Every once in a while, someone out there says something that a fellow writer has been mulling on for months, but couldn’t find a way to express. This is both frustrating (it was my idea!) and reassuring (it confirms what you’ve been thinking).
This happened to me recently when I was listening to The Tom Woods Show, and Michael Malice described what might happen when Donald Trump debates Hillary Clinton.
Despite demographic trends, I have sensed that Trump had a shot to defeat her. But I have struggled to find a way to explain how “magic” can beat “math.” Well, one way this could happen would be for there to be a big moment. This could come in the form of some sort of disaster (like a terrorist attack, God forbid), or it could simply come in the form of a knockout punch. (Trump is unlikely to win if the fight goes the distance and relies on the judges’ scorecard, but I could imagine Hillary choking, and Trump triumphing.)
Michael Malice provides us with one hypothetical example of how this might occur during one of the presidential debates.
This is a partial transcript of his conversation with Tom Woods:
[Hillary’s] going to come in with her little smarmy smirk and have some kind of joke about Trump, and he’s going to improv some devastating one-liner… As soon as Trump hits her back, she’s not going to have a comeback on her feet. And she’s going to look weak and pathetic. He’s going to dare her to say ‘I dare you to say Islamic Fundamentalist Terrorism,’ and she’ll either obey him and look weak, or refuse and look cowardly.
And — this is the one — I’m predicting this one right now: If she has one of his coughing fits on stage, he is going to attack her rapid fire. And she’s literally going to be unable to speak. And he’s going to say things like, ‘Look, she’s dying in front of us.’ ‘Look, I like grammas, but they should be in a home, not the president.’ ‘She’s weak. She’s pathetic.’ … And he’s like: ‘Let’s take a break, cause she needs a breather. This woman is not well.’ That will be the moment that destroys her campaign. He’s going to eat her alive in those debates.
And, as you know, most people in the middle don’t care about ideology. They just respond like dogs to a visceral way towards strength…and in those debates, he is going to have her in the palm of his hand. There’s nothing she will be able to do.
Sadly, I buy Malice’s theory that most voters are lemmings who will follow the Alpha dog. Hell, some of Trump’s supporters have taken to calling him “daddy.” What is more, Trump is a dangerous fighter, partly because he’s willing to say and do things that most of us would never think of.
Few of us would pounce on a woman while she’s coughing, and there are really two reasons for this. First, it’s unkind and unchivalrous. But second, we also think it would be bad politics — that it would backfire and make us look “mean.”
Trump is unencumbered by the former concerns — and, in terms of the latter — seems to have proven that chivalry went out with the knights.
Based on observation (the way he dispatched of opponents ranging from Jeb Bush to [crscore]Marco Rubio[/crscore] to [crscore]Ted Cruz[/crscore] — not to mention the way he has attacked women ranging from Megyn Kelly to Carly Fiorina), Trump is ready, willing, and able to do this.
Let’s see if he gets his shot at a knockout punch.