“When they go low, we go high.” That’s a motto Michelle Obama employed in her Democratic National Convention speech in July. She used it to explain what she and President Obama do whenever opponents get into the rhetorical gutter and attack them personally instead of basing their attacks on the substance of their policies.
Hillary Clinton is fond of quoting Michelle Obama’s motto. In fact, she has done so in both of the presidential debates, in the first while attacking Donald Trump for embracing and advancing the lie that Barack Obama was born in Kenya.
In Sunday’s second debate, she again quoted Michelle’s motto, this time in response to Trump’s accusations about Bill Clinton’s sexual misdeeds. “When I hear something like that,” she said, “I am reminded of what my friend Michelle Obama advised us all: When they go low, we go high.”
It’s a nice idea. Only trouble is, Clinton has often found herself on the low road when debating Trump.
Clinton was the first one to attack her opponent Sunday night, when she talked about how she has long questioned Trump’s fitness for office. Trump is different than other Republicans with whom she disagreed on policy and politics, she said, because he’s a misogynist, xenophobe, homophobe — in essence an irredeemably deplorable person.
Trump, in contrast, started his first response to a question by agreeing with Clinton, a rhetorical device he uses often. “Well I’ll actually agree with that — I agree with everything she said,” Trump said while agreeing with Clinton on the banal point that America needs to build a better future for its children and grandchildren. Trump then went after Clinton for being a typical all-talk-no-action politician, a standard political attack that can’t be counted as a low blow.
Then Trump did go low, responding to a question about the video showing him bragging about sexually abusing women by attacking Bill Clinton as the worst abuser of women in the history of American politics. He also bashed Clinton for attacking the women whom Bill allegedly abused. Which is when Clinton quoted Michelle Obama about the high road.
But, without a trace of irony, Clinton immediately launched into a litany of Trump’s worst offenses: the mocking of a reporter with a physical disability, the insults of the Khan family, the Obama birther controversy, etc. Trump took things further downhill from there by, among other things, accusing the 2008 Clinton campaign of starting the birther controversy.
It had gotten pretty ugly by the time Clinton said, “It’s just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country.” Clinton didn’t go as low as Trump here, but she wasn’t exactly on the road less traveled either.
Then, as Clinton and Trump were squabbling over the legitimacy of questions over the email scandal, she said, “Okay, Donald. I know you are into big diversion tonight, anything to avoid talking about your campaign and the way it’s exploding, and the way Republicans are leaving you, but —”
Some more jousting over Obamacare followed, then they got a question about Islamophobia. In answering, Trump mentioned Clinton as someone who, along with Obama, refuses to use the words “radical Islamic terrorism.” A fair point, if a somewhat stale one.
Clinton responded by again raising the Khan controversy and Trump’s “demagogic” language about Muslims. She then said Trump’s language “is a gift to ISIS and the terrorists.”
A few minutes later, Clinton took a question about her recent statement that sometimes politicians must take different public and private positions on issues, and somehow turned it into an assertion that Russia is angling for Trump to win the election. To which Trump responded that the bigger concern was the tax returns of Clinton’s biggest donors.
Trump then accused Clinton of wanting to raise taxes, and Clinton responded by claiming everything Trump said was untrue. “I’m sorry I have to keep saying this, but he lives in an alternative reality.” Then she said his plan would give the wealthiest Americans a large tax break. “Donald always takes care of Donald and people like Donald,” she said before talking about her own plan.
Later, in a question about whether as president she would be devoted to everyone, Clinton referenced something called the “Trump effect,” essentially blaming Trump for an increase in school bullying.
When asked about her “basket of deplorables” remark, instead of just repeating an apology and pivoting to how she would unite the country, Clinton again repeated the litany of Trump’s insults.
Perhaps most tellingly, when Clinton was invited to “go high” by naming something about her opponent that she respects, she dodged the question somewhat by naming his children. Trump, in contrast, gave Clinton a legitimate compliment by acknowledging that she “fights hard and doesn’t quit and she doesn’t give up, and I consider that a very good trait.”
To be clear, I don’t think any of Clinton’s attacks and responses to Trump’s attacks were out of line. And it was Trump who made the most outrageous statements and claims of the night, calling Clinton “the devil,” threatening to prosecute her if he wins, and peering into her soul and declaring “she has tremendous hate in her heart.”
That said, Clinton cannot claim to have been taken the high road on Sunday night. Trump went low, and Clinton followed him there.
Daniel Allott is deputy commentary editor for the Washington Examiner
