A national outbreak of "creepy clown" sightings hasn't helped the public's frightening perception of these performers. 
Trump said some words about willing women throwing their panties at him, and the RNC goes into convulsions as the MSM labels the convo as ‘sexual assault’.
When is the RNC going to wake up and smell the coffee and stop judging Trump like a career politician?
That's the only context they have with which to judge him. Evangelicals were supposed to recoil in horror, and perhaps some have but by and large it appears that Evangelicals made peace some time back with the fact that in the past he's not exactly been an angel. It's an embarrassing and crass thing to have said, having it come to light in such a public way. But, it was banter, unguarded private conversation between two guys, or so he believed at the time.
A national outbreak of "creepy clown" sightings hasn't helped the public's frightening perception of these performers.