The Night They Laughed At Trump

Because he has no real interest in the boring parts of being president, such as governing the country, Donald J. Trump has taken a rather unusual approach to campaigning for the job.

He has spent most of his time trying to scare people, bragging about himself, and making jokes.

His jokes are always at the expense of someone else, most often people who are already stigmatized: minorities, immigrants, the disabled and women whom he deems unworthy of his interest.

This is the standard operating procedure for bullies, and it’s what makes them compelling to the rest of us — they represent the part of us that wishes we were able to hide our weakness behind a veil of sneering sadism.

But there comes a moment in the life of every bully when the crowd is no longer laughing with you but laughing at you. And it’s generally the moment when the bully’s power to intimidate collapses.

The laughter was loud enough that moderator Chris Wallace had to chide the audience into silence. But the damage had been done.

Nearly all the stories about the final presidential debate will focus on the moment when Trump refused to say whether or not he would respect will of the electorate on Nov. 8. It was clearly a disqualifying comment, which makes it just another day at the office for the GOP nominee.

But to me, the true moment of revelation Wednesday night didn’t come in the form of words. It came in the form of laughter.

Specifically, the spontaneous outburst that greeted the following statement from Trump: “Nobody has more respect for women than I do.”

The laughter was loud enough that moderator Chris Wallace had to chide the audience into silence.

But the damage had been done.

For the first time since President Obama flame-roasted him at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner, a large room full of people was laughing at Donald Trump.

They were laughing because it has become so obvious over the course of his despicable campaign that Trump has absolutely no respect for women, in particular those women whom he can’t harass, grope or otherwise control.

There was even a strange kind of pity in the laughter, as if the assembled simply couldn’t believe that a person could be so deeply in denial about his essential nature.

At his rallies, surrounded by his raging enablers, Trump glories in his shock jock cockiness. But under the bright lights of a presidential debate stage, confronted by a poised and intelligent woman not the least bit afraid of him, Trump’s self-belief curdled into self-parody.

Trump wasn’t telling a joke. He had become the joke.

I've mentioned this quote before, but I couldn't help but be reminded of novelist Margaret Atwood's words, "Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them."

His relentless narcissism, his abject cluelessness, the monstrous sliminess that he can’t recognize or moderate.

He looked, in that moment, like exactly what he is: an angry, aging Lothario who still believes he’s God’s gift to women.

What the third and final debate did, much more clearly than the first two, was to lay bare the gender dynamics of the race.

Trump is a rich guy who believes his white male privilege entitles him to say whatever he wants and to believe whatever he wants — regardless of the facts. He’s the loudmouth lecher, the leering boss, the bully with a glass jaw.

Whether or not he accepts the result, the election on November 8 will memorialize Donald J. Trump as least funny joke in American political history.

Hillary Clinton is the tough and tempered professional woman who’s been having to school guys like Trump her whole life.

That’s why, in each debate, she’s weathered his tantrums and patiently exposed his failings.

By the end of Wednesday’s massacre, Trump was reduced to muttering taunts into his mic (“Such a nasty woman”).

Clinton made herself look presidential.

Trump made himself into a laughingstock.

Whether or not he accepts the result, the election on Nov. 8 will memorialize Donald J. Trump as least funny joke in American political history.