What We’re Watching for in the Second Debate
Trump vs. Clinton on women, national security and everything else. Times Opinion writers weigh in before, during and after.
How Does She Do It?
Tonight, we’ll watch Hillary Clinton do the unprecedented. She will stand on the stage, for a presidential debate, alongside a man who was caught on tape in 2005 talking about women in terms that were “vulgar” (NPR), “extremely lewd” (The Washington Post) or predatory, threatening and emblematic of rape culture (my mom, my sister, Twitter).
How will she do it, knowing that her thin-skinned and peevish opponent is ready to answer any charge of misogyny or misbehavior by saying that anything he thought or said pales in comparison to what Bill Clinton has done, and that Mrs. Clinton, his “enabler,“ has had his back, and sought to tear down the women who accused him?
For the length of the campaign, Mrs. Clinton has struggled to find her voice, her persona, to find a way to be, while everything from her expression (to smile or not to smile?) to her tone (shouty!) to her laugh to her fashion choices has been weighed and found wanting.
Friends insist that, in private, Mrs. Clinton is a lovely person — warm and loyal, with a sharp sense of humor. In public, however, she’s long been caricatured as Tracy Flick from the 1999 movie “Election,” the cold, ickily ambitious would-be high school president.
But there’s a more accurate cinematic comparison, one whose voice and choices might show Mrs. Clinton a path out of this sinkhole.
Maybe it’s just because it’s one of my favorite movies, but I’ve been thinking about the 1987 film “Broadcast News” a lot, imagining, instead of Hillary as Tracy, Hillary as Holly Hunter’s Jane Craig, the accomplished, neurotic-but-charming female lead of the movie’s love triangle.
Jane is a hard-charging news producer, a woman so driven that she schedules time to cry, by far the smartest person in any room. We see her lecturing her colleagues about the value of hard news over fluff and vulnerable as she ends a relationship with a handsome news anchor after he’s caught on tape playing fast and loose with the truth. It’s a hard choice that leaves her lonely, but with her self-respect intact.
Which brings us to tonight.
Mrs. Clinton won the last debate by keeping her head while Mr. Trump frothed and rambled; by being the calm adult coolly staring down a petulant little boy.
This weekend, hunkered down in his gilded penthouse, explaining away his creepy, predatory ways by saying that 2005 was a long time ago (it wasn’t) and that the words don’t reflect who he is (they do), Mr. Trump has made it clear that his plan is to go big on little-boy tactics.
“Bill Clinton has actually abused women, and Hillary has bullied, attacked, shamed and intimidated his victims,” he said. It’s a diversion familiar to any parent who’s ever heard, “Why are you so mad at me for spilling my milk, when Trevor broke the pitcher?”
When Mr. Trump tries to pin Bill Clinton’s misdeeds, actual and alleged, on Mrs. Clinton, she needs to point out which Clinton is running for office. She must address her own hard choices, and the price she’s paid, and then take voters out of the Clinton presidency and back to the boys on the bus.
And she needs to keep the stakes at the forefront. In “Broadcast News,” there’s a scene in which Albert Brooks, playing a news reporter with a crush on Jane and an unfortunate tendency to sweat on camera, calls his romantic rival the devil. When Jane objects, Mr. Brooks’s character says that Satan won’t show up in an obvious way: “He will be attractive. He’ll be nice and helpful. He’ll get a job where he influences a great God-fearing nation. He’ll never do an evil thing! He’ll never deliberately hurt a living thing. He will just bit by little bit lower our standards where they are important.”
Words like “nice and helpful” do not pop immediately to one’s mind when considering Mr. Trump. But that last part?
The Republican nominee’s leering, threatening language, the way that on the tape, with Billy Bush’s chuckling complicity, he turns an actress from a person to an “it,” the way he maintains that, for a “star,” women are not people as much as a serve-yourself flesh buffet, all of that has lowered our standards where they are important, not just a little, but a lot.
At the Democratic National Convention, and throughout her campaign, Mrs. Clinton made much of that shattered glass ceiling, about the power and responsibility that go with being the only woman on the stage. Tonight, though, she’d be better served by focusing not on gender but on maturity; by telling voters that they have a choice not between a man and a woman, or even a Republican and a Democrat, but between an entitled child and a seasoned, scarred adult.
