The third and final presidential debate kicked off with a shocking amount of policy talk. And then it completely went off the rails.
You can almost pinpoint the moment the tide turned to a single phrase: “Bad hombres.”
“We have some bad hombres here, and we’re going to get them out,” Donald Trump said in reference to “drug lords” from Mexico, after bashing Hillary Clinton‘s border security policies as nonexistent.
.@realDonaldTrump: “We have some bad hombres here and we’re going to get them out” https://t.co/FvyVw7iAOF https://t.co/vKEBZP1e8S
— POLITICO (@politico) October 20, 2016
Suddenly, the internet woke up.
https://twitter.com/MsPackyetti/status/788913780277129217
https://twitter.com/jcstearns/status/788913991917633536
https://twitter.com/LukeBrinker/status/788913759985147906
And #badhombres will be trending in 5,4,3,2,1… #debatenight
— Russell Contreras (@RussContreras) October 20, 2016
The joke quickly evolved.
hombre:🚶 a man
— Merriam-Webster (@MerriamWebster) October 20, 2016
ombré: 🌈 having colors or tones that shade into each other #debatenight
DOWN WITH THE BAD OMBRES! #debatenight pic.twitter.com/aceJIGdlT8
— Drew Goins (@drewlgoins) October 20, 2016
https://twitter.com/eemanabbasi/status/788914322328154112
I've been worried about bad ombres a long time. I've gotten a lot of credit for that #DebateNight #BadHombres pic.twitter.com/lIaeFvBV9Q
— ✴️Clancy Nacht 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ (@clancynacht) October 20, 2016
All these dudes tweeting about "bad ombres" like they knew what an ombre was before tonight. pic.twitter.com/5JvhiCvSw5
— Cat Duffy (@catduffy) October 20, 2016
The debate then devolved into a debate over WikiLeaks, Russia, and whether Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are friends (they’re “not best friends,” Trump says). At the time of this writing, neither Trump nor Clinton have punched each other in the face.