correctness has irritated a lot of people over the years and a lot of us find it to be a relief to see someone who would stand against it, despite being constantly attacked for it.
Section 7:
This will be on the whole "Muslim ban" argument. My opponent stated that Trump said Muslim several times throughout getting that ban passed and claimed that he targeted the wrong countries. These arguments are easily debunked. Yes, President Trump did say "Muslim", but there's a good reason for that. He was banning travel from countries that have heavy ISIS presence. ISIS is an extremist terrorist group of Muslims. The countries President Trump targeted, had been having numerous ISIS attacks at the time, so to keep the American people safe, he banned travel from those countries so the insurgents couldn't sneak their way in. It's not because he's xenophobic. If he was xenophobic, he wouldn't let anyone in the country period. A good question to ask would be. Would a xenophobe really be pro legal immigration? A xenophobe, is someone who fears, or dislikes people from other countries. Trump has shown no signs of this. Not in his travel ban, not in his immigration policies. Speaking of which, let's get into his immigration policies. A lot of people will claim that Trump is a "bad president" because he wants to deport all "undocumented immigrants" (or more properly, illegal immigrants). This isn't because he hates or fears them, it's because they broke a law. Technically, him deporting illegal immigrants is just him doing his job. It's the President's job as the Head of State to enforce the laws that Congress creates. In fact, the law in question being enforced is 8 U.S. Article #1325- Improper Entry by Alien. So at the end of the day, President Trump is being called a racist xenophobe for enforcing a law that congress created a long time ago.
One more thing I'd like to point out is the hypocrisy of the xenophobia accusation towards President Trump. Does anyone else find it odd that the same people who claim Trump is a xenophobe, also accuse him of being good friends with Putin, a person from a different country? I sure do.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1325
Section 8:
My opponent, in a way, brought up approval ratings. Well in all fairness, we can't necessarily use approval ratings to prove that a President is good because every president is going to have an equal if not greater disapproval rating as you'll see in the charts provided in the link below. Now I also want to touch up on my opponent's claim that my arguments are subjective. Allow me to better explain why I chose the arguments I did. I'm basing whether or not Trump is a good President based off of his accomplishments. I believe that what determines whether or not a President is actually good, depends on what they have accomplished during their time in office and whether or not they benefitted the American people in some way rather than they're character. They're personality doesn't really affect their ability to do their job all that much. I hope my opponent now understand the reason I discussed Trump achievements and goals rather than who he is as a person.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/
I look forward to reading my opponent's response and I apologize for not being more clear in the beginning of the debate.
Return To Top | Posted:
2018-12-05 09:09:06
| Speak RoundJohannes (CON)Hello again. Thanks again to my opponent for their well thought out rebuttal. I look forward to addressing your responses, and at the end, putting forth some more arguments of my own.
I think it makes the most sense for me to begin by responding to the rebuttals point-by-point.
Rebuttals:
To address your first set of rebuttals(Section 1), I would agree that, in the general sense, following through on promises is something that is good. However, I think your point here about the moving of the US Embassy into Jerusalem is a misused argument. I don't think it's fair to paint the situation like Trump is the one that finally kept his promise, which all the other recent presidents couldn't do. These other presidents contributed too, there is a lot that goes behind moving an embassy. To use another analogy, let's say you're trying to push an immensely heavy box across a line about four feet away. Let's say that one person is able to push it halfway and then another person comes along and pushes it to about the three-foot mark. Now, let's say Trump comes along and pushes the box the last foot. Certainly, it would be unfair to credit solely credit Trump for pushing the box over the line. My point with this analogy is that this is what you're seemingly doing here by crediting Trump as the sole reason for the moving of the US Embassy into Jerusalem. Just because the embassy was physically moved into Jerusalem under Trump doesn't mean it's about him 'keeping all his promises unlike the other presidents', it's a little bit more complex than that. Also, in round 1, I asked you why it's good that he moved the embassy in the first place. Your response was that since Jerusalem is inherently a region rich with religious history and community, the embassy advances that richness. This kind of coincides with my over-arching, central, theme that Trump really only helps the kind of people that he himself is: religious, wealthy, etc.. This whole embassy point really isn't even remotely significant but I just have a problem with appropriating this to Trump being a president who 'keeps his promises' as opposed to other recent presidents. Also, near the end of your argument, you mention that you don't want to discuss Trump's character but this seems to be a direct praise of Trump's character by saying that he is a person who can keep a promise.
