I did not immediately follow up on the October 9 Clinton-Trump debate, partially because I need a real job to pay the bills and mainly because I have spent the other part of the last 24 hours trying to find some way to thread a Brillo pad through my nasal cavity out my ear canal so I can scour my brain.
If the first debate was a steel cage match where Donald Trump got bladed, this one was a knife fight in the depths of the Calcutta sewers. Even if you won, you still are bleeding and contaminated with toxic shit.
With Hillary Clinton, she at least got a couple of opportunities to explain her resume and speak unapologetically about her agenda, including gun control and creating a more liberal Supreme Court. But she continues to give non-answers with regard to her emails and lack of regard for their security, and when she responded to the suggestion of being “two-faced” and said that she was referring to Abraham Lincoln’s policy of having one public policy on Civil War legislation while pursuing a different private policy, Trump was able to respond by mocking her use of “Honest Abe” as a defense of her mendacity. Again, Clinton overall comes off as far more knowledgeable and competent than Trump, and can be sincere about positions she actually cares about. But she still does not come off as honest, and thus she suffers in comparison to Trump, who at least conveys the appearance of honesty even if that’s only because Trump confuses “honesty” with “having no internal monologue.”
As for “Sniffy” himself… he fought back this time. Whatever his prior feelings about his old friends the Clintons, he has shown himself willing to take on the concerns, however warped, of the Republican base. More than ever, Trump has answered the question, “what if AM radio could run for President?” He played all the greatest hits: Benghazi, Juanita, the emails that Hillary “acid-washed” like trendy jeans. As the pundits kept saying Sunday and today, he stopped the bleeding. But mainly in the sense that he threw red meat to the base and kept them going, which he really didn’t do last debate. He didn’t persuade the rest of us, who have been nothing but appalled by him, to find a reason to vote for him. In fact he doubled down on the offensive stupidity. He did not explain (beyond removing the barriers between states for insurance policies) how he would make a better replacement for Obamacare. He did not explain how he would straighten out Syria, beyond bombing the shit out of everything, which has worked so well up to now. He did not reduce the suspicion of his dictatorial whims when he said (in between sniffs) that he would appoint a special prosecutor to dive into Hillary’s email accounts. He certainly did not appeal to female voters, some of whom happen to be Republican. Trump continued to insist that Pussygate was just “locker room talk” as if between Friday and Sunday, social media had not shot down, skinned and dressed that argument. And he did not reduce the impression of being “rapey” when, during Hillary Clinton’s addresses to the audience, he glowered and paced around, showing behind her in camera, stalking her like a particularly lazy and overweight lion with sleep apnea.
And next debate is a week from Wednesday. In Las Vegas. People here have no clue how to drive in optimum conditions, and here we’re going to have TWO Secret Service details on the road.
Technical Winner: Hillary Clinton. But only by virtue of NOT being Donald Trump.
Real Winners: Gary Johnson (who can only look better in comparison) and anybody who skipped this thing to watch Sunday Night Football or Ash vs Evil Dead.
Losers: Intelligence, good taste, public service and the premise of a functional republic.