The headlines Thursday morning will be about how Donald Trump declined to say he will accept the result of the election.
But turn to Twitter – that barometer of immediate public opinion – and the topic that was trending higher than the Supreme Court, Chris Wallace and Putin was … #badhombres.
Yes, it was another debate, spawning another meme, thanks to what we can only surmise was an off-the-cuff remark.
During a discussion about his stance on immigration reform, the Republican presidential nominee reiterated his stance on deporting undocumented immigrants and used a Spanish word to make his point.
“We’ll get them out, secure the border and once the border is secured at a later date we’ll make a determination as to the rest. But we have some bad hombres here and we’re going to get them out.”
Searches for “hombre” spiked 120,000% over the hourly average, Merriam-Webster said.
This prompted the dictionary to tweet: “Somehow, this night ends with us writing an hombre/ombre/ombré explainer. Of course it does.”
If you sense a tone of resignation in that tweet, you’re not alone.
“Bad hombres? Bigly? Merriam-Webster weeps….” said one tweet.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is what our presidential showdowns have devolved into – not an after-debate discussion of substantive issues, but a parsing of all the incredulous, ridiculous utterances.
Bad hombres. Bigly. Nasty woman.
“Sometimes I forget this is a presidential debate and not an SNL skit,” tweeted Ian Mayberry.
Not that it requires defining, but an hombre, in case you didn’t know, is “man” in Spanish.
But Trump pronounced it “ombre,” which is an altogether different thing: colors or tones that gradually blend into each other.
Of course, that yielded a whole new round of memes and tweets.
“So now we know what #trump’s immigration plan is focused on… ridding the #USA of these monsters,” tweeted Joseph Azam with a picture of a bad hair job.
The irony of Trump’s use of “hombre” was not lost on CNN analyst Van Jones.
“The only time Donald Trump used Spanish in this campaign … is to smear and denigrate immigrants.”
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CNN’s Amanda Jackson contributed to this report.
