Debates rarely change things; they confirm impressions.
Monday night’s debate settled once and for all what this presidential election is about: the status quo vs radical change.
If Hillary Clinton wins, it’s a triumph for orthodoxy and matters will continue as normal. If Donald Trump wins, America will be set on an entirely new path.
Trump has already forced the Republicans to change. Consider what he didn’t talk about in the debate: God never came up. Nor abortion, nor same-sex marriage, nor religious dissent against Obamacare.
He didn’t mention the Constitution. Ronald Reagan’s name wasn’t dropped and small government was hardly mentioned. Yes, Trump said he wants to cut taxes. “I’m very proud of my tax cut,” he insisted. But he also said, “I agree with Hillary” a lot, talked about spending more on infrastructure and pledged to expand the power of the government by protecting US jobs and goods against foreign competition.
Trump is not your father’s ideological conservative. He is an economic nationalist. And he’s willing to use the full machinery of the state to “Make America Great Again.”
His iconoclasm is nonpartisan. In the primaries, he famously said that George W Bush was to blame for 9/11. On Monday night, he blamed Clinton for ISIS and continued to denounce neoconservative foreign policy — shouting “wrong!” every time the moderator claimed he’d originally backed the Iraq War.
So what Trump offers isn’t just an indictment of the Obama years, which would be boilerplate talking points for a Republican nominee. He indicts the entire economic and foreign policy consensus since the 1990s.
By opposing free trade and more war, he implies a third promise to end paralysis in Washington: He’s a businessman. He’s created jobs. If he can build a casino, maybe he can convince Congress to get things done. That’s the pitch.
Against this onslaught, Clinton tries to present herself still as someone who can make change — albeit slowly and with more reasonable levels of ambition.
She’s been making this case for herself for much of her career. Recall that back in 2008, when running against Barack Obama, she compared herself to Lyndon B Johnson. You need an insider, she argued, someone who understands the culture of Washington if you’re going to get anything done.
The argument proceeds from weakness. She knows that she isn’t liked by millions of Americans, so she’s tried to turn that into an advantage: You hate me, but you need me and, in spite of yourself, you’re going to vote for me.
Hers is the voice of an establishment that knows it’s tired, knows that it’s not wanted — but assumes the public believes it has no other choice but to back it. In a way, it’s just as nonpartisan as Trumpism. It takes political correctness from the left and globalization/militarism from the right. Nothing speaks better to how deeply embedded in US culture this consensus is than the fact that both Hollywood and the stock market declared Clinton the winner of the debate — and were both happy for it.
The problem with their analysis is that it’s the establishment view in a democracy full of populist tension. If you see politics through a rigid orthodoxy — must be polished, must be internationalist, must be politically correct — then, yes, Trump lost badly. But for voters looking for change, it was obvious who offered it most straightforwardly.
With Trump, style and substance are synchronized. And from the debate babble emerged a handful of coherent thoughts that have a clear relevance to many voters. Industrial work is disappearing. Immigration is up. The American Dream is out of reach.
I’ve often wondered if the Trump message might have done better with a smoother salesman. But now I doubt it. Mitt Romney — a good man, a better man, in fact — stood where Trump stands four years ago and said he cared for the dispossessed. It didn’t sound genuine. The ring of inauthenticity was partly because Romney was wedded to free market doctrines that did not scream compassion. But his delivery, too, was indistinguishable from the corporate and governmental elite he claimed to confront. Trump, by contrast, is the whole package of ideas and fury. If you are angry, if you feel locked out of politics, he might offer a real alternative.
The debate told us this: If Trump wins, then US politics and society will head in a new direction. It would be as significant as 1932, when Roosevelt won, or 1980, the year of Reagan. By voting for the Republican ticket, the American people would be voting for a more activist government in critical areas of the economy and a less activist one abroad.
It might be that Americans are not ready to take that route. It might be that he’s not the right driver. But it could still prove to be the eventual direction of travel.
