Forget all the back and forth on the first debate, the pundits, the people, the polls, the bizarre claims and counter-claims of an aging Venezuelan porn star. All that can and will change, if it hasn’t already. Or will disappear among a new set of talking points, real or imagined, after the second debate.

Only one assertion of enduring importance was made on Monday—one that slipped quickly by, but will continue to fester under the surface for those eighty or so million watching and have a profound and deeply unfortunate effect on our culture.

Hillary Clinton declared that all Americans are racist, at least implicitly. The exchange went as follows:

Lester Holt: Do you believe police are implicitly biased against black people. Hillary Clinton: Lester, I think implicit bias is a problem for everyone not just police.

So we’re all racists now in Hillary Land.

Note I didn’t say Hillary’s view because this statement was not based on any form of reasoned observation, but on pure political calculation under the self-aggrandizing and self-deluding mask of moral narcissism. (I apologize for bringing up the subject of my recent book. But this just happens to be one of the most perfect and dangerous examples I have ever encountered of this increasingly pervasive phenomenon.)

Here’s the calculation part that occurred as I see it: In response to Holt’s question, Hilary didn’t know what to say about the police that wouldn’t offend someone, so she spread the accusation to everyone. We’re all guilty (meaning, one assumes, all white people, although that was naturally left unsaid). At the same time, obviously, she was doing her best to pander to the black vote that, for the first time in a long while, has been a tiny bit more fragile for the Democrats.

The moral-narcissism component allows Clinton to assume the mantle of the “good person,” that she is doing the”right thing” when her policies and those of her party have had the exact opposite result for black communities that have been in steep decline for some time. Holt, of course, never raised that possibility.

Underlying all this is a ruthless attempt to encourage that most pernicious, self-defeating and self-fulfilling prophecy that African-Americans will always be victims. And if they are victims, they always vote Democrat, the party of victimhood. (If they don’t vote Democrat, they support professional victimhood organizations like Black Lives Matter until the proper deals are made and they do vote Democrat again, a roundelay of unhappily ever after.)

The result of all this? Bodies in the street. A lot of them. Almost all black.

But we know that. The facts are readily available to anyone who wants to see them. But Hillary and her party are not interested in the facts—they are interested in generating emotions that translate into winning elections and remaining in power, even if it necessitates they hide the truth from themselves. This is normal political behavior, except in this case, as mentioned, people die.

It’s ineffably sad, most notably for black America, of course, but also for the rest of us who have to watch, usually helplessly. Or live in a world seemingly on the brink of frightening disintegration.

Nevertheless, the Democrats and Hillary soldier on in their assault, thanks to moral narcissism. They think (or pretend to think) they’re doing the right thing. It’s “virtue signaling” taken to the nth power as stores get looted and buildings burn.

In reality, it’s a war on blacks for the advantage of a pseudo-liberal/pseudo-progressive elite. They get all the goodies at the end, along with a small sector of cooperative black elites who play the game.

This war kicked into high gear at the beginning of the Obama administration. To say the first black president instigated and perpetuated a war on blacks is pretty outrageous, but before his inauguration the relations between the races in our country were incomparably better and had what appeared to be a bright future. Perhaps that future was too bright and had to be annihilated before one party lost its raison d’être.

That’s something to think about while Donald Trump makes his fitful attempts for the black vote. At least he’s trying. What other Republican presidential candidate really has? I wish he did it more skillfully, but when I hear Hillary Clinton accusing us all of being racist, I thank God for his attempt.

Roger L. Simon is an award-winning novelist, Academy Award-nominated screenwriter and co-founder of PJ Media. His latest book is I Know Best: How Moral Narcissism Is Destroying Our Republic, If It Hasn’t Already.