ENLARGE Trump and Mrs. Clinton on the TV. Photo: Getty Images .

Hillary Clinton must’ve won the debate . Even Scott Adams , who over the weekend switched his endorsement to Donald Trump for reasons of policy, said she did last night:

Clinton won on points. She had more command of the details and the cleaner answers. Trump did a lot of interrupting and he was defensive. If this were a college debate competition, Clinton would be declared the winner. I call that victory on the 2D chess board. . . .

But Trump needed to solve exactly one problem: Look less scary. Trump needed to counter Clinton’s successful branding of him as having a bad temperament to the point of being dangerous to the country. Trump accomplished exactly that . . . by . . . losing the debate.

Trump was defensive, and debated poorly at points, but he did not look crazy. And pundits noticed that he intentionally avoided using his strongest attacks regarding Bill Clinton’s scandals. In other words, he showed control. He stayed in the presidential zone under pressure. And in so doing, he solved for his only remaining problem. He looked safer.

By tomorrow, no one will remember what either of them said during the debate. But we will remember how they made us feel.

Clinton won the debate last night. And while she was doing it, Trump won the election. He had one thing to accomplish—being less scary—and he did it.

We’re not sure we agree that Mrs. Clinton “won” the debate, though our opinion here is worth the paper it’s printed on. Our sense was that Trump lost his focus after dominating the first 30 minutes or so—the only 30 minutes that matter, according to a predebate piece by Politico’s Shane Goldmacher . Mrs. Clinton was boring and irritating throughout. But it’s possible we are biased.

We certainly disagree that Trump “won the election” last night, which is to say our view is that not terrifying viewers of the first debate is an insufficient condition for victory. It is, however, a necessary condition. And Trump fulfilled another, related necessary condition last night, this time with the help of Mrs. Clinton and moderator Lester Holt: He established himself as a normal candidate.

By “normal” here we don’t mean run-of-the-mill. In several respects, Trump is obviously an unusual candidate. Some detractors make a defensible argument that he is unqualified by dint of inexperience or temperament. But for months we’ve been warned about the dangers of “normalizing” Trump—of treating him as anything other than a deviant.

To take some examples, just yesterday New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait described Trump as “a candidate who poses a mortal risk to the sanctity of American democracy and world peace.” (Does he mean a threat to democracy and peace themselves, or just to their sanctity?) Earlier this month Bill Moyers described Trump as “a psychopathic narcissist whose alt-right agenda offers so many threats to the well-being of our country and the world, they defy simple enumeration or categorization.”

The Democratic National Convention was devoted in large part to propagating the message that Trump is an unhinged crackpot who would start a nuclear war. “I genuinely believe that if Trump wins and gets the nuclear codes there is an excellent possibility it will lead to the end of civilization,” Tony Schwartz, who ghostwrote “The Art of the Deal,” told the New Yorker in July. (Given Trump’s own penchant for hyperbole, he chose his collaborator well, except as far as loyalty is concerned.)

But the Trump-as-dangerous-deviant narrative was hardly heard during the debate. True, at one point Mrs. Clinton declared that “a man who can be provoked by a tweet should not have his fingers anywhere near the nuclear codes.” (Why his fingers? Are the codes written in braille?) Trump replied: “That line is getting a little bit old, I have to say.”

That was pretty much it. The rest of the time Mrs. Clinton talked policy and denounced Trump over comparatively pedestrian matters like his disrespectful comments about women and shady business practices. Holt posed several hostile questions to Trump (and none to Mrs. Clinton), but none based on the dangerous-deviant premise.

Most telling, however, was Holt’s closing question, which was addressed to both candidates:

Holt: One of you will not win this election, so my final question to you tonight: Are you willing to accept the outcome as the will of the voters?

Mrs. Clinton: Well, I support our democracy. And sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. But I certainly will support the outcome of this election. And I know Donald’s trying very hard to plant doubts about it, but I hope the people out there understand: This election’s really up to you. It’s not about us so much as it is about you and your families and the kind of country and future you want. So I sure hope you will get out and vote as though your future depended on it because it does.

Holt: Mr. Trump, very quickly, same question: Will you accept the outcome as the will of the voters?

Trump: I want to make America great again. We are a nation that is seriously troubled. We’re losing our jobs, people are pouring into our country.

