Harrop: What Trump’s continued support says about us isn’t flattering

Who “won” the second presidential debate? Skip that question. Who lost it? Easy answer. The American people and the reputation of their nation.

This was no “he thinks this, she believes that” kind of conversation. Like her or not (and I like her), Hillary Clinton came to the debate — and presidential race — prepared to talk about what she wants to see happen in this country. Trump was, and remains, about maintaining his delusions of business prowess and animal attraction to women. What many early on thought was an act turns out to be his person. And that person is not well in the head.

Horse race pundits concluded that Trump steadied himself in the second debate, by which they meant he did not explode onstage. So numbed are they by this outlandish campaign, they set aside his reference to Clinton as the devil and threat to put her in jail.

Thinking Americans have given up on expecting Trump to speak coherently on his vision for the future. And why should they, seeing as he never bothered to acquaint himself with the present?

The national tragedy is that so many Americans don’t care that he doesn’t know anything. And they don’t know anything. Many of Trump’s struggling supporters expect to be protected in an American prosperity bubble assaulted by a world that’s rapidly educating. Their prospects for economic safety would be a lot higher under Clinton, but they don’t know that, either.

http://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/harrop-what-trumps-continued-support-says-about-us-isnt-flattering/