Trump Trounced Clinton in Debate 2: The Disrupter Won Over The Insider

It is not possible to conclude whether Donald Trump would have changed too many minds with his performance in the second presidential debate with Hillary Clinton on Sunday night, but one thing is clear: he dominated the debate and won it fair and square. If he lost the first one, this was his comeback moment. This time it was Hillary who was on the defensive (read the full transcript of the debate here).

Throughout the debate, Trump was aggressive and energetic. Clinton was subdued. This is remarkable for the debate came barely two days after the Washington Post published the damaging evidence against Trump, evidence showing he made boorish and misogynistic statements about women. The transcripts of statements Trump made in 2005 implied a willingness to sexually assault women, using deplorable words to describe what one could do with them. Most Republicans distanced themselves from Trump after this transcript was brought to light by the newspaper. But Sunday night was Trump's and it was Clinton we saw floored by his aggressive attacks on her email scandal, where she used a private server and erased 33,000 emails even after receiving a subpoena. The focus was more on her husband Bill Clinton’s own sexcapades than on Trump’s disrespect for women. So when Trump dismissed his lewd and misogynist talk as just “locker room” talk and not action, and instead pointed out that what Bill did was actual aggression against women, the audience actually applauded.

Trump came out all guns blazing about Bill Clinton to counter his own “locker room” talk and associated perception. He had this to say: “Mine are words and his was action. He was what he’s done to women….and Hillary Clinton attacked those same women and attacked them viciously. Four of them (are) here tonight. One of the women, who is a wonderful woman…was raped at 12. Her client she represented got him off, and she's seen laughing on two separate occasions, laughing at the girl who was raped. Kathy Shelton, that young woman is here with us tonight.”

This must have silenced Clinton. Trump drove home his advantage. “So don't tell me about words. I am absolutely - I apologize for those words. But it is things that people say. But what President Clinton did, he was impeached, he lost his licence to practice law. He had to pay an $850,000 fine to one of the women. Paula Jones, who's also here tonight.”

This was simply too strong a counter-accusation on which Hillary had no comeback. And with his greatest failings out of the way right at the outset, Trump was in attack mode and had strong rebuttals on almost anything Hillary could throw at him. Clearly, unlike last time, Trump was better prepared for the debate.

The debate had a different format, with most of the questions coming from the audience, ordinary citizens and social media. The prime focus was foreign policy, defence, terrorism, personal character, tax policies, Obamacare, et al.

Trump won the showdown, and here’s why.

First, this time he took full advantage of the fact that he was attacking an incumbent, someone linked deeply to the ‎last eight years of President Obama, and the earlier presidency of her husband Bill Clinton. Since this election is about empowering the people without a voice against the establishment, Trump got to attack, attack, attack. Hillary was forced to defend everything - from a faltering Obamacare to her husband's sexual peccadilloes.

Second, Trump came out strong on foreign policy and terrorism - pointing out that all that US policies had achieved under Obama was the creation of an unstable Middle East, and the creation of ISIS and more terror outfits.‎ He boldly differed even with this own vice-presidential running mate on Syria, where Mike Pence talked about a stronger line against Basher Assad and Russia. But Trump was clear that the real enemy was terrorism, even assuming Assad was a nasty dictator. This played to the reality that US intervention in West Asia, starting with the Iraq war, resulted in emboldening terror groups rather than creating new, solidly democratic regimes in place of earlier dictators.

Three, Clinton also failed to make her attacks on Trump's tax status effective. She said that Trump hardly paid any taxes and that she would make the rich pay, but Trump neatly turned that argument around by pointing out that most of her backers were precisely the millionaires who paid so little taxes. He mentioned George Soros among them, and also Warren Buffett. He made tax avoidance sound like a virtue, and seemed to suggest that ‎as someone who knew the loopholes in the tax system, he was in a better position to fix at least some of them. Clinton quoted Warren Buffett who said it wasn’t right that he paid less taxes than his secretary, but Trump denied he didn’t pay any taxes. “No, but I pay tax, and I pay federal tax, too. But I have a write-off, a lot of it’s depreciation, which is a wonderful charge. I love depreciation. You know, she's given it to us.” The last was a sideswipe at Congress which legislated those tax deductions in.

Four, Hillary tried hard to stick Trump with the label of being pro-Russia and that Russian hackers were actively trying to get her defeated. Trump neatly sidestepped that by claiming he knew little about Vladimir Putin, and that the real enemy was ISIS, not Russia. He said: “I don't know Putin. I think it would be great if we got along with Russia because we could fight ISIS together…”. In bringing up his alleged support for Putin, Clinton actually ended up sounding like an old cold war strategist when Russia has both abandoned communism and no longer sees itself as a counterpoint to the US.

Five, Trump also drove the knife in on Clinton’s email deletion “mistake.” He went so far as to suggest that if he became President, his justice department would appoint a special public prosecutor to probe her crimes. While Clinton backers saw this as a threat unbecoming of a future president, Trump’s backers, who think the law tends to favour the rich and that the justice system is broken, would have got the opposite picture: that the powerful will be made to pay for their transgressions.

Six, when Clinton tried to bring up the point that Trump played dirty while she didn’t, she quoted “friend” Michelle Obama’s statement at the Democratic national convention that “when they go low, we go high”. Trump brought up Hillary’s negative campaign’s ads. He also brought up Michelle Obama’s own attacks on Clinton when both she and her husband were fighting for the Democratic nomination in 2008. Trumps word: “So, you talk about friend? Go back and take a look at those commercials, a race where you lost fair and square, unlike the Bernie Sanders race, where you won, but not fair and square, in my opinion.” The last was a reference to the fact that the Democratic party machine actively worked for her and against Sanders.