To address your second point in Section 1, can you imagine if every president came into office under the impression they can only help one or two group's of people and just to 'do the best they can'. Not only is this theoretically wrong, because you should be able to help everyone--at least to an extent, but it's also empirically and demonstrably wrong. If Trump is doing the 'best he can' then surely we wouldn't be able to really think of much else that Trump could feasibly do, I mean, after all, he is the president. Just about anything he wants to be done bad enough, he can make happen. However, I'm pretty sure just about anyone could think of at least five or so things that Trump could do that would be beneficial right now, so I would dispute the claim that he is 'doing the best he can' and that that's 'all he can do'.
Now, let's discuss your first point in Section 2 (which you also hinted at near the end of Section 1) regarding the claim that 'the success of the individual is on themselves'. You claim that, at the end of the day, it really comes down to the individual to determine whether or not they're going to be successful - it's all about hard work. I agree with the concept and base idea of this, that with enough hard work you can really overcome nearly any obstacle. However, I shouldn't need to explain to you why this isn't a realistic expectation. If everyone worked as hard as they could so that they could overcome whatever extenuating problems or circumstances they're facing then those problems wouldn't exist. So, it's unfair to just say that people who aren't successful should just work harder. Also, it's not completely up to hard work in the first place. Things such as the socioeconomic status, family, city, and school you're born into are all extremely significant factors in determining success. But, I agree with your point that the president can and should implement policies to try to help these circumstances and the people in them. However, you then immediately go on to say that this is mainly the duty of the state to implement these policies, essentially conceding that Trump has done basically nothing to help people from these more 'unprivileged' (if you will) circumstances. This again relates back to my major, central, point that Trump seemingly, at least based off of his policy, doesn't care about people from lower socioeconomic statuses, he only serves a select group of people, who, in general, support him and whose interests coincide with his own.
To respond to your point about state legislation, I never said that state legislation was inherently bad. I didn't even say that state legislated insurance would be bad. I specifically said that a number of things that Trump wants now to be state-legislated, such as common core, were previously bi-partisanly agreed upon to be federally regulated. I am also claiming that many of the things Trump wants to be state-legislated, such as common core, would be a huge disaster for the main groups of people it would affect. My point here is that Trump is causing a lot of political discourse in areas where it isn't needed. To briefly touch on a point you make later in your argument, that Trump is bringing about unity in the country, this is one direct example of how Trump is doing exactly the opposite, but there are many many more.
In response to your clarifications about Trump and the African-American community (Section 3), I don't think you quite understand how the statistics work. My point in mentioning that the BLS statistic was flawed because they don't count incarcerated persons wasn't that incarcerated persons can somehow contribute to the economy from prison. My point was that, because they're incarcerated, we can't know whether or not they held a job prior to their incarceration, thus skewing the statistic as a whole (especially when you take into account just how many black people are incarcerated). Because of this, we need to be skeptical of this statistic of a 6% black unemployment rate.
