But it's clear that it was also an effort to draw fire.
Being attacked by Trump may not have worked out particularly well for Jeb Bush or Lindsey Graham, but Hillary Clinton's first electoral victory came after her Republican opponent, Rick Lazio, crossed into her space at a debate and demanded that she sign a campaign financing pledge. Clinton succeeded in portraying Lazio as a bully.
So would Trump rise to the bait after Clinton's criticisms on Saturday night? Would he overreach? Well, of course. He started by questioning her assertion that ISIS is using his rhetoric in propaganda, but Trump is Trump, and Hillary is a woman, so the rhetoric headed in a predictable direction:
Republican frontrunner Donald Trump used a campaign stop in Michigan on Monday to make astonishingly sexist attacks against Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton.That's from Think Progress, which adds, helpfully:
At one point, Trump told the Grand Rapids crowd that Clinton got “schlonged” by President Obama during their 2008 Democratic primary race.
“Even her race to Obama. She was going to beat Obama. I don’t know who’d be worse. I don’t know. How does it get worse? She was favored to win and she got schlonged. She lost. She lost,” Trump said.
“Schlong” is a well-known reference to a man’s genitals. There are no alternative definitions for the word, according to Merriam-Webster.
In Grand Rapids, that wasn't the only sign of Trump's revulsion at Hillary's girl cooties:
Trump recounted how Clinton was seconds late to the Democratic debate stage on Saturday night following a commercial break. Trump asked the crowd four times where Clinton had gone.
"I know where she went -- it's disgusting, I don't want to talk about it," Trump said, screwing up his face, as the crowd laughed and cheered. "No, it's too disgusting. Don't say it, it's disgusting."
This is great for Clinton. This is Trump at his worst, the Trump that only his fans like. It's Trump the buffoon rather than the self-styled strongman. Clinton may have lost some luster over the years, but she's still a star, in a way that Jeb Bush and Lindsey Graham aren't -- she's not going to seem diminished by this, because she still comes off as an alpha in this world, in a way that Graham and Bush never will, and she's been through too much to be fazed by it.
This makes Trump look infantile to the larger public and, probably, impressive to his idiot voters -- so it's a double victory for Clinton. She has him just where she wants him. She should just keep goading him.
I've been trying to think of a downside for this for Ms. Clinton, and I can't. She's been dealing with bullies all her life and she knows exactly how to do it. Or, as a friend of mine once noted, she knows where Trump keeps his goat.
ReplyDelete"Schlonged?"
ReplyDeleteReally?
And by a black guy, yet!
A misogyny/racism double-whammy.
Go ahead, Hillary: Keep poking that caged shaved-ape's eye.
Steve?
ReplyDelete>Yes, Mr. Trump?
Call me 'Donald', Steve: I call in here multiple times, I feel like we know each other. Steve, have you ever heard of a man having to pull off multiple clothing to go to the toilet?
>Well, I can't ...
That's what happens, right? It's never anything as simple as Zip Pull Drain Zip, isn't that so?
>Well, I-I believe that's...that's pretty much so, Mist- Donald, yes.
On no account will your hard core adult broad ever stride manfully up to urinal, unzip her pants, whip out Wonder Boy, and proceed to drain the weasel, right?
>Oh, eh, yes. I, uhm, can't quite see what you're getting at, Do- uh, Donald.
Plumbing is what I'm getting at. Steve, the penis is the source of all that's strong and forceful and manful in life. Did you know less than half the world's population is granted a penis, Steve? And what all penises need is safety. Why, do you realize, Steve, right between your own legs hangs a penis?
>Good Lord!
And, as men, you and I need fresh, young, pure, spotlessly clean receptacles to accept the blessings of our penises.
>Yes. [begins to dither and grow faint]
Are you beginning to understand?
>Yes. [starts to shake]
Steve - Stephen James Doocy: have you never wondered why I ONLY shtrup young beauty contest virgins, to the point of even voicing out loud incestuous fantasies about my daughter?
>Well, it did occur to me, Donald, yes.
Have you ever heard of a thing called cooties? Female cooties, supposed to be shielded by unmentionables, coming out from women's nether regions, Steve?
>AHH UHH Yes, YES, I-I have heard of that, Donald, yes. Long--been a lot of years since the last time, I'll say that, but yes, I have.
Well, do you know what they do?
>No, no I don't know, no.
Do you realize. Steve, that women's cooties deliver the most monstrously conceived & dangerous plops ever imagined?
Even those of us paying attention to the race during the holidays will have forgotten about this by New Year's Day in the wake of the half-dozen other stupid things Trump will have said by then.
ReplyDeleteI would be amazed if anyone in Camp Hillary is paying a moment's attention to it instead of, say, the fact that Bernie Sanders is out-fundraising her.
@Unknown,
ReplyDeleteBRILLIANT!
I wish I'd written it... :-)
Ahh, but in classic quantum world mystery, there are 2 unknowns and they of course they obey quantum mechanics in not being able to occupy the same space. Indeed, in this case, at least one would call the other eyee to its glee. The second Unknown, the first might say, is just freaking wrong: nom-seeking pols can say a lot of puerile things & find them not necessarily fatal, but not 12 year old male bathroom cooty fear humor about a 65 year old woman who's been a U.S. Senator and Secretary of State. This is the sort of thing said that means the utterer of the former can't even appear on the same platform in a debate with the latter, and no: it will not be forgotten.
ReplyDeleteThis is only the beginning. If Trump wins the nomination the rhetoric will be much uglier. He's notoriously thin-skinned.
ReplyDeleteTrump pisses on women and expects them to believe it's perfume.
ReplyDeleteHe's might even lose Phyllis Schlafly he keeps this up.