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The Spectacle In St. Louis: A Look At The Debate And The Damage Done

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump  stands next to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton during the second presidential debate at Washington University in St. Louis, Sunday, Oct. 9, 2016. (Julio Cortez/AP)
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump stands next to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton during the second presidential debate at Washington University in St. Louis, Sunday, Oct. 9, 2016. (Julio Cortez/AP)

It was nasty. It got personal.

And that was even before the first word was uttered in Sunday's second presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

Coming on the heels of the impeccably timed leak of Trump’s 2005 obscene conversation with Billy Bush, the debate was expected to be a continuation of his campaign’s 48-hour implosion that saw GOP politicians scrambling to get distance from the sinking U.S.S. Trump.

Instead, Trump got things started 90 minutes before the town hall debate with a press conference that included women who accused Clinton’s husband, President Bill Clinton, of various sexual misdeeds (including rape) as well as the woman who was an alleged 12-year-old rape victim of a man Clinton defended when she was a legal-aid attorney early in her career.

It was nasty. It got personal. And that was even before the first word was uttered...

And it went downhill from there.

The evening was surreal, particularly when the viewer paused to think back to those quaint days when Richard Nixon’s five o’clock shadow, Al Gore’s audible sighs, Ronald Reagan saying “There you go again,” or George H.W. Bush checking his wristwatch were actually significant, memorable moments of past presidential debates.

Trump made it very personal with Clinton not as much by referring to her as “the devil,” claiming that Clinton “has tremendous hate in her heart,” or by recounting her husband’s disbarment and impeachment, but more so by stating that if elected he would appoint a special prosecutor to oversee a new State Department email probe and, separately, that if he were president she “would be in jail.”

These were personal threats — and unprecedented statements of retributive intent by a candidate against his opponent that added yet another ugly twist to campaign 2016.

Clinton was nasty at turns as well, though opting to deliver insults through tight smiles rather than making overt threats. She repeated her campaign theme that Trump “is unfit” for the presidency. She threw every accusation of bigotry that she could repeat in a two minute segment at Trump to see what would stick. And Clinton continued to encourage “fact-checkers” to challenge Trump’s “alternate reality.”

She even had difficulty finding something decent to say about Trump in response to the night’s final question from the audience, opting instead to offer a backhanded compliment Trump’s children who were in attendance. At least this moment provided some levity.

The nastiness and personal threats had the short-term effect of using up much of the oxygen in the room at times, providing Trump a vehicle for staying on the offensive and, remarkably, enabling his campaign to remain on life-support for another news cycle — or at least until the next round of new Trump tapes is leaked.

The long-term effect, however, may be that neither candidate will fully overcome the stench of the campaign — epitomized by this debate — should they become president.

It may be a long, difficult time before the effects of Sunday's debate -- and the 2016 campaign -- are forgotten...

The ramifications of this could be profound and far-reaching. The new president will lack a mandate and have a near-impossible task of convincing the ample portion of the electorate who did not vote for him or her that its members should remain invested in the nation. Whether this group of outsiders views themselves as the “irredeemable” “deplorables” that Clinton disparagingly referenced, or as members of the various demographic groups that Trump has alienated and insulted in his campaign, much of the population will be deeply dissatisfied with the election results.

Unfortunately, the personal nastiness witnessed Sunday won’t be easily swept away with the Oath of Office on January 20th. Its toxic residue could pervade the first term of the next president and the nation refuse to take a pause — the proverbial “honeymoon” for the new administration -- from its rapidly expanding partisan chasm. Indeed, the frustration and antipathy may only grow for those who perceive themselves out of power and outside the nation’s mainstream civic culture.

It may be a long, difficult time before the effects of Sunday's debate — and the 2016 campaign — are forgotten by a weary electorate.

Related:

Headshot of John Sivolella

John Sivolella Cognoscenti contributor
John Sivolella is on the faculty at Columbia University, where he teaches about the presidency, federal agencies and public policy.

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