Meryl Streep let Donald Trump have it right between the eyes last night, deploring his “instinct to humiliate” and more particularly a “performance” he gave earlier this year that “stunned” her, she said, and “sank its hooks in my heart…not because it was good…there was nothing good about it…but it was effective and it did its job. It made its intended audience laugh, and show their teeth.

“It was that moment when the person asking to sit in the most respected seat in our country imitated a disabled reporter,” she explained. Everyone knew what she meant, but for those who’ve been living in a deep cave, the video clip is below.

One of Trump’s tweeted responses put Streep down as an “over-rated” actress. Really? Of all the retorts in all the gin joints in all the world, that‘s what he went with?

When the “instinct to humiliate” is “modeled by someone in the public platform, by someone powerful, it filters down into everybody’s life, because it kind of gives permission for other people to do the same thing,” Streep said. “Disrespect invites disrespect, violence incites violence. And when the powerful use their position to bully others we all lose.”

I loved that line about Trump’s fans showing their teeth. Gleeful but feral, she meant.

I couldn’t hear Streep’s remarks last night during the Fox viewing party. The sound was tinny (i.e., cheap speakers) and under-amplified. Thanks enormously for the invite, Fox guys, but next year please bring back the wifi. You offered it last year and the year before that…thanks.