While Donald Trump’s die-hard fans take to Twitter to codify the collective delusion that #TrumpWon last night’s debate, the rest of the world is taking stock of some of the most effective moments in Hillary Clinton’s 90-minute steamrolling of the babbling orange madman. And so far, consensus seems to be coalescing around her fourth-quarter name dropping of 1996 Miss Universe winner Alicia Machado.
As the whole world now knows, Trump brutally and publicly body-shamed the Venezuelan beauty queen after she gained something to the tune of 12 pounds in the wake of her Miss Universe win. But now it seems now Machado is getting a well-deserved taste of vengeance, and thoroughly enjoying every minute of it.
The then 18-year-old Machado was subjected to a parade of insults and degrading comments from Trump, who took to calling her Ms. Piggy, an “eating machine,” and casually swiped at her Latin heritage by calling her Ms. Housekeeping. To add public shame to injury, he even invited representatives from nearly 90 media outlets to document Machado weight-loss gym routine without so much as giving her a heads up.
Unsurprisingly, the adolescent beauty queen was devastated by the sleazy middle-aged bully’s campaign of psychological violence, and as she revealed to the New York Times, suffered from anorexia and bulimia for five years following the incident. But, as Clinton reminded us when she deftly pulled the proverbial ace from her sleeve last night, Machado recently formalized her American citizenship with the express purpose of voting against the deranged womanizer who made her life a living hell.
In addition to speaking out publicly about her experience, Machado has also been leveraging her considerable social media presence to advocate for Hillary Clinton in the name of self-respecting women everywhere. And since Clinton’s campaign rolled out a video of her story in the wake of the debate, we might even to see her playing a more visible role in Hillary Clinton’s last push for sanity from American voters.
Either way, we can be sure that these last months have tasted sweeter to Machado than the 20 years of therapy she’s admittedly undergone to purge the specter of this orange nightmare from her unconscious.