In regards to your point about Trump being friendly with Kanye West to improve his relations and perceptions with the African-American community, I agree that this is productive for him, despite the African-American community being a vast minority in the country. However, to extrapolate this to Trump trying to bridge the breach between the two parties is absurd. Trump has talked so much about what he thinks is wrong with the Democratic Party, how their hypocritical, wrong, and want to do all these things that would mess up the country. Whether or not Trump is justified in these claims is another topic, but certainly, if he were trying to bridge the differences between them, he wouldn't make these claims against the Democratic Party and many of its members. Also, to bring this back to the bipartisan argument, if that point isn't enough, if Trump wanted a politically united America, he wouldn't keep making settled, agreed upon, bipartisan issues, into political discourse, meaning, he wouldn't keep changing bipartisan policies in such a way that they are now divided, like most other things, between Republicans and Democrats. Overall, I think even you will agree that this is a pretty extreme claim to make that Trump is trying to bring about unity between the two parties, you would have to go a very long way to even make that argument. Also, another point you brought up here in support of your assertion that Trump is trying to bring about unity was that Trump doesn't like fake news and wants people to think critically instead of just believing everything they hear, regardless of your political stance. I agree that it's good to think critically, but I don't think this in any way brings about unity, I think it does the opposite actually when he calls out specifically leftist news organizations, such as CNN, over and over again and refers to them as 'fake news'. Whether these news organizations are 'fake news' or not really doesn't matter, the point is he certainly isn't trying to bring about unity through his criticism of media.
To respond to your point about Trump and North Korea, I didn't say that Trump was that sole perpetrator of the North Korean conflict. I, however, was arguing that he certainly made things worse and by putting an end to the conflict, he was really just taking responsibility for his own actions. Also, to defend this point more, Trump didn't just say that if North Korea attacks, so will he in self-defense, that's ridiculous. He called Kim Jong Un a madman, maniac and lunatic on multiple occasions, he openly discussed working with South Korea against North Korea numerous times, he noted how North Korea is reliant on China's economy and how China should cut them off, among many other numerous things. So, certainly, it's not fair to just say that Trump was just saying that he would act in self-defense, he said much more than that. Thus, I think I have supported my point once again that although Trump ending the North Korean conflict was a good thing, it was him that accelerated the conflict in the first place. Also, all these things that Trump has said in regards to North Korea are all personal tweets which you can look up if you don't believe me, mainly from 2017 before the conflict resolution.
To address more of your responses on Trump's reversal of previously bipartisan topics, my point about import tariffs wasn't that they were bad,(although if you want to get into that they will certainly come with an increased tax rate which will inevitably lead to a decrease in importation altogether and thus a loss of not only money but material/product as well) my point was that Trump keeps making bipartisan issues non-bipartisan. It should be self-evident why this is problematic. As a society, we always want to be moving forward. But, when you have a president who keeps going back in time, regressing, to flip-flop all these issues that we've come to agree on -- you have a problem. On the topic of Trump being 'all buddy-buddy' with Russia and Vladimir Putin, to begin, I'm indifferent on whether or not there was collusion in the election. And I believe even if there was collusion, it was very minor and probably wouldn't have affected the outcome anyway. But to say that this is some myth that has been disproven is false, if it had been disproven then I don't think so many people would believe it or be indifferent. Also, I agree that Trump has been slightly critical of Russia through certain policies, such as arming Ukraine -- which President Obama refused to do. However, in his rhetoric, he has praised Vladimir Putin numerous times, complimented him, his policies, his beliefs etc., etc. Again though, by trying to analyze these things like whether there was Russian collusion in the election or not, or whether or not tariffs would be good or bad for America shows me that you're missing my whole point about the bipartisan thing. The policies are pretty much irrelevant to this point, what I'm concerned with is the political discourse and division on issues that were previously resolved and should've stayed resolved. It is directly and clearly regressive when you have a president who keeps going back on policies that have already been agreed upon, that was my point.
In regards to your point about Trump and his controversial speaking, you say that this is what people like about him, clearly, this is just false. This is precisely what most people hate about him. If you ask most people, even Trump supporters, for something they don't like about Trump they will almost certainly give you one of Trump's many controversial statements, such as that Mexico is sending crime, drugs, and rape, or that the Mexican judge who presided over the Trump University case was directly incapable of performing his job correctly because of his Mexican heritage, and many more. Also, I agree that political correctness is stupid but I don't think that Trump, by saying these things, is trying to challenge political correctness. If he was, I think he would incorporate it when he's making these controversial statements. However, he doesn't because these statements are in regards to certain groups of people in regards to certain policies, not in regards to challenging the social stigma of political correctness.
