Donald Trump knows all about the expectation game. He knows that it damned Vice President Al Gore in 2000 when he ran against George W. Bush and the former Governor of Texas failed to ask the moderator to sound out the big words. He knows that when Gore activated exasperation mode and initiated eye roll and anger-sigh protocols — a kind of, “Can you believe this putz?” shorthand that Gore mistakenly thought he had with voters — he came off looking like an elitist intellectual. All of a sudden, the debate wasn’t about under qualified vs qualified, it was about the “guy you wanted to have a beer with” versus “guy nobody wanted to sit next to in the cafeteria.” Gore tried to force a moment by leading Bush toward people’s expectations of him as a rube, but it didn’t take. Hillary Clinton can’t make the same mistake on Monday night.
Donald Trump is not an idiot. If you think he is, you haven’t been paying attention. Say what you will about the gasp-inducing rhetoric, the politics of division, and the bullying of his opponents, the press, and most anyone that stands in defiance of him, but Donald Trump is playing this game beautifully. By virtue of his ability to redirect, misdirect, and outshout his opponents and the press, he has never really gotten tied up for more than a couple of days by a scandal or been forced to apologize despite the volume and seeming severity of these scandals. It’s terrifying, but also maybe a little impressive. To put it in cattle terms (because I’m suddenly folksy), you can’t get a rope around this bull. He’s too slippery. But a debate stage is a pretty tight pen, and Clinton might have a shot at embarrassing Trump under the light of direct comparison when it comes to his policy proposals. And that might not matter.
If you expect Trump to Donald Trump his way through the debate by walking out and calling Clinton toots or choking out Lester Holt for questioning the size of his hands, then you and about half of the estimated 100 million viewers are about to be sorely disappointed.
Donald Trump probably isn’t going to provide highlight reel material for CNN and MSNBC. There likely won’t be a moment where he confirms everything the Clinton camp has been saying about his demeanor, and he isn’t going to make an election-losing gaffe. Not if he plays the expectation game properly.
The mistake a lot of people make about Trump, besides thinking that he’s an idiot, is thinking that he has no self-control. But the up and down rhythms of this campaign show that is not the case. Donald Trump can play nice when he has to. He may not enjoy it, but he doubtlessly sees the benefit. Trump’s troll game is so tight that he has duped the press into being visibly astonished when he doesn’t propose that we immediately deport everyone named Glen (#MakeAmericaGlenFreeAgain) in the middle of one of his hotel commercial/campaign stops.
“Look how Presidential he seems. Maybe he does have the temperament to lead us,” they say before Trump starts the cycle once more by asking hackers to go after Hillary Clinton’s email, or ominously implying that there might be something “second-amendment people” can do about Clinton trying to abolish the second amendment (something she never said she was going to do) after she’s elected.
Despite Donald Trump’s tweeted intent to, “perhaps” invite Gennifer Flowers, Bill Clinton’s former mistress, to sit front row at the debates and her stated willingness to attend, Trump’s campaign (and running mate, Mike Pence) let it be known on Sunday that this wouldn’t be happening. This should surprise no one. This is Trump’s M.O.: he says something shocking and then when people lose their minds, he writes it off as a joke or sarcasm (like he did with the Russian hackers remark) or points at the press for misconstruing his words (as he did with his “joke” about second-amendment people and Clinton). It’s akin to a lawyer making a completely ridiculous claim in open court before a judge angrily strikes it from the record and orders the jury to disregard — everyone still heard the ridiculous claim. You can’t un-ring that bell or un-hear that dog whistle.
Rattling Clinton isn’t what this Flowers thing is about. Clinton wouldn’t care or be thrown if she saw Gennifer Flowers or Paula Jones or Monica Lewinsky sitting in the crowd. But the point is, even if Bill was sandwiched in-between all of his former lovers, gazing upon them like he does balloons, Hillary wouldn’t be affected in the least. She has her eye on the prize. But so does Trump. This whole thing has been about raising the hackles of the press and people on Twitter to pump up the expectation that he is going to act out or do something ridiculous at the debate before he pulls his greatest trick and convinces the audience that version of him doesn’t really exist.
Maybe that’s why Trump’s been seemingly off the chain for the last week, trying to pin the birther movement on Hillary and stating that “African-American communities are absolutely in the worst shape that they’ve ever been in before — ever, ever, ever.” What else explains boasts that ignore his and this country’s documented history on those matters?
Donald Trump got here by selling himself as a guy who says what some people wish they could. He is the God/King of the impudent far right and a vessel for their sepia-toned longing and fear-driven logic. Those people don’t want him to pull any punches on Monday night. They loathe Crooked Hillary (maybe more than they love Trump) and want to see Trump close his greatest deal with a flourish, but they haven’t abandoned him previously when he’s (briefly) held his tongue and he’s going to need more than his base to take this all the way.
Rasmussen indicates that approximately 18% of voters are undecided or committed to one of the tepidly admired third party candidates (Gary Johnson and Jill Stein). That’s a big number, especially when you consider that many polls have the election as a toss-up with Clinton’s lead within the margin of error. These voters, according to SurveyMonkey, skew slightly Republican ideologically. Additionally, The Wall Street Journal reports that up to 34% of voters view the debates as either “extremely or quite” important when it comes to their decision on who they will vote for. That number jumps to 44% for Johnson voters and 39% for moderates.
Both Clinton and Trump need to court those undecideds and sorta-decided voters, but he has a slight edge and really, there isn’t a lot she can do to get a bounce coming off of these debates. Everyone expects Hillary to act like a grown-up while effectively making her case for our collective future, but voters have seen it all before. It’s all eyes on Trump in this showdown. He’s the mystery and many of those undecideds are searching for a sign that he won’t be a complete trainwreck as the President. Trump knows this and he’s gonna give that to them and likely win praise from the easily impressed pundits by giving Hillary Clinton the balanced issues-based debate that neither she, the networks, nor a large segment of the audience truly wants. The “Humbling at Hofstra?” Hardly. Donald Trump knows how to win Monday’s debate and he’s gonna bore the hell out of you to do it.
Jason Tabrys is the features editor for Uproxx. You can engage with him directly on Twitter.
