When Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton walked onstage Sunday night and refused to shake hands—which they were still civil enough to do last time—I knew the debate would be abominable.
The first 24 minutes made my stomach churn as practically no policies were discussed. The comebacks were beyond sassy; they were vicious and spat-out at lightning speed, Regina George-style. The topics disputed came straight out of a reality television show, complete with sex, drugs and dirty emails. Trump was rightfully grilled about his latest and most inappropriate comments about women, on how, according to him, “when you’re a star you can do anything” to women and how he likes to grab women “by the pussy.” He eventually deflected the question to discuss Bill Clinton’s sexual escapades, saying, “Mine are words and his was action…he was impeached, lost his license to practice law and had to pay an $850,000 fine to Paula Jones.”
When I listen to a potential president attempt to downplay his sexual bragging as “locker-room talk” and then I see a previous president in the audience, who was impeached for an affair, I can’t help but wonder: what is happening to my country? How did it get to such a low point in its political sphere? Because Trump and Clinton stood there and argued over who has treated women worse: a presidential candidate or a former president?
There’s something very wrong with this picture. When did politics become less about who has better policies and more about who has the less abhorrent past with women? It’s a disgrace.
And the worst part? One of these two people—Trump, with his racist, sexist, derogatory commentary—or Clinton—with her background soaked in corruption—will most likely become the next President. As the world’s superpower, it’s an insult to our nation and an embarrassment to the rest of the world, that out of all the highly-qualified, moral American politicians, we have elected these two to run our country. What worries me more than anything else is the example Clinton and Trump are setting—not just for the future of politics—but for the ethics of generations of Americans to come.
Let’s begin with Trump. It’s clear that he’s a bigot: you can see plenty of examples, here. He’s made intolerant commentary on African Americans, Muslims, Native Americans and Hispanics, and has divided the country. There is already more than enough discrimination in the world; the last thing we need is a xenophobic president. And on top of that, Trump is inadvertently showing children everywhere that it’s okay to behave in such a manner. Is this the mindset we want Americans to carry in molding the future?
And let’s not forget Trump’s attitudes towards women. As a woman, I can certainly relate to things Trump has said about us—cue the aforementioned video released by The Washington Post. If Trump is president, the type of rhetoric he used in that clip will become normalized. If he can become President of the United States and laugh about how he “moved on her like a b***h” even though “she was married,” what’s to stop millions of other men from using that language if they think they can get away with it? Plenty of men are already saying similar things—we don’t need the number of them to escalate.
For instance, the past two months during my study abroad in Madrid, me and my female friends have been subject to countless inappropriate remarks and sexual advances from random men. In a bus station last week, a man came up to a group of my friends and attempted to put his arm around them while groping himself. At Oktoberfest, a friend of mine sat drinking beer with a table of people when a guy passed her his phone, which was open to Google Translate in Italian and said: “I want to get in bed with you.” At a jazz bar a few weeks ago, an older man snaked up to me as I was paying for a drink and put his hands on my hips. A man once took a picture of me and after examining the image said: “Oh, well, you look better in person.” The other day, one friend sat in a café and a man decided to tell her his life story about how he was going through a divorce and how all women want is money. He then proceeded to pay for her coffee and tell her she was beautiful. Two summers ago, when I was in Paris, as I strolled casually on the sidewalk with friends, a man tried to finger me.
I could easily continue this list, but the bottom line is that sexual advances from men are already a common occurrence. They are so frequent, in fact, that when I first tried to think of examples to write in this article it took me a while because I’m so accustomed to being treated this way—it doesn’t even faze me. If Trump becomes president, he will be given a free pass for all the offensive things he has said and done to women and I’ll bet you many more American men will follow his lead.
Hillary Clinton is no angel either. From her email scandal to the shadiness of the Clinton Foundation to her possibly compromising speeches to the Deborah Wasserman Schultz conflict of interest with the Democratic National Committee, Clinton comes with no shortage of scandals. If she becomes president, she demonstrates to the children of today that yes, you can become president of the United States of America if you wish—you just need to lie, cheat and bully your way to get there. The U.S. would continue to progress if it elected its first female president since it finally broke the trend of white, male, Christian presidents in 2008. It would be a great thing for young women to have a female president as inspiration.
The only catch? Clinton would also provide the example that while women may become president, in order to achieve that goal, they might have to remain married to their unfaithful husbands, or else risk not being able to secure the office.
It seems that for the first time, the presidential election is not about who one likes better, but about whom one hates less. It’s also about what kind of attitude one would rather see in the nation’s future citizens: a racist, womanizing attitude or the attitude that in order to win, one must stop at nothing—deceit, double-dealing, dishonesty—to get there.
But at least we learned two positive qualities about each of the candidates at the end of Sunday’s debate. Trump knows how to raise “able and devoted” children and Clinton “fights hard.”
Tell me something I didn’t already know. Perhaps maybe, how in the world we’ve reached this low point as a nation?
Katherine Berko is a Trinity junior studying abroad in Madrid. Her column, "how in the world," runs on alternate Thursdays.
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