Wronged, not ‘schlonged’: How Donald Trump’s vulgar tirade may help Hillary Clinton

Donald Trump’s insults against Hillary Clinton prompted the Democratic presidential front-runner on Tuesday to lambaste her Republican counterpart as a bully.

“We shouldn’t let anybody bully his way into the presidency because that is not who we are as Americans,” Clinton said at a town hall in Keota, Iowa, on Tuesday, one day after Trump told a rally in Michigan that “she was favoured to win, and she got schlonged” by President Barack Obama in the 2008 election, using slang for male genitalia. He also repeatedly referred to her late return from a restroom break during Saturday night’s Democratic debate, calling the thought “disgusting.”

While Clinton didn’t directly address Trump’s language, she didn’t shy away from noting that she’s often been the target of attacks. “You are looking at somebody who’s had a lot of terrible things said about me,” the candidate said in response to a young girl’s comments about being bullied, which came at the tail end of a question-and-answer session. “You just say it and you send it around the world.”

Clinton often makes similar comments, but they had new resonance Tuesday in light of Trump’s latest broadside. After downplaying her gender and trailblazing role in her 2008 race for the presidency, Clinton has fully embraced it in this time around, using it as a rallying cry for women voters, and not hesitating to call out perceived sexism.

For Clinton, Trump’s attacks have the potential benefit of putting her in a position from which she has tended to have political success. 

“She's great at being the victim,” Jeb Bush, one of Trump's Republican rivals, told reporters Tuesday in Berlin, New Hampshire. “This enhances her victimology.”