About last night…

…if you watched, then you probably can figure what I’m going to say already. If you didn’t, take it upon yourself and watch on YouTube. This is our republic we’re talking about, and what happened last night was  lot of trash-talk and not a great deal of substance.

For that, we can thank the Republican candidate, who included in the public part of his day a “press conference” at which he called together women who’d accused the husband of the Democratic candidate of philandering, with them. And then the Republican candidate brought those women to sit on the front row of the purported debate/town-hall meeting, supposedly as a means of rattling Hillary Clinton.

Who didn’t seem especially rattled, by the way. The sad part is that Clinton responded to Trump — in a classier way than I would have, to be honest — yet she is being accused of character assassination, of being on Trump’s level.

Not even.

And so once again, poverty got no mention. Reproductive rights got scant mention. We heard about what constitutes “locker room talk” (having been in several, what the Republican candidate called “locker room talk” was actually an homage to rape).

I’m tired. Aren’t you?

My favorite part — probably in part because of being tired — was the question from one Karl Becker, an audience member, who asked the candidates to say one nice thing about the other. Clinton praised Trump’s children. Trump praised her tenacity. Yes, it was hammy but after the bruising 85 minutes that preceded, it was a nice note on which to end.

On the third debate, set for Wednesday, Oct. 19, we’re having a watch-party at my school, with snacks and Twitter and all kinds of social media involvement. My goodness, but I’m going to have to clean up my language.