TRUMP

CLINTON VERSUS TRUMP 131
Yet from the look of the newspaper reports during the campaign,
it didn’t seem as if the snake-oil pitch was working especially
well. Trump was making gaffe after gaffe, his popularity tanking.
From prolonging his battle with the Khan family to a series of widely-panned
debate performances (in which Trump skulked around the
stage and sniffed uncontrollably, 450 as well as calling Hillary Clinton
“such a nasty woman” 451 ), Trump did not appear “presidential,” thus
it was easy to believe he could never be president. In October came
the infamous Billy Bush/Access Hollywood “pussy” tape, which many
believed had finished Trump off once and for all. 452
As for Clinton, over the course of the campaign, her supporters
became more and more confident that she was destined to win. The
aura of inevitability surrounded her. Not only were polls good, but
there was something in the air. Saturday Night Live began calling her
“President Clinton.” 453 In August the debate began to center around
whether Hillary Clinton would win comfortably or in a total wipeout,
with Business Insider reporting that the country was “starting to hear
the faint rumblings of a Hillary Clinton landslide as her 10-point lead
is further proof that Donald Trump is in a downward spiral as the
clock ticks.” 454 Prognosticators were all but certain of her victory. 455
There had always been signs, however, that Clinton might be weaker
than her supporters believed. A number of Sanders-supporting progressive
Democrats from the primary still detested Clinton, and
resented “having” to vote for her. 456 Tim Kaine had been an uninspiring
choice as a running mate; if it was true that populist anger
would drive the election, Clinton would have been better off picking
Bernie Sanders than the milquetoast Virginian, who seemed to have
been selected by an algorithm designed to select the least controversial
human being who would also give a one-or-two-point bump in
a critical swing state. 457 Clinton’s fortunes weren’t helped by a comment
she made early in September, labeling half of Trump’s supporters
“deplorables.” As she said: “You know, just to be grossly generalistic,