Of all the lies that Donald Trump has told, this was perhaps the most priceless of all. “No, I’m a gentleman, Hillary, go ahead.”

No need to fact check that one because the world could see the truth. As Clinton proceeded to answer a question about health care, the man who has boasted about forcing himself on women loomed up behind her disturbingly, intimidatingly, nauseatingly.

Sunday night’s presidential debate was unlike anything seen in the 240-year-old American republic – and not in a good way. It was the first in which parents who might have wanted to give their children a civics lesson instead probably felt obliged to pack them off to bed before this 9pm watershed. One can only hope that someone had the presence of mind to put a blindfold and ear plugs on the statue of Abraham Lincoln, sitting on the national mall.

This was the grotesque spectacle of the Republican candidate for president scrambling around in the sewer, flailing, hurling dirt, trying to drag national politics down with him. At one point he resorted to the vile talk of dictators, saying if he had his way, Clinton would be in jail. That will play well with the “lock her up!” crowd at his rallies.

Presidential debate fact-check: Trump and Clinton's claims reviewed Read more

And yet, as the debate wore on and he threw wild punches, some were catnip for fact checkers and some landed on a relatively passive Clinton. A man who should have been disqualified several times over emerged down but not quite out, at least in his own party.

The debate at Washington University in St Louis was in a town hall format, with audience members sitting up close, which meant it became uncomfortably reminscent of The Jerry Springer Show and its many raucous imitators: the shouting, the fisticuffs, the spouses confronted with infidelity live on air.

The Trump family sat beside three women who have accused Bill Clinton of sexual assault and appeared with Trump in a creepy pre-debate press conference. There was the excruciatingly awkward meeting of Bill Clinton and Trump family members before the debate began, then a conspicuously frosty non-handshake between Clinton and Trump, body language that made Barack Obama-Vladimir Putin look like a bromance.

Then there was Trump, prowling the blue-carpeted stage like a predator, brooding, scowling, skulking, wagging his finger at Clinton, exploding with rage and misogynistic bullying.

Then there was Trump, prowling like a predator, brooding, scowling … exploding with rage and misogynistic bullying

To think, in 2000 Al Gore was hammered for edging too close to George W Bush during one of their debates.

There was no hiding place from the 2005 video in which Trump was caught boasting about feeling licensed to grope women because of his fame. Moderator Anderson Cooper uttered words that no presidential debate moderator has dreamed of uttering since the duels began in 1960: “You described kissing women without consent, grabbing their genitals. That is sexual assault. You bragged that you have sexually assaulted women. Do you understand that?”

Trump again tried to wriggle out of it, describing his words as “locker room talk” then veering wildly off to talk about the Islamic State “chopping off heads” and “drowning people in steel cages”. Clinton’s face was a picture, a mask of silent fury, channeling the mood of millions of voters.

When Cooper pressed further, Trump made another jaw-dropping statement: “I have great respect for women. Nobody has more respect for women than I do.”

Nobody?

Clinton began: “Well, like everyone else, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking over the last 48 hours about what we heard and saw …”

Here it comes. Trump visibly gulped.

“… What we all saw and heard on Friday was Donald talking about women, what he thinks about women, what he does to women.”

Trump pursed his lips and shifted from one foot to another.

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Clinton read a charge sheet that included “we have seen him insult women. We’ve seen him rate women on their appearance, ranking them from one to 10”, as well as his targeting of “immigrants, African Americans, Latinos, people with disabilities, POWs and Muslims”.

Trump had come armed with nukes and, inevitably, he used them.

“If you look at Bill Clinton, far worse. Mine are words, and his was action. His was what he’s done to women. There’s never been anybody in the history politics in this nation that’s been so abusive to women. So you can say any way you want to say it, but Bill Clinton was abusive to women. Hillary Clinton attacked those same women and attacked them viciously.”

He added: “And I will tell you that when Hillary brings up a point like that and she talks about words that I said 11 years ago, I think it’s disgraceful, and I think she should be ashamed of herself, if you want to know the truth.”

Clinton said his facts were wrong and remarked: “When I hear something like that, I am reminded of what my friend, Michelle Obama, advised us all: when they go low, we go high.”

Trump brought up Clinton’s deletion of 33,000 emails as secretary of state: “You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

He said he would appoint a special prosecutor to investigate her. The tone worsened still further when Clinton, in her response, commented: “It’s just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country.”

The bombastic tycoon interjected: “Because you’d be in jail.”

Some in the audience burst into applause. It was a moment of thugocracy that recalled Joseph Welch’s question to communist-hunting Senator Joseph McCarthy: “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”

Trump’s aggressive tone, finger jabbing and stalking into Clinton’s personal space, were a masterclass in how to lose the optics.

But eventually, when the debate moved on to policy, Trump managed to go on the offensive in a way that eluded him in the first clash, hitting some of the Clinton criticisms that will energise his base. She missed some opportunities to punch back.

He also flaunted his superficial knowledge. At one point he parted company with his running mate, Mike Pence, who has raised the prospect of using military force in the Syrian civil war.

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“He and I haven’t spoken, and I disagree,” Trump said. “Syria is no longer Syria. I believe we have to get Isis. We have to worry about Isis before we can get too much more involved.”

Bizarrely, when asked what would happen if Aleppo falls, Trump responded, “It basically has fallen,” and then made a jarring segue: “You take a look at Mosul and the biggest problem I have with the stupidity of foreign policy.”

Right at the end of this television plane crash there was, miraculously, a glimmer of redemption from an artful question asking each candidate what they admired about the other. Clinton praised Trump’s children; he looked at them with a nod and smile. He praised her as a fighter who doesn’t quit. And unlike that toe-curling, stomach-churningly tense beginning, this time there was a handshake.

Nonetheless, history is likely to judge that America’s first female president reached the White House by defeating the last of the great male chauvinist pigs.

