Don’t tell me about words, pleaded Donald Trump.
The Republican candidate for president of the United States was standing on the stage at Washington University answering a question that previously had been unimaginable in this setting.
But, as Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton would later say of this 2016 spectacle, “This is not an ordinary time and this is not an ordinary election.”
The question to Trump was about the embarrassing video recording of him bragging in 2005 of sexually assaulting women, of kissing them without asking, of groping them and grabbing their genitals. He talked of going after a married woman “like a bitch,” saying that because he was a star, he could have his way with most women.
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“This was locker room talk,” Trump said.
No, pushed back Anderson Cooper of CNN. This was sexual assault.
“Have you ever done those things?” he asked.
“No, I have not,” Trump said, in what would be the first of his many lies in the debate. “Don’t tell me about words.”
Indeed, in the world of the reality television star who would be president, words are meaningless, falling out of his mouth like dribble, before he wipes them away as though he never said them.
“I know nothing about Russia,” Trump said at one point, before later claiming expertise on the country that seems intent on interfering in the U.S. election to make sure that Trump lands in the White House.
He told a Muslim woman in the crowd that the rise in Islamaphobia was “a shame,” and then blamed Muslims for not doing enough to report crimes in the U.S.
Perhaps in his short time in St. Louis he hasn’t yet seen the “Hey ISIS, You suck!” billboard on Manchester Road paid for by local Muslims.
Asked once again if his words mattered, Trump wouldn’t offer a defense or apology for his plan to ban Muslims from entering the country.
He couldn’t do so because throughout the debate, as the entire campaign, he has been unable to find the words to articulate a serious policy on virtually anything.
Syria?
His words directly contradicted the policy of attacking dictator Bassar al-Assad as outlined recently by Trump’s vice presidential candidate, Mike Pence.
Told by ABC’s Martha Raddatz that his rambling words were the exact opposite of the ones espoused by his running mate, Trump offered weakly, “He and I haven’t spoken, and I disagree.”
In fact, words do matter.
That was the message offered in this city more than a year ago by former Sen. Jack Danforth, a member of the presidential commission that sponsors the debates, in a eulogy for his friend, Missouri Auditor Tom Schweich. Danforth was calling for a higher tone in our political discussion.
The nation didn’t listen.
But Karl Becker did. In the final question of the debate he offered its most shocking surprise. Becker asked the candidates to say something nice about each other, and they did. Clinton complimented Trump’s kids and gave the GOP candidate credit for raising them. Trump called Clinton a fighter.
That fighter sought to turn this debate into a referendum over a man who “is not fit” to be the president and an experienced diplomat and elected official who wants to represent the entire nation, even the “deplorables” she derided for their outright bigotry at Trump rallies.
“I want to be the president of all Americans,” Clinton said, “regardless of your political beliefs, where you came from.”
These were the words that mattered.
“This is not who we are,” Clinton said of Trump’s misogyny and bigotry. “I have a deep devotion to make sure that every American feels like he or she has a place in this country. ... We are great because we are good.”
