ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Well, the stakes just got real around here!

From the start, Hillary Clinton has vowed that if she got elected she would raise Donald Trump’s taxes. For a guy like Mr. Trump, there is no more terrifying threat. And for the good of American industry and freedom — as well as rich people like Mr. Trump — that should keep him up at night and laser-focused on winning this election.

In Sunday night’s debate, Mr. Trump raised the stakes to similar levels for Mrs. Clinton. If elected, he said, he would appoint a special prosecutor to investigate her disastrous and reckless handling of classified emails as secretary of state.

Just when you thought this campaign could not get any wilder.

Mutual.

Assured.

Destruction.

Then Mr. Trump punctuated the threat as Mrs. Clinton prattled on about how unfit the real estate mogul is to hold the office she so desperately wants.

“It’s just awfully good,” she sing-songed, “that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country —”

“Because you’d be in jail,” Trump interjected with a vicious spear.

Not since Daniel entered the lion’s den has any mortal walked into a room with a fierce political machine and a monolithic media more resolutely against him.

Teeth bared. Drooling. Pawing at the ground as they circled him, smelling the blood coming out of his wherever from the wound caused by a nasty vulgar tape from a hot mic 11 years ago of the real estate mogul talking about scoring women.

Seriously, you have a billionaire who cuts deals with the richest and nastiest titans of Wall Street and New York real estate and talks in vile terms about bedding women, and this is a surprise to someone? Did any of these vultures watch the movie “The Wolf of Wall Street”?

This same guy builds monumental phallic edifices emblazoned with his name in giant gold letters and flies big jets with his name down the side, and these people are shocked to learn he is capable of crudeness and bravado? TRIGGER WARNING: They guy loves beauty pageants so much he has actually owned them!

At the time of the recording, Mr. Trump was guest starring in a soap opera, promoting a show that was in itself a shameless promotion for his own “reality” show and these people are shocked to hear Mr. Trump bragging about his prowess in the sack and his ability to command desirous women?

Seriously, these people lead sadly sheltered lives.

And then THEY complain that it’s all not suitable for children, yet THEY are the ones who brought it up and will not stop talking about it?

The release of this decade-old tape, of course, was perfectly calculated between the Clinton campaign and the shameless media to extinguish any hopes of a Trump resurgence in Sunday night’s debate.

Well, they better hope that tape kills him. Because the Donald Trump that showed up for Sunday night’s debate utterly destroyed Hillary Clinton.

The Donald Trump that showed up for this debate could win this election in a walk. And if establishment Republicans refuse to get on board, well, then they just don’t want to Make America Great Again.

• Charles Hurt can be reached at [email protected]; follow him on Twitter via @charleshurt.

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