All things being equal, I would have preferred watching Monday Night Football. But my job requires me to know at least as much as the average media “fact-checker,” so I made a scotch coffee (two fingers of The Famous Grouse over ice, dump the coffee in the sink) and settled in for the first of what will be three “debates” between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.
Very few debates are consequential in an electoral sense. Just four years ago, Mitt Romney repeatedly mopped the floor with President Barack Obama, only to watch as Obama returned the favor at the ballot box. Leafing through the pages of debate history calls to mind the infamous Kennedy-Nixon debate of 1960, when soon-to-be President John Kennedy became the first politician to not only recognize the importance of television but master it; only to require third world-level vote rigging to beat the sitting vice president when it counted. Sure, debates occasionally presage coming electoral doom; a lesson Walter Mondale learned the hard way in 1984. And they do occasionally provide good theater. I’m sure William Jennings Bryan put on quite a show; for all the good it did him.
But the only thing of value we learned from Monday night’s tussle between Trump and Clinton is that we are a long way from the days of Lincoln-Douglas. I’m not even sure it qualified as a presidential debate; given that no one on that stage was presidential and nothing was actually debated.
Instead, a bloviating carnival barker sneered his way through 90 minutes of rambling, semi-coherent responses to questions posed by one of NBC’s talking heads, while a brain-damaged sociopath plugged some ghost-written doorstop which is overdue for the remaindered bin. Even as his candidacy has become the standard-bearer for many Americans who are tired of the global punchline currently infesting the Oval Office, Trump offered no concrete ideas as to how he will actually undo the damage Obama has willfully done. Even as her candidacy has become the avatar for the seething, unhinged hatred which defines the Democrats’ view of their fellow citizens, Clinton enunciated no ideas on how to finally win the left’s war on liberty. It was ugly enough to make me wonder what happened to the friendship they shared back when Trump invited the Clintons to his wedding and they happily attended.
Instead, Trump called Clinton a lying harpy and Clinton called Trump a sexist pig. Trump wandered aimlessly through vague promises of improvement, Clinton took credit for dubious accomplishments. Trump bogged down in cross-debates with Holt, while Clinton allowed Holt to serve as a rhetorical human shield. Clinton turned a former Miss America into a sock puppet, while Trump made blatant references to Clinton’s decades of enabling her serial predator husband. Clinton invented diseases (what the hell is a “gun epidemic?” Are my guns safe? Do they require a vaccination?), while Trump invented excuses for stiffing his contractors (note to “The Donald”: pay your damn bills, man. If you were that dissatisfied with the work, then you should have taken them to court.) Trump audibly struggled with what sounded like post-nasal drip, while Clinton visibly struggled to remain conscious. And I wondered how the hell I’m supposed to choose between two people who are best described by the current episodic arc on the cartoon South Park.
Perhaps, in the remaining 40-ish days between now and Election Day, Trump will suddenly stop acting like he’s doing another guest run with the WWE. Maybe Hillary will finally realize she should probably be on the business end of a lengthy federal prison sentence. It’s even possible that both will remember that they’re both incredibly wealthy, privileged people who have as much of a clue how to steer the ship of state as they do how to actually work for a living. But it’s far more likely that I’m going to watch football next time.
— Ben Crystal
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