Donald Trump Won, Because the Debate Didn’t Matter

Tonight was the first of three debates between Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. As predicted, the debate quickly devolved into a shouting match, interruptions, he-said she-said, nonsensical answers and an absent moderator. At the end of the debate, when both candidates shook hands, the media and politicos immediately rushed to award a winner and spin, as we always go through in every election cycle.

But as we all know by this point, this is not a traditional election cycle. We’re not playing by traditional rules. The little things, the sound bites, the ten word answer, the clips to captivate the media, none of those things matter. At least, not in 2016, where the political world has been turned upside down.

Donald Trump won this debate.

Don’t get me wrong, by pretty much every measurable, traditional statistic, Hillary Clinton was the clear winner. She won on substance, on policy (however brief), on the ten word answer, on handling the brief mentions of her scandals. Pretty much every level, you’d have to admit Hillary Clinton should have won.

But make no mistake.

Donald Trump won this debate.

He won this debate the second he interrupted Hillary Clinton for the first time, and got away with it.

He won this debate when he ignored Lester Holt, and carried on for minutes, and got away with it. (diarrhea of the mouth as one of my more progressive friends put it)

He won this debate when Hillary Clinton descended to his level of opinion, blustery nonsense, rather than policy and contrast.

Most importantly, he won this debate because at the end of the debate, the debate itself didn’t matter.

Tomorrow morning, no one is going to remember the policy discussion of this debate (what little there was). No one is going to remember Hillary’s meandering three-plus minute dissertation on the economy to start the debate (although her aside on having the federal government step into the private economy to dictate profit sharing was horrific). No one is going to remember Trump’s generic economic talking points. No one is going to remember two white multi-millionaire septuagenarians’ opinions on how to fix local and state police/community relations in this country. No one is going to remember the baffling 2008-era birth certificate question that Lester Holt inexplicably (and inexcusably) asked.*

*Well, a few of us will remember that one, just because it was just a terrible question.

Because the debate was a sideshow.

The debate was a circus.

We knew this was going to happen. More than 100+ million Americans are expected to have tuned at some point of the debate coverage. It’s not because they were expecting a policy battle, or a more in-depth look at the candidate’s positions. No sir, this was entertainment in it’s purest form, our politicians and nominated candidates engaging in pure lunacy and making fools of themselves for our benefit. And boy, did we get our money’s worth.

Clinton started with her clearly scripted ‘Trumped up trickle down’ derision of Trump’s economic plan. It was terrible reach, something she repeated a bit later, but a clear attempt to create the soundbite that news media would latch on to, and just trying way, way too hard. Then Trump began interrupting Clinton at every turn. Once given a chance to rebut, Trump spoke uninterrupted for minutes, before Lester Holt tried in vain to reestablish the debate rules. No chance, as Clinton jumped in with more attempts at wit, catchphrases and snappy comebacks, only to be rebutted in kind by Trump, only to be rebutted by Clinton, only to be rebutted by Trump, and ad nauseum. In fact, the first question of the debate seemed to take nearly a half hour before we ever got to the second.

The debate never recovered.

Sure, there were moments of traditional debate zings and standout memories. Trump’s retort on his tax returns for Clinton’s emails will resonate with the right, and Clinton’s digs at Trump’s upbringing will resonate with the left. These are the items that will be reported with relish by both sides of the aisle, and covered at length by the mainstream media.

But these, and other seemingly memorable events in the debate, at least to the media, won’t last, and will have little to no affect on the electorate at large.

Consider the reduced expectations we have of the two major parties’ nominees. We hate both of them. Neither party is particularly excited for their nominee. In any other year, if either side had nominated anyone else, their party would be coasting to the easiest lame-duck victory since Reagan over Carter. The one thing the majority of the country can agree on, in a time when no one agrees on anything, is that these are simultaneously the two worst major party nominees in history.

So it’s only fitting that Trump and Clinton took the presidential debate format, and dragged it through the mud. Rules, time limits, rebuttal times, respecting the others’ time, all of that was blown to hell, and done so in the first five minutes. Admittedly, Trump was far more egregious in these actions, but Clinton dove right in the mud with him. And in doing so, Clinton tried fighting a game she was never going to win.

The lasting memory of the first presidential debate of 2016 will be the non-stop bickering, the back and forth between candidates, desperately trying to one-up each other. Hillary’s forced smiles and fake laughter, Trump’s derisive sniffs. Both looking to stick to talking points, while also zinging the other candidate. Lies, cover-ups, half-truths and dodging around questions. Of course Trump, again, was by far the worse of the two, but Clinton played the exact same game, because that was where the playing field developed. And ultimately, we got our wish, we got the entertainment that we expected, the entertainment we have come to understand is all 2016 has become.

And that’s why Donald Trump won tonight. He didn’t win on policy, he didn’t win on talking points, he didn’t win that memorable one-liner. He didn’t win on any of the traditional levels that in election cycles’ debates past that we’ve rushed to deign and award a clear winner.

Ultimately, he wound up winning, because at the end of the night, the debate didn’t matter. It took a backseat to entertainment, and the lowered expectations of the American public.

And that’s absolutely terrifying.