Best guess for what's going on here is Donald Trump is attempting to charm voters with a Muppet impression during Monday night's debate. (ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images)
The first presidential debate took place during primetime on America's eastern seaboard, but in London, where I watched it, it was the dead of night. It was an event meant for the witching hour—moderator Lester Holt may as well have stage-whispered "something wicked this way comes" as Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump took the stage—but it ended up being a particularly banal kind of witching hour.
Here were the forces of hell unleashed in a place that looked like a suburban conference center. The ground beneath our feet was crumbling but the backdrop remained Prozac blue, and one of the hell creatures had a bad case of the snuffles. This is what everyone's afraid of? A confused man telling people how good his ten-year-old son is with computers?
We British have always liked to think we have a particularly informed take on American elections. The "special relationship," a shared language, and an understanding of the importance of getting your dick out for Harambe are just some of the things that have us believing we get American politics in a way that our European neighbors don't.
I'll make no claims there, but having worked on two hour-long documentaries about Donald Trump this year, I've spent more time thinking about the Great Orange Fear than is healthy. There he is, telling me that "a lot of people are saying" he's a really terrific guy, and that "by the way," Crooked Hillary founded ISIS with Barack Obama. There he is, floating before me, pulling his two trademark hand gestures: the one where he makes an "O" with his thumb and index finger and the one where he does a sign with his thumb and index finger. (He did the second one a lot on Monday night, which for me was Tuesday morning.) Trump is the loud-mouthed illusion of democracy. If you look at him for too long, he will haunt the shit out of you. You will dream about him, though it is the last thing you want to do.
The Trump on the debate stage was the same Trump that's appeared on countless other stages for the past year and a bit. Anyone who's sat through his rallies will have heard Trump say the things he said last night. His friend who says Mexico is the eighth wonder of the world, China, trade deals and the political hacks who negotiate them, Hillary Clinton's emails, being friends with Sean Hannity, knocking the hell out of ISIS and making America great again. That's politics, though. You repeat the same shit ad nauseam and hope that some of it sticks. Hillary was repeating the same lines as well, though it was hard to tell because it turns out that her "deadpan" performance on Between Two Ferns is actually just her regular performance.
But this is politics in a time of crisis, politics in the darkness of the night, not the light of primetime. This is politics played by the most dangerous presidential candidate the United States has known and a deeply compromised, deeply uninspiring representative of a ruling class that has failed not just America but the world. Trump had, by all traditional markers, a lousy debate performance, incoherent at times and far too quick to take offense. But he didn't get here by hitting any of the traditional markers, and when Hillary Clinton repeated her obviously rehearsed "trumped-up trickle-down economics" line and smiled at nobody, it was like watching a robot take pleasure performing a function its maker had come to feel deeply unsure of.
Both candidates did something like what was expected of them. Trump played the outsider ready to tear down the DC Establishment. Clinton played the grown-up politician.
Trump paid deference to the occasion by making a big deal out of calling his opponent "Secretary Clinton" rather than "Crooked Hillary." But before too long, his performance began to more closely resemble that of his rallies. He interrupted Clinton time and again; he used phrases like "very against police judge," he worked the hell out of his hand gestures, and he ranted about what a special "temperament" he has. Trump feels most at home loudly telling anyone who'll listen about how great he is. That shtick works when he's in front of crowds who already love him, but it's not clear if it's enough to win over those mythical undecided voters.
Here's the problem for Clinton: When Trump talks about the damage free trade deals have done and the problems faced by working- and middle-class communities across America (and indeed the world), he strikes on something that people not only feel, but something that is backed up by statistics. When he denounced the damage done by NAFTA, it was one of the few things that Clinton had no good response to.
The jobs have picked up and gone to the places where the labor is cheapest. Trump knows this—his companies have benefitted from it, after all. He may be totally insincere when he says he'll do something about it and his existing plan to do something about it may be terrible, but Clinton represents an Establishment that has failed and Trump—the self-proclaimed billionaire, the man with the hair—has looked into the eyes of the people and bellowed, "I am your voice."
I'm a long, long ways from Long Island, but in the darkest point of the night, it is that voice that echoes. On this side of the Atlantic, we know that voice because it sounds an awful lot like Brexit. It is the voice that offers easy, fabricated solutions to chronic problems. It is the voice that speaks to the people who have been left behind and the people with ice in their hearts. But it is also the voice that says, "I am not responsible for the problems you face. You have been let down, and I will make everything better. I will make everything great. I will make you happy." That voice is powerful, wherever it is heard.
Outside my window, one of the world's capitals is crawling into life. Creatures are arising from the depths. The shape of the trees is something to behold. It does not seem like a world ruled by reasons that make sense. If our rulers have ruled us badly, we will pay the price, not them. Trump is that price—that balance due—and right now, despite all the Twitter zingers, I can't help but feel like this rough beast has come slouching out of our computer and television screens to punish us, his hour come round at last.
Follow Oscar Rickett on Twitter.
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