This Debate Is Hillary Clinton's Kobayashi Maru -- And Her Only Option Is Annihilation

As no-win situations go, Hillary Clinton is facing her Kobayashi Maru in tonight’s debate with Donald Trump. The simulation has been programed for her to lose. Either Trump is going to be a misogynist windbag who dominates the debate, and the post debate coverage. Or he is going to be relaxed and disinterested, and the media will call him “Presidential” simply by dint of not visibly foaming at the mouth.

If Hillary fights, she loses. People will call her “shrill” or “angry” or whatever other word working-class whites use as a placeholder for “bitch” when in polite company. If Clinton is defensive, she loses. They will call her “defensive” regardless, but more so if she actually is. Trump will be called “strong” and “clear,” while Clinton will get dinged for giving detailed, nuanced answers. People are already warning Clinton not to be “too lawyerly”… in a debate… where someone will ask her if she violated the LAW! The die of crap has already been cast, and the odds are not in her favor.

In the “real” Kobayashi Maru, the crew is tasked with rescuing a disabled cargo ship marooned in the Klingon neutral zone. If they try to save the ship, they die. If they abandon the ship to its fate, they violate Starfleet orders and risk mutiny and court-martial. I think even most Republicans would agree that Trump is the Klingon in this analogy — his supporters are like Birds Of Prey who usually remain cloaked but are now showing themselves because they think they have the advantage. Clinton and her people probably think she’s the Enterprise.

But this movie isn’t about Hillary Clinton. It never has been. The media won’t let it be. People won’t be tuning in to see a nuanced policy discussion about the future of the country. This is the Trump show. Trump will dictate the terms of this engagement, and the media will feed whatever narrative he wants for a week. Millennials who can’t be bothered to read Clinton’s website are not going to become more “comfortable” with her in 90 minutes. “Undecideds,” I mean… who the f**k are those people anyway? Let’s just agree that the people who “aren’t sure” if we should elect a racist hairpiece for president are immune to anything of substance that might happen tonight.

Hillary Clinton is not the Enterprise, she’s the cargo ship. You can’t understand what she’s up against tonight without also understanding the deep forces of sexism that have crafted tonight into what it is. There is no space in American politics for a woman who valiantly fights to the death. The woman who can shout down the bully makes men uncomfortable. You’ll note that the first time Star Trek fans see the Kobayashi Maru, the captain on the bridge is Lieutenant JG Saavik, an implacable Vulcan woman who is allowed to show no emotion as she dutifully gets her ass kicked. All she can do is complain that the test was “not fair.”

Kirk, meanwhile, gets to be a genius for reprogramming the test. That’s essentially what Trump has done. He’s reprogrammed political discourse so that he gets to do and say whatever he wants. I mean… do you guys even know what Kirk reprogrammed the Kobayashi Maru to do? According to the novels, Kirk changed the simulation so that the Klingons were scared of firing upon “THE” Captain Kirk. They backed off because Simulation Kirk was so awesome that they were afraid of him. Then Kirk told his superiors that he expected to build that kind of reputation in real life, so his solution made sense. WHO DOES THAT SOUND LIKE???

If Hillary Clinton pulled that, she would get called a “liar” who thinks she’s “above the law,” and would get kicked out of Starfleet.

Our sexist country won’t let Hillary Clinton be the hero who uses whatever means necessary to beat back the Trump threat to our union. The only role we’ll accept her in is… damsel, preferably in distress. That’s why she’s the cargo ship tonight. Maybe Klingon Captain Trump will annihilate her. Maybe he will back off, at which point he’ll be lauded for showing “restraint.” The moderator will be blamed, either way. But Hillary Clinton will be stripped of her agency, again, because that’s just what we do to women who have the gall to share a stage with men.

I can prove it.

The television this morning said that this will be Hillary Clinton’s 39th debate. She’s done a lot of these before. And by any reasonable account, she’s fantastic at them. She’s practiced and self-assured, but not cocky. She knows ALL THE THINGS. If you give her half a chance, she sounds more “human” in a back-and-forth discussion about her vision for America than she does in any stump speech or press conference. If she was a man, she’d be lauded as perhaps the best political debater of our time. For all of his rhetorical skills, Barack Obama is trash at this. He’s too clever by half. Bill Clinton is an emotional savant, but if you think about his most famous debate moment — “I feel your pain” — you’ll note how that’s an unsubstantial answer to the question “well, what are you going to do about it?” Hillary Clinton is like Rocky in debates: She doesn’t know it’s a damn show, she thinks it’s a damn fight.

Yet for all her skills, Hillary Clinton’s two most famous debate moments (as have been played over and over again in the lead-up to tonight’s festivities) are times when the men she was debating made errors and treated her like a schoolgirl. There are hours and hours of footage of Clinton eviscerating someone’s argument, but those never get shown. Instead we get Rick Lazio leaving his podium and invading her personal space with a gimmicky campaign pledge, and Barack Obama smugly calling her “likable enough,” as if he just dumped her but didn’t want her to cry about it.

Those moments stuck. Why? Because they cast Hillary Clinton into a role we are comfortable with women filling. Lazio’s gaffe is particularly telling. People are actually hoping that Trump does something similar. Think about what that means. Instead of hoping that Hillary Clinton curb-stomps Trump with her superior command of policy and intelligence that we all know she has, people are hoping Trump gets so bro’d up that he insults — or maybe even assaults — a woman. Hillary wins this debate if Trump bullies her and people feel sorry for her. That’s an indictment of our country.

Even her most famous debate moment from this election cycle is Bernie Sanders, white-knighting for her by not giving a damn about her emails. Millennials would totally root for Hillary if she was locked in a tower and Bernie Sanders was riding out to save her.

Hillary isn’t allowed to win, she’s just set up to die well. And if Trump shows “mercy,” and doesn’t call her a bitch, or doesn’t bring up her husband’s infidelity, or doesn’t walk over to punch her right in the mouth, well, that’s just Trump being “presidential.”

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the America that doesn’t know its 2016. In this test, Trump is the Klingon, but white women suburban voters are in control of the Enterprise. Hillary Clinton is the Kobayashi Maru — which was the name of the stranded ship — that is just hanging out there as bait.

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Elie Mystal is an editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He honestly doesn’t understand people who make up their minds based on Presidential “debates.”