At last night’s second presidential debate, Hillary Clinton came across as better informed, steady under pressure, composed, and unflappable. Donald Trump was a disgusting schoolyard bully, who threatened to turn America into a banana republic.
Trump’s response to policy questions was mostly incoherent. He knows no more about Aleppo than does Gary Johnson. He bragged about not paying taxes. He wants to repeal Obamacare and has not a clue about what to put in its place.
The most frightening part of Trump’s performance was the dark hint of the world he’d create. Let’s put aside bringing four women into the arena from Bill Clinton’s past (well, three, and a fourth related to a case Hillary worked on as a young lawyer) in an effort to distract from Trump’s own history as a sexual predator. Let’s ignore how he shadowed Hillary around the stage, looming over her like a cartoon villain. Let’s not mention his mustache-twirling Snidely Whiplash glee at his own tax evasion. We won’t even mention his conspiracy-theory hints about Sidney Blumenthal or Ambassador Chris Stevens, or his constant namecalling in between snuffling like he was snorting coke off a hooker’s ass.
The truly Orwellian part was his pledge, if elected president, to put Hillary in jail because Reasons. This is the threat of a third-world petty dictator, or a tyrant from a Communist thugocracy. There’s a long history of throwing one’s political opponents in prison—but not in America. Not in America. This is the reason people come to America—to flee that ugly totalitarianism. Trump brought his own cheering section, who ate up this anti-American blowhardishness, this knuckle-dragging despottery. Trump played the part of an enraged gorilla dressed as a Central American Generalissimo, and this is precisely what his base so loves.
It’s not just Trump. It’s not just his cheering section. Trump is the nominee of a major American party. Over the last weekend, in the wake of the release of a tape containing Trump’s abhorrent admissions of sex crimes, Republicans have been fleeing and denouncing Trump—but not because of what he did, and not even because of what he said, but because they thought he might be losing.
Nothing he’d done before—not his bigotry or racism or jingoism or criminal misconduct or tax evasion or RICO violations or misogyny or implied incest or ignorance of the Constitution or ugly boorishness--none of that was enough to cause the Party to pull back. Yeah, Republicans squirmed a bit, being caught out that they were too ball-less to rein in the pitch-fork-wielding base they’d created. But truth be told, they were willing to tolerate Trump’s vileness if it meant they would win. No, they only care because it now looks like they might lose.
Truth be told, they’d be delighted with the world Trump would create as president.
This is the ugly depth to which the Republican Party has descended, the promise to make America into precisely the sorts of things America was created to overcome; a lawless oligarchy, ruled by a corrupt and immoral racist, misogynistic, bigoted demagogue.
---------—
Update:
There’s a brilliant analysis of the second debate and its likely aftermath
over at WaPo.
The takeaway is that Trump’s first thirty minutes were an ugly meltdown, but after that he was able to stop tripping over his dick. His one-step-above-shitty performance, just barely exceeding sub-basement-level expectations, was enough to pump up his base and probably convince elected Republicans to stop playing the part of rats on a burning ship. In the long term (as in, a month), this will likely hurt the Republican Party more than a total implosion would, because it means they’re definitely stuck with this stinking pile of dung hanging around their necks, and don’t have the balls to run away from him. He’s going to be smearing his shit all over them, they’ll be stuck with the stink, and now they’re going to just take it rather than trying to distance themselves from it.
I’m paraphrasing a bit, but that’s the essence of the article.