To address your defense against Trump being xenophobic, to start, I never even said he was xenophobic, I just said he's certainly said some stuff that seems xenophobic. However, you did address my claims about Trump's Muslim travel ban. You argue that Trump only said Muslim because we are talking about ISIS, which is a movement based in the Middle East that is, at the core, Islamic. However, the way in which you word things is very powerful. If Trump would've said the problem was with radical jihadism, not Muslims, then there would've been no problem -- but Trump didn't say that, he said Muslims. You also claim that if Trump was xenophobic he wouldn't be Pro-Legal immigration. Again, I never said Trump was xenophobic -- I think even if he was he wouldn't be Anti-Legal immigration, that would make him seem insane and he never would've gotten elected in the first place if he believed that. Also, it's impossible to be a capitalist and not want at least some immigration, so that point doesn't really work as a justification for Trump not being xenophobic. Also, I never said him wanting to deport illegal immigrants makes him xenophobic, that would be ridiculous. I said the way he has described illegal immigrants is clearly controversial and is being characterized by some as xenophobic. You also make the point that it is hypocritical to accuse Trump of both being xenophobic and 'good friends' with Vladimir Putin. Again, this point doesn't really work. Xenophobia is predicated off of stereotypes you perceive as true from people other countries. First of all, it doesn't have to be absolute. Meaning, even if I did think Trump was xenophobic I would think it only in regards to places like Mexico and the Middle East, not to places like Northern and Western Europe. Also, since Xenophobia is based on prejudice and stereotypes, and since Trump personally knows Putin, it would be impossible for him to be xenophobic of him, that wouldn't even make sense. So, I don't think that claim of hypocrisy you're trying to make works.
To address your point, about Trump's approval ratings, my point wasn't that probably a majority of people don't like Trump. My point was that the vast majority of people don't like Trump, even most of the people that voted for him only voted for him because he was the lesser of two evils. I agree that most presidents can probably really only hope to break even with approval ratings, unless your someone like Abraham Lincoln, but I don't think Trump is anywhere near breaking even. In fact, I'm pretty comfortable making the estimate that only about 20% of the population would classify Trump as a good president.
In response to your final rebuttal in regards to my claims that many of your arguments are subjective, you say that you are basing whether or not Trump is a good president upon his accomplishments. This is still subjective. If your basing it off of accomplishments, where is the line? What accomplishments are important for being a good president and why, what makes one accomplishment better than another and how many do you need to be a good president? If you do a certain amount of bad things do those diminish from your accomplishments and your status as a 'good President'? Also, this gets even more subjective because what you might define as an accomplishment for Trump, someone else might define as a flaw. My criticism here isn't that a lot of what you said is only subjectively true, it's rather that you should see what you might define as good might be defined as bad for another person. Thus, when you can really only go off of subjective truths, and the majority of that subjectiveness doesn't view Trump as good, that works against your own argument.
Own Arguments:
Now, to advance some of my own arguments, I think the fact that you have fallen into the trap of simply rebutting my arguments merits to my argument that, simply, Trump is not a good president. If Trump was a good president, you should be practically overflowing with statistical data, effects, and reasoning for it. However, in this second round, you really have only defended the claims I've made against him. This shows to me that the arguments you put forth in the first round were just about all you could think of that was good about Trump. I'm sure next round, however, with this said, you will certainly advance some more arguments but just take into consideration that what I just said should be self-evident.
Also, in a lot of your arguments, you say we will have to wait and see the effects before judging the policy -- this is not a substantive argument. We cannot go off of policies that are debatably good or bad and proclaim them as one or the other before we are able to observe the effects. I think your case lies based off of what Trump has already done, and the effects visible from that -- not what he is planning to do.
Finally, to bring it back to a major point I made in round 1, that Trump has really only benefitted a small, wealthy, minority in America. I still stand by this statement and the claim that, as President, you should want to benefit those most in need, regardless of whether they stand with you politically or not. Trump has done essentially nothing for the lower or even middle class since his inauguration which I think just serves to the idea to why so many people think that he simply just isn't a good president, and that he only benefits the type of people that he, himself, is.
Nevertheless, I appreciate your participation in this debate so far, I think it has been quite productive. I look forward to your response in Round 3.