Jennifer Weiner is the author of the memoir “Hungry Heart,” and a contributing opinion writer.
CONTINUED
Your Thoughts on Trump
Have you, as a woman, faced treatment like Donald Trump describes? Have you, as a man, talked the way Donald Trump did, or listened to men talking that way? We asked readers to respond on Facebook. Here’s a sampling what they said, edited for length and clarity.
Have I? That’s like asking have I ever breathed air. I have been groped in public, been exposed to, demanded by married men that I should date them. Twice physically attacked in very scary ways. I’m not going into detail in a public forum. To hear this “locker room” excuse just infuriates me. Stop making excuses, this is reality everyday. Trump is a criminal.
—Guinevere Shaw SmithUm, as a man, yes. Spent 12 years in the Army with various deployments. If Trump’s comments offend you, don’t go to a military barracks, especially all male ones, on a weekend night.
—Tom BarnesI was pinched on the breast by a coworker who seemed to think it was funny. I was young and didn’t report the incident but I still remember the humiliation of 40-plus years ago.
—Brenda Crosby BouserAs a male who was raised by a strong and independent woman, I would like to respond to this. Have I spoken like this? Yes I have, when I was a teenage boy who had no experience with women in relationships, and as a very young adult in the military, who was “just trying to fit in”. As a kid I said these things before my mother corrected and taught me the concepts of respect and decency. That said, at 28 I would find it unacceptable to speak like this. By 70 years old, anyone who speaks like this proves what has already been said about him, he is a sexist narcissist who is only concerned with promoting himself, and that he has no respect for anybody but himself.
—Tyrone NewsomAt the very least, there is probably not a woman alive who has not, to her own shame, used the “I have a boyfriend” excuse - because sometimes declaring yourself to be the property of another man is the only thing these cretins comprehend as a viable form of “no.”
—Nancy Lloyd Van WhitbeckI have never heard any comments like this over a lifetime of many different jobs. Not once.
—Mark ScottBy the time I was eighteen this had happened many times. I never talked about it because I felt ashamed. It stopped happening in my 30’s so I guess it’s something mainly done to young women. I’m glad it’s identified as sexual assault now.
—Lorraine AdlerI have never spoken about women the way Trump did. I have worked with women who spoke about men in “colorful” ways, but of course, they were feminists, and if men can use locker room speak then, by God, so could they.
—Patrick BarbieriI have not had the “pussy” grab, but trying to kiss me forcibly? Yes. My buttocks pinched/grabbed dozens of times. I don’t mind a whistle, but dirty, nasty comments as I walk past total strangers have made me nervous. I have a younger coworker that has received a “dick pic” from about 80% of the twenty somethings she has met. It starts in high school when the “boys” try to cop a cheap feel on your chest. I do not lament being a married, middle aged woman with children. I’m finally left alone.
—Tara MurphyI’ve heard men talk that way before when I was a member of a fraternity. I always rebuked them, and they never spoke that way in front of me again. I find it reprehensible, and I simply don’t tolerate it around me.
—Erik CzerwinThe reality is nearly every woman has been sexually marginalized by a man or men at some point in her life. She has been objectified and had unwanted, uncomfortable cat-calls and whistles thrown at her, she has been demeaned because of her sex. She has had to work twice as hard as her male coworkers to be deemed half as good. She has been groped or touched without her consent, she has been told all she needs is a “good F___” to straighten out her attitude, she has had men unapologetically speak to her boobs.
—Elizabeth Brandon WarnerAs teens and young guys in college we would talk about girls but it was all about how sexy they were; “great legs”, “nice butt” , “big boobs” it was immature and stupid. In my entire life ( I am 71) I have never heard anyone talking about grabbing a woman’s pussy against her will or forcing himself on a woman.
—Cornelio NouelThe first job I ever had, at 17, I was fired because I wouldn’t have sex with the boss. And the 2nd. Most women I know have these stories.
