What can one say? I was afraid that Trump’s charisma and stage presence and salesmanship might out-shine Hillary Clinton’s usually tepid and wonkish instincts. I feared that the facts wouldn’t matter; that a debate would not take place. And it is to Clinton’s great credit that she prepared; and he didn’t; and that she let him hang himself.
His utter lack of preparation; his doubling down on transparent lies; his foreign policy recklessness; his racial animosity; his clear discomfort with the kind of exchange of views that is integral to liberal democracy; his instinctual belligerence: all these suggest someone who has long lived in a deferential bubble that has become filled with his own reality.
Clinton was not great at times; her language was occasionally stilted; she missed some obvious moments to go in for the kill; but she was solid and reassuring and composed. I started tonight believing she needed a game-changer to alter the trajectory of this race. I may, of course, be wrong, trapped in my own confirmation bias and bubble – but I thought she did just that.
I’ve been a nervous wreck these past two weeks; my nerves are calmed now.
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