Just when you thought that the race for White House 2016 could not go any lower in class Donald Trump is always there to take it one step further down the toilet. Actually, in this case the word toilet is exactly the word to describe his latest national outburst.
So, Trump, who has been the GOP front-runner for almost six months, took aim at Hillary Clinton, his Democratic counterpart for talking about her “disgusting,” bathroom trip she made during Saturday night’s debate. As you may recall last Saturday night during a break in the Democratic Debate, Clinton took more than five minutes to return to her podium and ABC for some reason decided to go on without her, posing a question to Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
(ABC was at fault for not simply waiting two extra minutes till Clinton returned to her place on the stage. It was a bad move by the network and made them look silly.)
So, Clinton took a little longer to tinkle than did the guys. It happens, women take longer to go to the bathroom then do men. Trump took aim at Clinton saying, “I know where she went. It’s disgusting. I don’t want to talk about it. It’s disgusting.”
The fact that Clinton took longer to go to the bathroom is certainly not disgusting nor is it worthy of a national campaign attack. Heaven knows that Clinton has a number of other positions on the issues of the day that Trump could have attacked yet he went after her bathroom habits.
Then came the yet another off the wall attack from Trump to Clinton this time pulling out the Yiddish vocabulary to fire up the crowd by saying that Barack Obama “schlonged” her in the 2008 primaries at a raucous rally here on Monday night Grand Rapids, Michigan.
A spokeswoman for Mrs. Clinton’s campaign had no doubt Mr. Trump’s use of “schlonged” had been sexist and offensive. She said: “We are not responding to Trump but everyone who understands the humiliation this degrading language inflicts on all women should.”
For those not of the Jewish persuasion the word schlong is a Yiddish slang term for penis. It is more often used by many of the borsch belt comics for the 1950’s and 1960’s. It not what until this week you would have heard in a presidential campaign.
Steven Pinker, a language expert at Harvard University, told the Washington Post: “Given Trump’s history of vulgarity and misogyny it’s entirely possible that he had created a sexist term for ‘defeat’.
Trump took to Twitter on Tuesday. “‘Schlonged’ is not vulgar,” he wrote. “When I said Hillary got ‘schlonged’ that meant beaten badly.” He was quick to blame the press saying, “dishonest” mainstream media was giving the word “false meaning.”
Trump remains on the top of the polls because he knows what people want he gives it to them in a way that no other candidate of the planet can. He is a brilliant salesman and knows his audience or in this case those who are likely to vote for him better than anyone else in the race.
His voters are mad at what they feel has gone wrong with this country, they see Clinton as one biggest targets of their anger. The main target is President Obama but he is not running for president so the ire goes to Clinton.
Trump understands that his followers love him no matter how outrageous his statements may be. It a major reason he is GOP front-runner. He seems to have a growing base and like it or not he has a legitimate chance at being the 2016 Republican Presidential nominee.
Welcome to Campaign 2016 where the issues get lost in what so far has been more of reality show than a true look at the many issues at hand. But this is the new normal and it seems to be working so don’t look for it to end anytime soon.
Trump and the Clinton’s have been friends for years and as matter of fact both Hillary and the former president attended his wedding. The attacks made by Trump are part of the game, he is just giving his audience what they want and can’t get enough of his banter.
The problem is that while he may not believe half of things he is saying personally – there are a number of followers who believe every word. That is the bad part of this campaign that has turned into a reality show, women and minorities are getting hurt by the rhetoric of Trump and others in the GOP field.
What might be entertaining now could be very hurtful down the line. Words matter and soon the candidates on both sides will find that out just how much.