—Connie ReynoldsBefore I became married, I’m sure I was a schmuck.
—Sid Bodhi
Trump’s Vision of Manhood
Is Donald Trump a real man?
He certainly wants us to think he is. He lives in a gilded man cave, glued to the TV screen, chomping down junk food and hanging out with bodacious models and beauty pageant contestants.
He loves to brag about his sexual prowess. In military school, he cultivated his reputation as a ladies’ man. He reminded us on live television that he has big hands – and not just big hands. As the video released Friday told us in all too graphic detail, he thinks he’s irresistible to women and entitled to force himself on them.
But is this how real men talk when they’re with each other, in the locker room, in the bar, in Wall Street bacchanals? And is this how real men act? Certainly a lot of women believe that’s the case (or have themselves endured harassment and assault), and the video allowed them to be voyeurs into a frat-boy world. A lot of men are rushing to assure them otherwise.
A parade of Republicans has dissociated themselves from such behavior, and men interviewed across the country said Mr. Trump had crossed a line.
More broadly, this election raises the question of what vision of masculinity Americans are going to endorse. Mr. Trump’s version clearly resonates with a segment of the American electorate. He tells it like it is. He gets results. Take that, political correctness police.
In the primary, he scored by unmanning his opponents. He mocked them as wimps and effete elites (Jeb Bush), too weak to get through a debate without water (Marco Rubio) and – the ultimate insult – not manly enough to attract beautiful women (Ted Cruz).
Even his mangled syntax can be seen as manly. “Part of Trump’s appeal is that he’s inarticulate,” said Jackson Katz, the author of “Man Enough? Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump and the Politics of Presidential Masculinity.” “He seems more real,” as opposed to the intellectuals that Republicans have long dismissed as weak.
More substantively, Mr. Trump talks about Making America Great Again, a case he is sure to make in tonight’s second debate. With his rejection of free trade, his resolve to build a wall to keep out immigrants and his swagger, he conjures an America where a man still gets good pay for an honest day’s work. That man could provide for his family so his wife could afford to stay home. In this America, men don’t face competition from immigrants or women for jobs. In this America, white men are restored to their dominant place in the economy, politics and the home.
Polling consistently shows that Mr. Trump has commanding majorities among white men without a college education. “It’s much more difficult now to say I’m a real man,” said Andrew J. Cherlin, a sociologist at Johns Hopkins University and the author of “Labor’s Love Lost: The Rise and Fall of the Working-Class Family in America.” “I take care of my family. I don’t ask for any favors. That was their identity and it was based on a job with a decent wage.”
But in other ways, Mr. Trump is a caricature, even a distortion, of American masculinity. Scholars point to an enduring ideal of American manhood, epitomized by the Western — the strong, silent and chivalrous man. Gary Cooper in High Noon. Alan Ladd in Shane. “The cowboy types that show up in our imagination would have nothing to do with Trump,” said Michael Kimmel, a professor of sociology and gender at Stony Brook University and the author of “Angry White Men.” “He’s not a man who’s done a lick of real work in his life. Let’s see you change a tire. Masculinity in America has always been something that you prove with your hands – not the size of your actual hands.”
Paul Ryan touched on this alternate ideal of manhood in his denunciation of Mr. Trump’s words (if not of his candidacy) late Friday. “Women are to be championed and revered, not objectified,” he said. This in itself can be seen as retrograde, of course – feminists having fought long and hard to move away from the Victorian ideal that women need to be protected and worshipped.
Notably, many Republicans who denounced Mr. Trump over the weekend did so in similar chivalric mode. Mitt Romney said anyone with a daughter could not support Mr. Trump. Jeb Bush spoke about his granddaughters. Striving to be sensitive, they nonetheless still cast women as objects, not as peers.
Despite the protestations, sexual entitlement — in words and deeds — runs deep in American culture. Stanley Kowalski, in Marlon Brando’s indelible portrayal in A Streetcar Named Desire, is another trope of American manhood. We don’t even have to look that far back. Even now, a string of professional and college athletes, celebrated as the epitome of manliness, have beaten, abused and raped women, often with impunity.