Six, when Clinton was put on the mat over her deleted emails, Trump was stomping all over her claim that the mails deleted were private emails and not classified. Clinton admitted she made a “mistake” and that a year-long investigation yielded no proof of wrongdoing on her part, but Trump got the last word on that, suggesting that she didn’t know the C word (for classified) on a document. He said Hillary was lying. “She said the 33,000 e-mails had to do with her daughter's wedding, number one, and a yoga class. Well, maybe we'll give three or three or four or five or something. 33,000 e-mails deleted, and now she's saying there wasn't anything wrong?”

Seven, on Obamacare, Clinton, who was a part of the battle to make it into law, was again on the defensive, and said she wanted to fix it when she became president. Trump was rampant. He called it a “disaster” and said it had to be dumped, adding for good effect that in 2017 it will “implode by itself”. It was too expensive, and he alleged that when Clinton said she would fix it, she meant she would ask Congress for “more money, more and more money.”

Eight, on Trump’s alleged Islamophobia, a Muslim woman asked him a direct question: “There are 3.3 million Muslims in the United States, and I'm one of them. You've mentioned working with Muslim nations, but with Islamophobia on the rise, how will you help people like me deal with the consequences of being labelled as a threat to the country after the election is over?”

Trump had no real answers, but he had apparently decided that his voter base did not want him to sound emollient on this. A covert sense of anti-Muslim sentiment cannot be denied in large parts of America, and Trump did not hide his intent to seek the Islamophobic vote, knowing full well that the Muslim vote is anyway committed to the Democrats. This was his answer to the Muslim lady: “Well, you're right about Islamophobia, and that's a shame. But one - because there is a problem. I mean, whether we like it or not, and we could be very politically correct, but whether we like it or not, there is a problem. And we have to be sure that Muslims come in and report when they see something going on. When they see hatred going on, they have to report it.” He used the Islamist killings in Orlando and San Bernandino to hint that Muslims could have helped prevent these tragedies. Trump has written off the minuscule Muslim vote in America, but he made sure the rest heard him loud and clear.

Making good on his earlier faux pas when he had negative things to say about Captain Khan, an American Muslim soldier who was killed in Iraq, Trump began by saying “Captain Khan is an American hero…”, and then shifted the argument to friendlier territory – that he would never have sent the army to Iraq. He said: “If I were president at that time, he (Captain Khan) would be alive today, because unlike her, who voted for the war without knowing what she was doing, I would not have had our people in Iraq. Iraq was disaster. So he would have been alive today.”

Nine, Clinton also did not come off too well when he defended having two positions, one private and one public on certain issues. The questioner asked: “This question involves a WikiLeaks release of purported excerpts of Secretary Clinton's paid speeches, which she has refused to release, and one line in particular, in which you, Secretary Clinton, purportedly say you need both a public and private position on certain issues. So, Tu (ph), from Virginia asks, is it OK for politicians to be two-faced? Is it acceptable for a politician to have a private stance on issues?”

Clinton pointed to how Abraham Lincoln used different strategies to get his anti-slavery constitutional amendment passed. The film “Lincoln” showed that he used some underhand methods to get the good work done with doubters.

Trump got the last word here. “Now, she's blaming the lie on the late, great Abraham Lincoln. That's one that I haven't...”.

The audience laughed.

Lastly, both candidates spoke of being inclusive; Trump said he would be president of all Americans, including Afro-Americans, Hispanics, and others. So did Clinton, but she pointed out Trump’s negative statements on these communities to underscore the limits of his statements.

But Trump had one trump card. He could legitimately ask Clinton: if you are all that you claim, why didn’t you get it done when you were in the Senate and in the Obama government? He emphasised: “She’s all talk. It doesn't get done. All you have to do is take a look at her Senate run. Take a look at upstate New York.”

The best part of the debate came at the end, when both candidates were asked to talk about the one thing they may have liked about their rival. Clinton said: “I respect his children. His children are incredibly able and devoted, and I think that says a lot about Donald.”

It was a back-handed compliment, but Trump’s statement seemed more straightforward. “I will say this about Hillary. She doesn't quit. She doesn't give up. I respect that. I tell it like it is. She's a fighter.”

Overall, the debate went largely Trump’s way, but whether it is going to help him take the elections is another matter.

As the CNN poll conducted after the debate showed, some 54 per cent thought Clinton won the debate, when it did not seem so (CNN admitted that many of those polled were tilting towards Democrats). But, interestingly, 63 per cent also said that Trump did better than expected. The pollsters did not explain this contradiction, unless it meant most of those who watched the debate expected Trump to self-immolate.

He didn’t. Trump came back roaring, strengthened his base, and managed to paint himself as the Disrupter who is taking on the Insider, the ultimate pillar of the Establishment.

My personal take: Trump has probably lost the bulk of the women’s vote, but the men are another matter. Hillary hasn’t won back those who always distrusted her.

Trump played to his strengths, that he is a WYSIWIG candidate – what you see is what you get. It all boils down to whether those who saw him liked what they saw or didn’t.

The race is probably still open, especially since people may be hiding more than they reveal to pollsters. When you have a WYSIWIG candidate, some people may prefer to vote differently from what they say they will do on 8 November.