With all three 2016 presidential debates finished (phew), it’s time to step back a little and take stock. We know Hillary Clinton won all three. We know Donald Trump screwed up a lot. But the relationship between those two things needs to be given a little more attention. Clinton didn’t just win because Trump screwed up. Trump didn’t just screw up in a vacuum. As Ezra Klein argues:
Trump’s meltdown wasn’t an accident. The Clinton campaign coolly analyzed his weaknesses and then sprung trap after trap to take advantage of them.
The campaign may have done the analyzing and designed the traps, but Hillary Clinton had to personally spring them. She had to deliver lines intended to get under Trump’s skin without letting them look like attacks, so that his meltdown would be what stood out. And she had to do that while keeping her cool onstage with an abusive bully. And while being prepared to answer any question that might get thrown at her.
That’s a tall order. But it’s not all Clinton had to do. She faced a set of additional pressures as a woman. We know how it goes. Smile, but not too much. Be warm, but don’t seem weak. Be passionate, but for heaven’s sake don’t raise your voice even a little. And Clinton somehow hit the magic balance throughout most of all three debates. She smiled, she laughed, she was serious and empathetic when the subject called for it, she did not back down, she was genuine and personable without sacrificing her formidable knowledge.
She couldn’t entirely avoid some people arguing she smiled too much or interrupted too much (even as she interrupted Trump nine times and he interrupted her 37 times). But those criticisms were remarkably muted in commentary on these debates compared with the primary debates or her speeches. This shouldn’t be a pressure Clinton faces as a woman, but it is, and she navigated it beautifully.
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Clinton also delivered, especially in the final debate, some memorable, powerful moments. Take her defense of late-term abortion as it happens in the real world, if not in Republican rhetoric. Or how she tied Trump’s attitudes toward women to a broader view of the nation, almost as if women actually matter:
Donald thinks belittling women makes him bigger. He goes after their dignity, their self-worth, and I don't think there is a woman anywhere that doesn't know what that feels like. So we now know what Donald thinks and what he says and how he acts toward women. That's who Donald is. I think it's really up to all of us to demonstrate who we are and who our country is and to stand up and be very clear about what we expect from our next president, how we want to bring our country together, where we don't want to have the kind of pitting of people one against the other, where instead we celebrate our diversity, we lift people up, and we make our country even greater.
Clinton isn’t the speechmaker her husband is, or President Obama, or Michelle Obama. But in these moments she showed that she too can bring memorable conviction and eloquence.
Yes, Clinton faced a weak opponent. But she didn’t just avoid being dragged down to his level, she rose above—and helped push him under while she was doing it.