The aggression that characterizes Mr. Trump’s words and behavior is both a reflection and a cartoonish exaggeration of traditional masculinity. That very ideal of what it is to be a man has been under assault for generations. Feminists would argue – contrary to the emotional experience of many of Mr. Trump’s supporters — that reimagining the role of women does not demean or constrain men. Rather, the feminists say, it liberates them.
A men’s movement, championed by Mr. Katz among others, suggests that there are new ways to define being an American man — most notably by acting against sexual harassment but also by freeing men from the emotional straightjacket the Western trope imposed.
This election presents many choices. Now it may also determine which version of manhood we believe in – or what we choose to invent going forward.
Susan Chira is a senior correspondent and editor on gender issues for The New York Times.
Our Own Debate Prep
Not everyone likes to do debate prep, but here on the opinion pages, this is what we live for. Maureen Dowd asked how it came to this; Nick Kristof looked at Donald Trump’s qualifications to be groper in chief; Lindy West argued that women needed to grab Republicans where it hurt, at the ballot box; Ross Douthat considered the many faces of illiberalism today; Molly Worthen showed how a rift on the religious left helps explain Hillary Clinton’s problem consolidating the Democratic base; Katha Pollitt revealed what the vice-presidential debate (remember that?) told us what can and can’t be said about abortion; Vanessa Williamson showed that Americans feel deeplyabout paying their taxes and not necessarily in the way that you think; Jacques Leslie demonstrated how voter confusion over photo ID laws was just as dangerous as the laws themselves; and Tom Edsall imagined the global economy according to Mr. Trump.
Dining Out on Donald
Listen, your weekend could be worse. You could be in charge of explaining Donald J. Trump.
“He speaks the way many times people talk around their dining room table,” protested Corey Lewandowski, the former aide turned TV commentator. Lewandowski’s done a lot of unlovely things this election season, but I still do not believe that when he goes home to have a meal with the family, the conversation turns around grabbing women’s private parts.
What are you supposed to say when your extremely dicey presidential candidate shows up on a tape bragging about how he’s so famous he can molest any woman he wants? We will turn first to that pacesetter Sean Hannity. “I think King David had 500 concubines, for crying out loud,” said the “Fox News” host.
This is not a promising route, given the fact that the Bible says King David also seduced Bathsheba and killed her husband, Uriah the Hittite. Unless Hannity was planning to close with “at least he didn’t murder anybody.”
The less imaginative defenders often fell back on the argument that the super-sexist tape was really old – eleven years! “I’ve seen a different man in the last year and a half,” said Rudy Giuliani on his whirlwind tour of Sunday morning TV. Give the man credit – while most Trump surrogates were hiding in their beds, Rudy was on the air everywhere. Truly, if you had turned on HGTV, I’ll bet you’d have seen him pop up on an episode of “Fixer Upper,” advising hapless homeowners that they needed granite kitchen countertops and more faith in the Republican nominee. Giuliani’s argument was that running for president changes you for the better. It was an interesting point, particularly when made by a man whose own shot at the White House helped transform him from America’s Mayor to a super-scary talking head.
And pity the innocent bystanders. After her husband made one of the worst apologies in history — really, he looked like a hostage being forced to confess to war crimes by the Taliban — poor Melania issued a statement saying that the infamous Trump Tape “does not represent the man that I know. He has the heart and mind of a leader.” On the plus side, it was definitely not language cribbed from Michelle Obama.
No way to get around this one. Except for the New Republican Dodge, in which candidates announce that they cannot possibly support a person who says such awful things. (Who imagined? No idea!) But then of course there’s no way they’d vote for Hillary Clinton. And so they’re going to … do something else. Senator Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire announced she’d be “writing in Governor Pence for president on Election Day.” You have to feel sorry for the woman. She’s in a very tough re-election battle. Last week someone asked Ayotte if Trump was a good model for children, and she got into big trouble for saying yes. Politicians can’t always depend on the top of the ticket to pull them up, but it isn’t often that someone has to retract an affirmation that her party’s presidential candidate was someone kids could look up to.
