Brains can be funny things. Take Donald Trump’s brain for instance. It obviously has a sense of humour, or perhaps a finely honed sense of mischief. Either way it had a blast Monday night.
There, right in the middle of the presidential debate, amid talk of war and peace, that brain came up with the name of Rosie O’Donnell and pushed it into its owners mouth.
It was inspired sabotage but the brain’s owner didn’t seem to pick that up. Trump banged on about some personal feud he’s had with the former television entertainer, oblivious to the utter bizarreness of doing so in the middle of the biggest job interview of his life.
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But that’s Trump, unafraid to go where no one else would. Or should.
It’s his greatest weakness but it just may be the one thing that brings him within reach of the Oval office. At times he sounds like someone who is struggling with English as a second language, mangling grammar and inventing words and phrases.
But he speaks the slang of daytime TV, as if he’s about to throw to a commercial at any moment, and that’s the language of a vast number of Americans. He may not make much sense, but he connects.
Hillary Clinton speaks the language of power because she’s lived there for a very long time. But it doesn’t always connect.
After all, very few people have real power or understand the shorthand of the powerful. It can sound condescending, entitled and annoying. Sometimes, Clinton comes off as a lecturing parent, evoking painful memories for all those who have had lecturing parents. The parent is usually right, but you don’t have to like it.
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All of this, the wandering disconnects of Trump and the cold certainty of Clinton, was on the stage at Hofstra University on Monday night.
As most debates usually do, it probably just reinforced previously held views of the two. Those who thought Clinton was aloof before were given reasons to believe they were right all along, and those who were panicked about Trump are now undoubtedly horrified.
By any reasonable measure, Trump should be out of this race. He has only a passing acquaintance with the truth, has a comic book view of the world, and one has an unsettling sense that he believes he’s on a game show.
But he has one big advantage: his opponent.
According to almost every poll ever done, Clinton, to put it mildly, has not won the hearts and minds of the American people. She arouses suspicion and distrust. In the 2008 primary race, I remember well the blistering speeches of Barack Obama mocking Clinton for pretending she was one of the people.
He called her a tool of the rich, for having accepted more money from special interests than any other candidate in American history, Democrat or Republican. And those of us covering that primary marvelled at how she would adapt a southern drawl when speaking in the South and a nasal twang when campaigning in Wisconsin. Add all these up and you see her problem. She’s not seen as authentic.
Trump on the other hand is authentic. He’s authentically reckless, authentically shallow, and authentically petulant. But don’t underestimate the importance of that. Many Americans are authentically worried and angry. The middle class is evaporating, along with the dreams it once created. The rich are getting richer and more powerful and the poor more numerous and resentful.
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Violence, or the fear of it, has quietly moved into their neighbourhoods and people are pulling down the blinds and locking the doors.
So into this dark scenario comes someone who promises to make it all better again. It doesn’t matter that he refers to a time that never existed. It doesn’t matter that he and his ilk contributed to the decline. It only matters that he appears to understand you and your feelings. Also, it doesn’t hurt that he’s rich and sounds dumber than you do. In fact it gives you hope that maybe making tons of money isn’t really that hard.
The debate on Monday and the two to follow next month may not be agents of change in the election, unless of course Trump completely loses his mind or drops his pants. But it is a fascinating look into the cultural divide in America, and the two personalities that represent it.
The system requires that one of them must win. It’s a choice between the unpalatable and the unthinkable.
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