Our very own Washington University hosted the second presidential debate Sunday evening, and it forever changed our lives. Actually, it didn’t really at all, but we got some cool buttons and probably saw more accurate depictions of the political climate of Missouri in our little bubble this weekend than we ever will again in our time here at Wash. U. Here are a few moments that had, at the very least, a short-term impact on our thoughts. We rest tonight with these prayers on our tongues and the forsaken nation on our hearts. Here’s Forum’s own Spin Alley, as if we aren’t Spin Alley every other Monday and Thursday already.

“You’d be in jail.”

Sorry, staff—I couldn’t resist calling out this incredibly historic moment. There has never been a candidate who offered to prosecute and jail their opponent if they were elected. This is one of the most politically incorrect and publicly baffling statements Trump has ever made. If the Republican candidate wanted our country to look petty and divided, then I think we’ve gotten there. Donald Trump’s disrespect for FBI prosecutors and his unwillingness to settle the email issue are completely unprecedented in a presidential election. You can’t make this stuff up, folks. And you sure as hell can’t deny it, like Trump continues to do with the Iraq War.

–Peter Dissinger

“It’s just words.”

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. Or something. If you read Act 2, Scene 2 of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” you may see a near-exact transcript of this moment in the debate. Specifically, the line “words, words, words,” which is all Trump claimed his remarks on being able to do whatever he wants with women were (words mean a lot, Trump, especially when you normalize them as “locker-room banter”). The best thing about this moment wasn’t the evasiveness, though, but the ensuing rant that somehow jumped from comments about grabbing women unceremoniously, to ISIS, to the emails, maybe? Did anybody follow that? Though this be madness, is there method in it? Only the polls will tell.

– Sarah Hands

“Locker-room banter”

The whole debate felt like locker-room banter. It was rude and disrespectful to a fault, but if we’re honest, that’s what most of America was looking forward to. The issues that don’t matter—but get talked about the most—got the majority of air time, and I’m sure that made a lot of America very happy. Trump kept his “me against the world” campaign going by calling out the moderators several times and harping on the lack of time given to him to respond to Clinton’s claims. I’m sure there will be a lot of discussion over the next few days about how despicable and off-topic the debate was, but this is America, the land of reality television, and we were given exactly what we wanted.

-Desi Isaacson

The year of the scandal

Going into the debate, I was growing pretty tired of the sensationalist aspect of this campaign—scandals minor to the issues at hand in the election are no longer an entertaining distraction. This bitter and abrasive debate kept scandals in the spotlight but eventually showed the candidates meaningfully discuss issues like healthcare and environmental policy. Unfortunately, now that it’s over, I’m not sure I like that transition. Like many commentators have been saying, it seems as if this will shift the news cycle past Trump’s recently revealed lewd comments about women and give his campaign time to recover in the wake of several Republicans calling on him to drop out. So, as much as I want to leave scandals behind in the election season, it’s important to remember that we have to keep our candidates accountable for what they say and do.

-Ethan Kerns

A tamer Trump

Trump exceeded many viewers’ expectations in the second debate; if there were any expectations, he beat most of them. He was approximately as rhetorically sound in this debate as he was in the last one, but he was physically quieter. Like, he just talked more softly. I don’t know if this had to do with the acoustics of the Athletic Complex or with the points he and his team worked on between Sept. 26 and this weekend, but Trump maintained a marginal level of “calm” that undoubtedly made him seem at least slightly more coherent. He was in full Trump mode, justifying his boasts about sexual assault, blaming Hillary Clinton for things like foreign policy blunders that happened while John Kerry was Secretary of State and threatening to prosecute his political opponent if he becomes president. But a combination of Trump’s feigned composure served to mask his incoherent responses and inflate viewers’ perceptions of his debate performance.

-Sean Lundergan

“[Mike Pence] and I haven’t spoken, and I disagree.”

Trump explicitly stated in the debate tonight that he doesn’t share his running mate’s view on military intervention in Syria. He prefers to focus attention on attacking ISIS rather than on Bashar al-Assad’s military regime, unlike Pence’s anti-Assad propositions which he discussed in last Tuesday’s vice presidential debate. When Trump hasn’t even communicated with his closest political partner on such an important issue and can brazenly admit to his ignorance in critical matters of foreign policy, people really should question whether he possesses the responsibility and skillful attention to detail needed to be president, no matter his political ideology.

-Scott Lu

“I know nothing about Russia. I know about Russia.”

Yes, these two sentences were uttered in direct succession by none other than The Donald, summarily illustrating his campaign’s complete disregard for truth and consistency in policy. In interviews, speeches and the two presidential debates that we have seen thus far, Trump has contradicted himself and backtracked on previous statements more times than I can count. He has shown time and time again that he has no issue denying statements easily checked on Google and uttering blatant falsehoods, under the assumption that no lie will ever be big enough, or bad enough, to disenchant his loyal supporters.

-Rachel Katzin