The other day we were deporting 800 people. And perhaps they pressed the wrong button, they press the wrong button, or perhaps worse than that, it was corruption. But These people that we were going to deport for good reason ended up becoming citizens. Ended up becoming citizens, and it was 800, and now it turns out, it might be 1,800, and they don’t even know.

Holt: Will you accept the outcome of the election?

Trump: I want to make America great again. I’m going to be able to do it, I don’t think Hillary will. The answer is, If she wins, I will absolutely support her.

Most of the commentary we’ve seen on this exchange concerned Trump’s hesitation in answering the question. But he gave the correct answer in the end, after taking the opportunity to make one last pitch for his own candidacy. That’s normal political behavior; watch how often politicians in TV interviews answer questions with totally nonresponsive talking points.

Mrs. Clinton’s answer, however, is the more interesting one. Give her credit for answering the question straightforwardly before delivering her talking points. But consider how blasé—how normal—her answer is: You win some, you lose some; if Donald wins, that’s the way the cookie crumbles.

Would you talk that way about someone you thought was Hitler? Or even just “a mortal risk to American democracy and world peace”?

What Would We Do Without Experts?

“SCIENCE: Experts Name Stephen Hawking Kush Among Best Strains of Pot to Smoke on #DebateNight”—headline, Twitchy, Sept. 26 “SCIENCE: Experts Name Stephen Hawking Kush Among Best Strains of Pot to Smoke on #DebateNight”—headline, Twitchy, Sept. 26

Problem and Solution

“Trump to Clinton: ‘I Want You to Be Happy’ ”—video title, NBCNews.com, Sept. 26

NBCNews.com, Sept. 26 “Alcohol Draws People to Happy Faces, Happy Places”—headline, Medscape.com, Sept. 26

Life Imitates the Onion

“Poll: Many Americans Still Unsure Whom to Vote Against”—headline, Onion, June 2, 2004

Onion, June 2, 2004 “Professor Isn’t Sure What to Expect With Debate”—headline, WVMetroNews.com, Sept. 26, 2016

Question and Answer—I

“Clinton Trump Debate: How Many Will Watch?”—headline, Entertainment Weekly website, Sept. 26

Entertainment Weekly website, Sept. 26 “433K People Die Every Year Because They Sat for Too Long”—headline, FoxNews.com, Sept. 26

Question and Answer—II

“Have You Ever Seen Donald Trump Laugh?”—headline, TheNation.com, Sept. 26

TheNation.com, Sept. 26 “Photos Show Bill Clinton Smiling, Laughing With Trump, Melania, and Model”—headline, CBSNews.com, Sept. 9

Question and Answer—III

“What Is John Kerry’s Next Career Move?”—headline, Boston Globe, June 21

Boston Globe, June 21 “Next Secretary-General: No Charisma Required”—headline, Japan Times, Sept. 27

News of the Tautological

“Never Forget a Face? You Might Be a Super Recogniser”—headline, Telegraph (London), Sept. 27 “Never Forget a Face? You Might Be a Super Recogniser”—headline, Telegraph (London), Sept. 27

Bottom Story of the Day

“Donald Who? Most N. Koreans Don’t Know, Care About US Polls”—headline, Associated Press, Sept. 26 “Donald Who? Most N. Koreans Don’t Know, Care About US Polls”—headline, Associated Press, Sept. 26

Odd Duck

Have you ever been stuck on an airplane seated alongside a real pig? If so, here’s how it happened, as per the Los Angeles Times: Have you ever been stuck on an airplane seated alongside a real pig? If so, here’s how it happened, as per the Los Angeles Times:

Turkeys, pigs and even roosters have flown the friendly skies, carried onto commercial planes by passengers who identified the critters as emotional support animals.

But a committee of airline representatives and disabled rights advocates has been meeting for months in Washington, D.C., to come up with new rules on what type of animals should be permitted on planes and what documents are required to prove the animals are needed. . . .

The National Multiple Sclerosis Society, among others, suggests limiting emotional support animals to dogs, cats and rabbits, while other organizations, including the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, would like to add birds to that list (but not chickens, ducks or turkeys).

Some advocacy groups say passengers shouldn’t be required to carry a letter from a mental health professional confirming the need for an animal because it would be stigmatizing.

So let’s see if we have this straight: Carrying a letter is stigmatizing. Carrying a duck isn’t stigmatizing.