A dark weekend in politics and a dubious debate

The last 72 hours have arguably been the darkest single stretch in the presidential race to date. The weekend vividly epitomized the trajectory of the presidential race, an inevitable downward spiral that has scores of people across the nation waiting for the inevitable crash. Over the last several months, we’ve watched the eruption of one scandal after another with profound embarrassment. It’s been an election cycle in which one has to pinch themselves to make sure that what they’re seeing is in fact reality.

Last Friday produced yet another release of potentially damaging emails for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. For many skeptical voters, it reinforced their concerns about Clinton’s truthfulness and her ability to identify with the struggles of the average American. It undoubtedly would have been an event primed for a faltering campaign to capitalize on.

{mosads}Yet, instead of seeing a news cycle captivated by new WikiLeaks revelations, one that would have allowed Donald Trump’s campaign to gain some critical ground in a widening race, we witnessed the uncorking of a legitimate political bombshell some 30 days out from election night.

In an audio recording composed during a 2005 “Access Hollywood” special, Trump is heard making what many news outlets have described as “graphic” and “lewd” comments about women. The comments made by Trump, unsuspecting of their capture on a live microphone, suggest the permissibility of making nonconsensual physical sexual contact with women.

What must be said is that Trump’s comments are not of the typical “locker room” banter variety, as he and a dwindling confederation of surrogates have argued. No, such comments are repulsive, predatory and criminal.

His comments were profane enough to spark a revolt against his candidacy among prominent members of the GOP. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan immediately uninvited Trump from a campaign event in Wisconsin. The GOP elites of Utah rebelled almost in full, with Congressman Jason Chaffetz and Gov. Gary Herbert revoking their endorsements and Sen. Mike Lee calling for Trump to withdraw from the race altogether.

As the public waited for an apology from the Republican nominee, the viability of Trump’s candidacy was bursting into flames. Hours elapsed before Trump issued a robotic and horrendously insincere apology, one that fell far short of extinguishing the blaze that was engulfing his campaign. In the immediate aftermath of Trump’s veritable non-apology, further high-level Republicans such as Sens. Kelly Ayotte (N.H.) and John McCain (Ariz.) revoked their endorsements, all while reports surfaced of a possible reallocation of Republican National Committee funds away from Trump and toward besieged down-ballot Republicans.

With that, all eyes turned to Sunday night’s debate. Trump needed to turn in an exceptionally strong performance, but perhaps more importantly, he needed to offer a sincere apology for his indefensible remarks against women. He did neither. While Trump’s base may very well be quite satisfied with his debate performance, it undoubtedly did very little to persuade undecided voters to cast a ballot in his favor. His policy prescriptions were still largely absent, his deflated and meandering style was bizarre and distracting, and he somehow managed, in the middle of his campaign’s most serious crisis, to throw his running mate and GOP allies in Congress under the bus.

Most unsettling of all is not what Trump said but what he didn’t say. During the debate, when the issue of the leaked audio was raised, he was presented with another opportunity to sincerely apologize for his reprehensible comments. Instead of uttering the words “I’m sorry” or attempting to express any semblance of credible remorse for his vulgarity, Trump deflected each and every time he was pressed on it. He “apologized” for the embarrassment it caused his family, accused debate moderator Anderson Cooper of not understanding what he had said, and argued that his opponent’s spouse, Bill Clinton, has done much worse.

Trump’s words, and the sentiments behind them, cannot be brushed off as a mere exhibition of supposedly commonplace male chatter, nor can it be disregarded as a simple “distraction” from the issues that concern the nation. What Trump bragged about, what he glamorized, is sexual assault, and that is an issue. It’s an act of violence that not a single one of us would label as banter or treat as a distraction if it had been perpetrated against someone we cared for.

In the wake of political debates, it’s not unusual to see numerous articles providing a play-by-play recap under the heading of “winners and losers.” The bottom line from the second presidential debate is remarkably clear: we all lost last night.

Jesse Heitz has written and presented over a dozen research papers at both domestic and international conferences, and has written pieces on numerous topics for a variety of publications. He obtained his BA in history from the University of St. Thomas in 2010, an MA in War in the Modern World from King’s College London in 2014, and was approved. 

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