Trump Is a Disgrace

Donald Trump may have saved himself in an ugly TV debate heading into the final stretch of the election campaign. But the Republican Party has stooped to new lows in the process.

The best contribution came at the end of the second televised debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Amid the mudslinging, a member of the audience stood up and challenged both of the U.S. presidential candidates to say something nice about the other candidate; a task that appeared nearly impossible after the Democrat and the Republican had delivered an aggressive debate for 90 minutes. Nevertheless, both Clinton and Trump were able to offer solid answers. She praised his children, he her competitive spirit. At the end, they both briefly shook hands, a gesture that they have avoided since the beginning of the campaign.

However, any further exchange of politeness should not be expected in the remaining four weeks to the election on Nov. 8. It will remain aggressive, ugly, and often crude.

The good news for Trump after this second of three televised debates: He is still in the race. Trump reached the nadir of his campaign when a video from 2005 surfaced in which he made misogynistic and sexist remarks. Prominent Republicans have refused to support him, and attempts are still being made to possibly yet prevent him from becoming president. After he clearly lost the first television debate, Trump had no choice but to improve.

And that effort was particularly successful during the second half of the debate, in which the candidates not only answered questions from the two moderators, Martha Raddatz and Anderson Cooper, but also had to face questions from voters. Trump managed better than he did in the first confrontation with Clinton by putting pressure on her for the email affair and her connections to Wall Street, underlining his commitment to change in Washington in contrast to Clinton. Beyond that, he brought out his “I will defeat terrorism” rhetoric at every possible (and impossible) opportunity.

Clinton No Longer the Solid Candidate

Clinton did not make a counterattack as well as she did in the first debate. Indeed, she appeared as prudently prepared as usual and actively engaged with the audience, but was not convincing as the solid candidate. She could not deliver the final blow that could have made the last leg of this campaign very uncomfortable for him.

The Republican responded erratically and vaguely to subjects such as foreign policy or health care reform; the fact-checkers in the U.S. media documented his lies and ambiguities live. To his supporters, however, none of it matters. They celebrate each of his appearances. Whether or not he managed to garner points from the moderate conservatives and undecided voters is not even being considered. That possibility drifted away once Trump reached a new low in his campaign within the first 20 minutes of the debate. Only Trump himself is to blame.

He justified his sexist and vulgar remarks about women by simply relegating them to “locker room talk,” comments that men only make while in the privacy of changing clothes. Yeah, right. He threatened Clinton with the appointment of a special prosecutor who would indict her when he becomes president, decided that she is the devil, better left to rot in prison, and has “hate in her heart.”

Sexist, Racist, Offensive

It is incomprehensible that the campaign has reached this level. Certainly in earlier televised debates it has always been about making the other candidate appear foolish. But they also functioned as the moment in which the candidates presented their own ideas for the future of the country. But whatever was left of that notion could not be found on the Trump side of the debate. Obviously Clinton reacted aggressively: she called Trump – justifiably – a liar, criticized his competence to be president, and emphasized how often Trump has spoken in a sexist, racist, or offensive manner in the past few months.

To loyal Trump fans it doesn’t matter, and if the polls happen to rise once again for Trump after this debate, then the Republican Party will continue to support him however reluctantly. The evening yielded no clear winner. Both camps will interpret the debate to their own advantage. But this second debate has shown once again that it is not a vote between the plague and cholera, as it is so often unreflectively described in order to express that Clinton is not a good candidate. There is no fair comparison between Clinton and Trump, because Donald Trump is in his own league of incompetence, baselessness, and antagonism.