Trump has made currency out of zingers in debates for his willingness to go where others have been precluded by decency and norms of polite society. They have worked because they reinforce stereotypes and prejudices of his audience.
When it came time to defend his record on the environment in last night’s debate in Nashville, Trump turned to a racist slur, stereotyping India as filthy in yet another unpresidential distortion, appealing to the crowd that saw its views reinforced when he referred to his Central American neighbors as “shithole countries.”
“Look at India. It’s f-f-filthy,” said the auto-qualified ‘least-racist person in the room’ American president. “The air is f-filthy.” It did not escape notice that he was referring to the country of the ancestry of Kamala Harris, vice-president to his opponent Joe Biden.
“Tonight, Trump called India ‘filthy’,” reacted in a post ‘South Asians for Biden,’ a group organising Indian community support and rallies to support the Democratic ticket. “His rhetoric has proven time and time again that he has disdain for India, as well as for people who draw their heritage from South Asia. He will never respect the vibrancy, beauty, and diversity of our South Asian community.”
“Look at China, how filthy it is. Look at Russia. Look at India — it’s filthy,” then he caught himself. “The air is filthy,” he added, but could not hide the disdain by drawing out the “f” sound.
Air quality may not be a debatable subject, but it does not tell the whole story. Trump is a master of deception and this was deception at its worst.
Air quality is a function of global warming; and the United States at 15 per cent of the total global emissions today is at least twice as guilty as India at 7 per cent of the amount of atmosphere-warning Carbon emissions. The US is second-worst in the world behind only China at 28 per cent, according to 2020 data compiled by the Union of Concerned Scientists and the International Energy Agency.
By leaving the Paris Climate Accords under Trump, the United States is shirting its responsibility as the country responsible for more greenhouse emissions than any other country and is still the second largest air polluter today, alone against 197 countries in the accord. Nearly half of Americans live under unhealthy air — 45.8% according to the American Lung Association 2020 report.
“Reminder: India stands committed to climate change goals, US chose to withdraw, much against the wishes of many Americans. Thank you,” tweeted Shiv Sena MP Priyanka Chaturvedi. “What an unfortunate comment to make about India.”
Pleasing his base is a mainstay of Trump's political discourse. Among those reacting in online forums, there was no doubt the comment was aimed at pleasing them while doubling as a distraction from a failing and worsening environmental record, resulting from three-years of lifting restrictions designed to protect the environment.
Nonetheless, the second debate between the two men was a vast improvement from their first encounter. It was a decent, watchable event. But Trump was still Trump, bluster, and cyanide just under the surface, hardly a major departure he urgently needed to reignite his campaign.
The first debate turned into something of a presidential carnival freak show that hurt Trump in the polls, causing him to cancel a second scheduled debate. Falling even further in the polls, a mellower, more controlled Trump allowed a lively back and forth between the two candidates. Second-debate-Trump did indeed beat first-debate-Trump, but polls immediately after showed that he failed to beat his opponent.
With the large television audience and only 12 days before the election, it was likely the last opportunity to make his case to the millions at home as to why he should be reelected. He squandered it.
Because of new rules that cut off the microphone while the other candidate was talking, Biden did get his plan across on how to move the nation forward. Trump had little to say about his own plan, instead slipped into his well-worn habits.
Aiming for a replay of the last few days of his campaign against Clinton that buoyed his campaign with an FBI announcement that they had no evidence of wrongdoing against Hillary but would nonetheless reopen an investigation, Trump accused Biden of criminal corruption and made it clear he wanted Biden and his son jailed.
Using a trick he used in the debates against Hillary when he invited to the audience women who had accused her husband of sexual harassment, Trump tried again this time by inviting a man who claimed to be a Hunter Biden partner in a Chinese venture. With the audience in mandatory masks, the stunt fell flat and got virtually no attention outside of FOX coverage of the man’s statement.
Comfortably ahead in the polls, Biden had one mission: To do no harm to his campaign, in which he succeeded for the most part. A comment about phasing out fossil fuels, however, may provide ammunition to Trump and the Republicans who are painting Biden as someone who would do away with America’s energy leadership. States like Texas and Pennsylvania, which were in play, may slip away from him, and perhaps dash hopes on down-ballot races in those states.
Republicans are likely no longer trying to run out of the burning building and breathing a sigh of relief. The expectations for Trump’s performance were so low, and the fear of another debacle so high, that they are likely happy that first-debate Trump only showed his head sporadically.
Like many other Trump friendships, his reported close relationship with Modi, who hid Indian houses with flowers for the eyes of the visiting Trump, may have been thrown under the bus last night with comments that many felt humiliated India on the world stage. “We have a president, who in clear language an in code, encourages and emboldens prejudice and hatred, and that's dangerous,” says the Biden campaign in its agenda for the Indian-American community. “Since Donald Trump took office, the number of hate crimes that take place across our country has greatly increased, according to the FBI's hate crime statistics.”
Trump may have missed his last chance to describe a vision for a second term or to justify his reelection but, by comparison to his earlier performance, he did not look bad in Nashville last night. Relieved Republicans are counting that as a win.
Seven undecided voters who made up their mind after the debate told CNN they had made up their mind — for Biden.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author's and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of THE WEEK