Vote CON!
Return To Top | Posted:
2018-12-05 13:49:02
| Speak Rounddpowell3543 (PRO)Section 1:
Throughout my opponent's last arguments, he kept bringing up how Trump is getting into bipartisan issues that don't need to be fixed. I'd like to point out, that they do. All these issues do need to be changed. Things like insurance, taxes, even common core, something that has just been declared a failure by the states and it's creator himself, needs to be changed. Many people for the last decade have been calling for tax reform, cheaper insurance, better education system, etc. He's answering the people's call and doing his best to give them what they want. Also, I'd like to point out that the President can't do everything he could ever really want to do. He can try to get done everything he wants, but Congress at the end of the day, has the say so on whether or not he actually can. Outside of executive orders, the President's policies won't, and can't go through without the approval of Congress.
Section 2:
President Trump keeping his promises isn't necessarily part of his character. Anyone, no matter their personality, can keep their promises. It's just extremely uncommon for a President to do so. I'm also very aware that just because Trump promised to move it and kept the promise, doesn't mean he's the only one who made any progress. I'd agree if that were the case. The other Presidents did promise to move it to Jerusalem, but none of them made any attempts to do so. I'm also aware that it would take a lot of work and negotiation to accomplish something like this. So does a lot of things these days. I'm sure everyone can relate. I'm sure my opponent and other people may argue that Trump did this to appease the Christian community which does make up 65% of the American populace. However, Jerusalem is also important for the Catholics, Muslims and Jews which make up the other 45%. So this could easily be for almost every religious group outside of those that have originated elsewhere, such as Buddhism. Other than that though, keeping a promise is an act, not necessarily a character trait.
Section 3:
This section will return to North Korea. In all fairness, most people think Kim Jong-Un is a madman. He has been actively trying to nuke the United States for years. Most people that could be deemed "sane" wouldn't do that. On the other note about the relation between China and North Korea, President Trump isn't wrong. China is NK's closest ally and they've done a lot of trading. Now, I don't know much about economics, let alone NK's economy, but I do think that North Korea's economic state would be a lot worse if it wasn't for China.
Section 4:
In my opponent's last arguments, he stated that I claimed that most people liked him for his wild statements. I'd like to point out that I never said they liked his statements, I said they liked how he was against political correctness, which has been a thorn in the sides of many people. My opponent also made the point that if President Trump was really trying to bring the nation together (something that I said could be used as an argument, but wasn't something I was using as a direct point) there would still be a lot of backlash. As I stated in my last arguments, you can't make everyone happy. Even if you tried using all of your abilities that you can possibly use, you still can't make everyone happy. There will always be someone who hates you and what you're trying to do. That's just the way the world works. We are only human.
Section 5:
As one last point to my opponent, I did say in my previous arguments that President Trump was working on creating another economic policy and insurance policy for everyone. We can't say that he's only helping certain groups of people he's "biased" to until we've seen the contents of these new policies he's working towards.
At the end of the day, through his actions as the President, I'd say he's a pretty good one. He's kept his promises, he's cut our taxes, he's doing his best to make cheaper insurance for everyone and most importantly, he's listening to the people and doing what he wants them to do. We wanted tax reform, he gave it to us. We wanted cheaper insurance and no more Obamacare, he's giving it to us. We wanted to get illegal immigrants out and have our laws enforced, he's doing just that. We want better education systems, he's letting the states, the ones in charge of their respected education systems be in charge of how they run their schools. He pushes people to think critically and not just listen to the people on the television. In the two years, he's done a lot. Sure, some of the things he's said and done may have been bad, but that doesn't mean he's a bad president. There have been much worse than him doing and saying far worse things. When one looks past all the bias and attacks against him, he's really not that bad of a president and is leading us down a fulfilling road in the field of economics, science and educational reform as well as enforcing the law and doing his best to keep us safe, even if it means making quite a few people angry. At the end of the day, sure he may be a bit over the top, but he's still a good president.