However, this business of saying you’re not going to vote for anybody real is awful. John McCain announced he’s going to write in an unnamed “good conservative Republican” — he won’t even name anybody. The news release should go something like this: “Senator X today announced that he has decided to throw away his vote and spend Election Day sulking in a special yurt that will be erected specifically for the purpose of celebrating Americans’ right to let somebody else make the hard decisions.”
Suck it up, Senator. Make a choice.
Mr. Trump is rape culture’s blathering id, and Sunday night Hillary Clinton (who, no doubt, has just as many man-made scars as the rest of us) has to stand next to him on a stage.
Donald and Billy onthe Bus
Lindy West, in “Donald and Billy on the Bus.”
The Fake Shock Over Trump
Listening to the 2005 recording of Donald Trump’s comments to Billy Bush, I had many reactions. Disgust was one.
Amazement was another: I still struggle to comprehend how Americans let Trump get this far.
But surprise at what he actually said? Please. And I don’t believe for a nanosecond that it’s what the Republicans now denouncing and even fleeing him felt.
The biggest shock is their charade of it, because the recording revealed nothing new. The Trump it captures is the Trump that we’ve all heard, seen and known from the beginning. The only difference is that he’d pretty much reached his end by the time the recording came out. His revolting words enabled Republicans who were increasingly certain of his defeat in the presidential election and were itching for an exit route to wrap themselves in moral outrage as they skittered to one.
Some of them had stuck with Trump — or are still sticking with him — not out of any real hope or respect for him but out of concern that Hillary Clinton would do more damage in the presidency than he would. I don’t understand how a person arrives at that calculation, given his spectacular immaturity and impulsiveness, but I do accept that it’s real.
And it includes and always included full awareness of the kind of man portrayed in that recording, the kind of man he indisputably is: one who puts his own amusement above anybody’s dignity, sees women first and foremost as fleshy playgrounds, confuses vulgarity with boldness and thinks that all the world, including almost everyone in it, exists to be ogled and ideally plundered by him.
When his daughter Tiffany was an infant, he gazed upon her and wondered aloud, in a television interview, if she’d be graced with large breasts. This has been widely reported.
As his daughter Ivanka matured into a woman, he gazed upon her and publicly mused that if she weren’t his kin, she might be his conquest. This has been widely reported, too, and over recent days there was an addendum to it: Trump once gave Howard Stern permission to call Ivanka “a piece of ass.” When conservatives talk about family values, they can’t possibly have the Trumps in mind.
But why should Trump the Lech be the final straw any more than Trump the Bigot or Trump the Racist? What precisely about his grotesque banter with Bush was more damning than the way he clung to the birther conspiracy and congratulated himself for it? Or his dismissal of a Mexican-American judge? Or his adoration of Vladimir Putin? Or so much else? He disqualified himself repeatedly — and long ago.
Any Republicans who are discovering and proclaiming moral outrage only now aren’t entitled to it. They should have found it on any number of previous occasions. I think they did, but tamped it down, which is why its expression over recent days has had such a theatrical, fraudulent ring.
They didn’t call him out and take him on before the primaries because they didn’t expect him to win the party’s nomination. Then they didn’t call him out and take him on because he was winning, and then because he’d won. Tribal loyalty pre-empted common decency, to which he was a sustained offense.
But circumstances changed. After his miserable performance in his first debate with Clinton, he unraveled further and sank in polls. He began to look not just like a lost cause but like a toxic one. For many of the Republicans seeking re-election, condoning him now carries more risk than condemning him. That’s the fresh calculation — and it’s the context for the suddenly harsh words they’re directing at Trump.
Some of them have been worried that any broad denunciation of him would suppress turnout and hurt them in Senate and House races. But if Sunday night’s debate doesn’t stanch his bleeding, look for a new tactic and an altered message: that a Clinton presidency is inevitable and that voters with apprehensions about it should make sure that she’s restrained by a Congress in firm Republican control.
G.O.P. leaders could try to repurpose Trump’s weakness into strength down the ballot. But I’m not sure what they do down the road. So many abetted Trump for so long that the stain is dark and deep. It won’t be removed by their feigned horror over the last two days
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