This election is a disaster – a mess, a disgrace, a kind of shameful political theater previously unseen in modern American politics. Or rather, one of the candidates has turned this election into a disgraceful spectacle, and he seems intent on debasing the very concept of politics as public service. The other is running a smart, tight campaign, but seeing herself tarnished by the stench exuding, Pigpen-like, from her adversary. How sweet it was last night to watch Hillary Clinton again get the chance to demonstrate how much more skillful, thoughtful, and intelligent she is than her opponent. Next to Donald Trump, that’s perhaps not a tough sell. But it’s also extra satisfying.

If and when Clinton wins the election, sections of the peanut gallery will inevitably credit Trump for her victory. The arguments are predictable: He’s an easy opponent, such an outlandish figure, how could she not beat him? Had she been running against a Mitt Romney or a John McCain or a Paul Ryan, she would have had a much tougher time. Even Clinton’s dominance in the debates are routinely framed as a product of Trump’s incompetence rather than her own aptitude. But an opponent like Trump doesn’t cheapen a Clinton win, in the debates or in the election. Anyone who thinks he’s an easy adversary hasn’t spent an hour and a half trying to get his or her point across while a boorish, loud, and entitled man interrupts, condescends, talks over, and eventually threatens you, all while physically menacing you in the few moments he lets you speak without interruption (and then when he talks, he lies). The debate was a microcosm of this entire election season – the hyper-competent but slightly boring woman, the belligerent and combative man – and watching Clinton take Trump down was a captivating preview of just how gratifying Election Day might be.

Of course the first woman running for president of the United States is running against the mother of all sexists; what’s astonishing is that she’s winning. It was in hindsight obvious that the Republican Party’s conservative male base, realizing that Clinton was the likely Democratic nominee, would pick a notoriously misogynist dirtbag to be their party’s own candidate – many of these voters are men who like seeing more-accomplished women taken down a peg, and Trump gives voice to their worst impulses. So it’s particularly delightful to watch that kind of sexism work against him, his misogyny so crude that even members of his own party who aren’t exactly feminist firebrands are fleeing so they aren’t tainted by him. They’re smart to do so. Trump’s boasting about assaulting women (he would “grab them by the pussy,” he bragged to entertainment reporter Billy Bush in a 2005 conversation that was caught on tape) has even further alienated women, and many men: Nearly two-thirds of voters now say that Trump doesn’t respect women, up from just over half before the release of the tape. More than half of Americans say the video made them less likely to vote for Trump. Forty percent say he should withdraw from the race.

Misogyny like that is particularly notable because Trump’s opponent is female, but Trump’s style of aggressive, blustering masculinity also wouldn’t be such a cornerstone of his campaign if he were running against a man. Women recognize Trump in the classmate who always shouted over them, the boyfriend who bullied them, the coworker who coopted their ideas and got the credit – and the guy who made crude comments about their ass as they walked away. Clinton’s genius is that she has finally figured out how to make gender work for her by pointing out Trump’s sexism, confirming what so many American women feel instinctively.