I'd like to thank my opponent for taking the time to debate this topic with me and I'd also like to thank the readers and judges for taking the time to read/judge this debate. I had a blast and look forward to any future debates I may, or may not have with my opponent. Have a great evening everyone.
Return To Top | Posted:
2018-12-05 15:57:41
| Speak RoundJohannes (CON)Hello again everyone. Once more I would like to thank my opponent for their participation in this debate thus far.
I will follow a similar pattern from my argument last round, responding first to my opponent's points and then putting forth some substance of my own.
Rebuttals
I would like to first respond to my opponent's assertion that Trump, in reversing previously bipartisan issues that we have moved past, is a good president. Before I begin, I would like to clarify that I am not going to discuss Insurance in this section because I never claimed that Insurance was previously a bipartisan issue, nor do I think it is. So, I will be responding to PRO's claims that Trump, in instituting tariffs and wanting to state legislate common core, is doing good.
Let's start with the tariffs. The tariffs have specifically been put in place in order to bring some of the manufacturing industry back into America, because, obviously, almost all manufactured goods we get right now are from China. Inadvertently, in doing this, Trump has also stated that we will bring down our national debt to China. However, there is nothing bad about having manufacturing in China or even in being in debt to China. On the manufacturing side, China can make everything better, faster, and cheaper than we can. Really the only argument against this point would be that more American jobs would be created if we can bring back manufacturing to America. While this might be true for about 10 years, automation will soon control the manufacturing industry entirely and those jobs will be created elsewhere. In regards to our debt to China, obviously, our initial perception of debt is to get rid of it. But we must realize that debt, on a national scale, is extremely complicated. By being in debt to China, China, who supplies nearly all of our manufacturing needs, is forced to keep trading with us so that we can pay off our debt over time. Their only other option is to call us on our bluff, which would never happen because we are also their number 1 trading partner, and cutting off trade with us would be entirely disastrous for them. Thus, Trump using the point of being able to pay off our national debt is an extremely surface level point and idea that, when you think about it pragmatically, doesn't make a whole lot of sense. We don't need to be in a hurry to pay off our debt right now. I think I have explained pretty clearly why this whole tariff thing from Trump is stupid. Even still, most conservatives agree that the tariff is idiocy. Only a select few of Trump supporters classify it as good.
Now let's talk about common core. This is a much shorter point because the argument for improving education is much more theoretical. I'll just begin by saying there's a reason hardly anyone supported Trump when he brought up this idea, common core has been one of the only things that has been consistently praised about our current education. It provides realistic and attainable expectations of what our students, on a national standard, need to be learning and when to learn it. Common core, if executed correctly, provides students with all the base skills to succeed in life. Not only would state legislating common core be fixing something that isn't broken, but it would most likely have a wide range of extremely polar effects. Don't get me wrong, state legislated common core would probably benefit some states -- but it would also hurt the same amount. The most likely outcome from this is that you have one, or a few, state(s) that end up dominating school and standardized testing and end up being the majority in college and jobs and the economy and therefore become inadvertently wealthy and all this other stuff as a causal chain. Also, if you want to think about it, it makes perfect sense that education is the same throughout the country (at a public level). Why would we teach a kid from California different from a kid in Texas?
I realize I kind of went on a big political tangent here, but I only did this to provide a dense argument for why these changes are/would be bad. I think that PRO would agree that consistently reversing bipartisan issues is regressive, unnecessary, and destructive for political discourse. However, I think PRO also believes that there is some gain that will come with these two changes, implementation of tariffs and state legislation of common core, that will be worth it. I hope I have made a thorough case for why that would not be.
To respond to your point that describing Trump as 'someone who keeps promises' isn't technically praising his character, this is a literal example of something that would be classified as a character trait. This point, I think, is kind of arbitrary anyway -- but just think about it this way: If I asked you to describe Trump to me, you would say that (assuming you really do believe that Trump keeps most of his promises) Trump is a person who keeps his promises. You wouldn't say, Trump, through his policy and actions thus far in office, has consistently displayed an ability to follow through on rhetoric, that would be ridiculous. I think even you would agree that describing Trump as someone who keeps promises is an appraisal of his character, and again -- this point is pretty arbitrary, I was just trying to call you out for some minor hypocrisy.
