By Jonah Goldberg
Wednesday, October 19, 2016
Much like the first debate — and grading on the Trump
Curve® — Trump had a good start. He started more disciplined, and sustained
that discipline longer, than in any other debate. He won on many issues,
particularly abortion (though most of the credit for that goes to Chris Wallace
who actually asked a question about partial birth abortion). But, about 30
minutes in, Trump started interrupting and showboating. It wasn’t much at
first, but it got worse and worse. The tipping point was his refusal to turn on
Vladimir Putin. “He said nice things about me!” is a line he always has to get
in. It’s so strange, because he honestly seems to think that repeating this
helps him. It doesn’t. After months of criticism that Trump is easily swayed by
flattery, when he points out that Putin flattered him and suggests that’s a
valid reason for not overly antagonizing Putin it only reinforces the critique.
More to the point, few are impressed that Putin
complimented him, and those who are undoubtedly are voting for Trump already.
Meanwhile, the few persuadable voters left are probably less likely to vote for him when he says things like that. And
that’s just one example. When he snaps “what a nasty woman” at Clinton, what
voters not already enthralled with Trump, or resigned to voting for him, are
brought into his column? When he blurts out “Wrong!” who, at this point, is
charmed by that?
I agree with the already gelled conventional wisdom that
Trump’s biggest blunder came when he said we’ll just have to wait and see
whether he accepts the results of the election. Whatever arguments you want to
make in defense of the response are irrelevant (and judging from the ones I’ve
heard on TV, pretty pathetic). He basically gave the media carte blanche to
freak out over his answer for at least a week. Don’t get me wrong, I think his
answer was awful. But even if I didn’t, it was strategically stupid — unless
the goal is to further alienate his core supporters from mainstream American
politics in order to create a television network for the ranks of the
disaffected (as part of Operation Destroy the GOP).
But where I dissent somewhat from the conventional wisdom
is the notion that Trump was doing great until that one response. He lied
repeatedly and shamelessly, most importantly about all of the stories of his
sexual advances being debunked. They haven’t been. (I loved him saying — over
and over — that “nobody” has more respect for women than he does. Nobody?) He
was doing better than he has in previous debates and he was even scoring real
points, but he simply wasn’t doing anything to get voters to see him in a fresh
light. And when you’re this far behind, you need to add voters to your column.
He didn’t do that. He didn’t even try. And that should be unforgivable.
As for Hillary. She, as ever, was plodding,
uninteresting, deceitful, and arrogant. But she made no major mistakes because
she understood she needs to sit on her lead and make this election a referendum
on Donald Trump. Of course, if you know anything about the issues, or if you
listened carefully to her answers, she just confirmed what a corrupt,
dishonest, and un-compelling politician she is. She speaks in white noise, even
when she’s saying outrageous or ridiculous things. All of which should be
embarrassing for the Trump team given how she’s mopping the floor with him.
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