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Jamelle Bouie, chief political correspondent for Slate Magazine and a political analyst for CBS News, speaks with students in Carl Becker House prior to the final presidential debate, Oct. 19.

Cornell students gathered in Carl Becker House Oct. 19 to watch and discuss the final presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, alongside history professor Ed Baptist and Jamelle Bouie, political correspondent for Slate Magazine and political analyst for CBS News.

In a pre-debate discussion, Reade Otto-Moudry ’16 expressed a common perception in the room: “Social media has made this election seem so crazy. How much crazier is this election than a normal election?”

Bouie acknowledged the atypical and inflammatory role of social media in this election cycle. 

Bouie, who said he’s watched 65 hours of debates this season, dismissed Trump’s allegations of election “rigging” and the media’s fabrication of stories as sour grapes.

“He is very upset about what reports have recently brought to light,” Bouie said, “and he has nothing to respond to them.”

Some students expressed concern over how these reports would influence the debate, and others inquired about how a video of Clinton campaign workers’ claiming they incited violence at a Trump rally in Chicago might play out on stage.

During the 90-minute debate, long periods of silence among the students were interrupted by intermittent snickering and the occasional burst of laughter. Following the debate, the students reconvened to digest what they had watched. Bouie framed the discussion by noting two debate highlights.

“When Trump is talking about trade and the economy, that is where he is strongest because he is speaking to a very potent anger in the country,” he said. “It is very unusual to hear a presidential candidate [Clinton] support late-term abortion… that was a novel moment in history.”

An overwhelming majority of the students were in agreement regarding the crudeness of the debate, which was, one student said, “a very disappointing display of the state of America right now.”

Graduate student Donnette Baptist was rattled by Trump’s debate tactics, and views on abortion.

“Donald seems to disrespectfully badger and speak over Hillary when she is talking,” she said. “To watch a debate that talks about policing our bodies as women and overturning Roe vs. Wade reveals a gender bias that is distasteful to me.”

Following Trump’s refusal to say whether he will accept the results of the election, Bouie said: “I think Trump is unable to see himself as somebody who can lose. He has never existed in a world where losing has absolute consequences.”

Students discussed the potential course of the rebuilding of the Republican Party should Trump lose, as well as the social repercussions of a faction denying the results of the election.

Looking to the future, Bouie said that in the wake of Trump’s campaign, “It’s likely down the road that we get a smarter, more polished politician selling Trump’s message – and that is dangerous.”

Justin Welfeld ’20 is a writer intern for the Cornell Chronicle.