You also argue that moving the US Embassy intro Jerusalem was good because, although you admit it only psychologically benefits religious people, most people are religious. I'll agree that most Americans are religious, however, your statistics are extremely incorrect. First of all 65 + 45 doesn't equal 100. Second of all Catholicism is a denomination of Christianity, and Christianity makes up much more than 65% of the population -- it's closer to about 80%. Third, Jew's and Muslims aren't the additional 20%, in fact, I think their about 1% each. Also, if you know anything about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, almost any Muslim would be against this. Finally, I will agree that this does grant Christians and Jews a certain peace of mind or something like that, but it's extremely minuscule. What the bigger problem here is that, in America, we are supposed to have a separation of Church and State. Trump, in moving the embassy to Jerusalem for entirely (which you admit) religious reasons, has violated this cardinal rule. So again, this is another example of Trump either instituting a bad policy or not following the rules and thus, not being a good president.
In response to your points/rebuttals on North Korea, I do agree that Kim Jong Un is probably insane, that doesn't mean that, as the president of the United States, you have to publicly tweet it. I don't think I need to go into much more detail on why this is idiotic and wrong, a president shouldn't be engaging in this type of thing, especially over something like twitter. Also, I never said that North Korea's economy wasn't heavily reliant on China's. But again, if you're the president of the United States, you don't tweet that China should stop being allies with North Korea, who is their biggest ally. Things like this are what sparked the whole conflict Trump-Jon Un conflict, which was my entire point in the first place -- that Trump, although is responsible for ending the conflict, is also responsible for making it a big deal in the first place. I stated this in my first argument but, again, if you're concerned with Trump on an international level, just like pretty much everything else -- Trump has done more harm than good. Look to the consistent themes of imperialism and colonialism that are a common theme for America and that have persisted, if not accelerated, under Trump.
My opponent again claims that what most people appreciate about Trump is his, let's say 'extravagant, language and advocacy of 'political correctness'. While I agree that political correctness is bad, when Trump speaks controversially it is never satirically to rebut political correctness, it is genuine -- which is the problem. Also, as I said before, this is precisely what most people hate about Trump, and I explained why in round 2 so I won't repeat myself here. But clearly, even if you want to make the wild extrapolation to Trump's rhetoric being in opposition to political correctness, do not appreciate Trump's language.
PRO also claims that as president, you can't make everyone happy -- you can only do your best. I agree that you can't make everyone happy, but you should be able to at least make most people happy. If you look at approval ratings, Trump is the lowest in the last 10 or so presidents, with a median of 39% approval. Which is significantly below his predecessor, Barack Obama (who has the second lowest approval ratings). So, when you're trying to substantiate an argument to Trump 'doing his best', all I have to judge that off of is statistics, and the statistics do not support that Trump is doing his best.
Own Arguments/closing remarks
To end on a more summative and coherent argument, Trump -- by every measure has not been a good president, statistically, empirically, and theoretically. Statistically, he has a 39% approval rating -- the lowest in about the last 10 or so presidents and certainly one of the lowest of all time. Empirically, Trump has hardly even done anything thus far as president. Most of his legislation hasn't been passed, Trump Care, etc.. Also, even where his effects are evident, the effects are often bad. For example, the travel ban -- most people viewed this as extremely marginalizing and detrimental. Theoretically, arguably the only good thing Trump has done (good) thus far as president is (arguably) contribute to some GDP growth with his tax cuts. Not only is this more probably due to inflation than the tax cuts, but also, GDP growth should come second to things like helping impoverishment -- which Trump has done no effort to do.
I would also like to leave some more thoughts on, essentially, your main point for Trump being a good president -- he keeps his promises. I could bring up countless of examples of why this just isn't a fair assessment or even remotely true, but I'll just say that Trump's principal mission statement and promise of his campaign was to build a wall between America and Mexico and to make Mexico pay for it. So far, it has been over two years and, not only is there no wall, but we have more illegal immigrants then when Trump started. So, Trump, in his central most important policy as president -- foreign policy -- has completely and utterly not only failed but not delivered on his promise.
In my opponent's last arguments, he stated that I claimed that most people liked him for his wild statements. I'd like to point out that I never said they liked his statements, I said they liked how he was against political correctness, which has been a thorn in the sides of many people. My opponent also made the point that if President Trump was really trying to bring the nation together (something that I said could be used as an argument, but wasn't something I was using as a direct point) there would still be a lot of backlash. As I stated in my last arguments, you can't make everyone happy. Even if you tried using all of your abilities that you can possibly use, you still can't make everyone happy. There will always be someone who hates you and what you're trying to do. That's just the way the world works. We are only human.
Also, a lot of your arguments concern things that Trump wants or things that Trump has done that we have yet to see the effects of, certainly I don't need to explain why you can't judge success off of this. That would be like me telling you how much I studied for a test and then you prescribing my a grade before I even took it.
Overall, I think I have made my main points and rebuttals clear, such as why Trump trying to reverse bipartisan issues is detrimental, how Trump is dividing politics (including his own conservative ideology) through his extremely controversial rhetoric, Trump's record-low median 39% approval rating, etc, etc. I think it is nearly impossible to classify Trump as a good president no matter what way you look at it, as I mentioned earlier -- it doesn't matter -- in all facets, statistically, empirically, theoretically, etc., Trump isn't succeeding.
To end, I would like to define what I think is an objective definition for a good president. A good president is someone who, either by majority agreement or by empirical evidence, left the United States in a better position than it began. Obviously, Trump hasn't yet had a full term but clearly, as I have explained, he is currently failing all requirements of this definition and thus just simply isn't a good president.
I would like to thank once again my opponent for this debate, and you the viewer for reading what I have to say. My greatest appreciation to you. This debate truly was a fun one!
VOTE CON!!
Return To Top | Posted:
2018-12-08 15:47:30
| Speak Rounddpowell3543 (PRO)My opponent and I have both agreed to concede this fourth round due to the fact that we both forgot about it and have already posted our closing arguments. Therefore the fourth round of this debate will not be counted and this is now officially a 3 round debate. Again I would like to thank my opponent for taking the time to debate this topic with me and to again thank the readers and judges for taking the time to look over/judge this debate. I hope everyone has a great holiday season.
Return To Top | Posted:
2018-12-10 08:38:50
| Speak RoundJohannes (CON)As PRO and I have agreed, we will end the debate here. Thanks again to my opponent for their participation, it was a lot of fun.
Return To Top | Posted:
2018-12-10 12:33:11
| Speak Round
Judge: Moniino
Judge: nzlockie
Just to clarify, this paragraph :In my opponent's last arguments, he stated that I claimed that most people liked him for his wild statements. I'd like to point out that I never said they liked his statements, I said they liked how he was against political correctness, which has been a thorn in the sides of many people. My opponent also made the point that if President Trump was really trying to bring the nation together (something that I said could be used as an argument, but wasn't something I was using as a direct point) there would still be a lot of backlash. As I stated in my last arguments, you can't make everyone happy. Even if you tried using all of your abilities that you can possibly use, you still can't make everyone happy. There will always be someone who hates you and what you're trying to do. That's just the way the world works. We are only human.
,was accidentally copied and pasted into my third round argument near the end. Obviously this is a mistake so please regard that.Posted 2018-12-09 09:08:24
Ok, three rounds it is then. Likewise, I enjoyed the debate as well.Posted 2018-12-06 13:42:25
Well we've already made our closing arguments so it'd be for the best. Thanks for the great debate btw.Posted 2018-12-06 08:26:36
It's up to you frankly. I don't have a problem with continuing into a fourth round but if you would rather stop at three then that's fine too.Posted 2018-12-06 08:10:10
I completely forgot that I had it set to 4 rounds. I already finished with my closing arguments and I see you already finished yours. Shall we agree to concede the 4th round and not count them?Posted 2018-12-05 15:59:33