National Post (National Edition)
A Trump win is America’s loss
This is a traditional battleground area in U.S. presidential elections, but this cycle there’s a difference.
As usual, commercials bombard voters with the choices, but this year there are no lawn signs promoting either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. In fact, there are few conversations about politics.
That’s because people here want the election over because Trump’s antics, semantics image and slurs dominate the air waves and cannot be tuned out or turned off.
Americans are like abused children in a family in which the father is an unhappy, angry, self-centred bully who is crude, racist and threatens the mother all the time.
That’s why it is hardly surprising that the most revealing poll results so far in this interminable election were those just released by the American Psychological Association: Some 52 per cent of all adults in both parties say the election is a very, or somewhat, significant, source of stress in their lives — right up there with worries about the economy, money or their jobs.
This should not surprise. Trump has talked about firing all the generals in the Pentagon and putting in new guys, jailing Clinton if he wins and leading a revolution should he lose because everything — except his success and candidacy — he believes is rigged.
His de-legitimization of the electoral process should be enough to disqualify him and is “political suicide,” according to radical conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer.
“His task was to stop the slide … to make him less toxic and acceptable as president, and less radical,” Krauthammer said on Fox TV. Americans want change, “but they don’t want a radical that will challenge the foundations of the Republic. Yes, you criticize conditions — you’re going to change Washington, etc. But you don’t challenge the legitimacy of an election and hold up the prospect of actual non-acceptance.”
Not surprising, the anx- ieties stirred by Trump are shared by the neighbours and the world, too. Trump would scrap NAFTA, NATO, nuclear non-proliferation efforts and cozy up to Putin.
His nihilistic rants about how awful everything and everyone else is both demoralize and depress as does his solution, which is that only he can fix everything. In New York, this idea is laughable — he’s disliked, has questionable partners and has gone bankrupt six times.
So why did this thoroughly unsuitable, discredited man run? Last week, one New York developer offered this explanation.
“He was going to renew his deal with NBC for (The) Apprentice and wanted to increase his profile to get tens of millions more,” he said. “That’s why he knows nothing, wings it and has no organization.”
Unfortunately, he was fired as the host by NBC in June, 2015, after he offended all Mexicans.
Then he was propelled to where he is now by a lame TV media; opponents who were insulted off the stage; fraudulent, unaudited polls robotically repeated by a lazy media and a Republican Party that did no due diligence.
Trump’s tabloid lifestyle — the women and questionable financing shenanigans — is an open secret in New York. This was why billionaire and former mayor Michael Bloomberg said at the Democratic National Convention that Trump’s candidacy was a “con.”
Months of tedious trashtalk and irresponsible slander later, the Republicans have a branding nightmare and so does America.
People are weary and, fortunately, he has gone too far with his personality disorders while Clinton has turned it around with her wonky preparedness and poise.
“Clinton’s successful execution of this strategy has been, fittingly, the product of traits that she’s often criticized for: her caution, her over-preparation, her blandness,” wrote Ezra Klein with Vox this week after the third debate.
“The result has been a political achievement of awesome dimensions, but one that Clinton gets scarce credit for because it looks like something Trump is doing, rather than something she is doing — which is, of course, the point.”
Such a critic is dismissed by Trump as another rigged, liberal conspirator, but the facts are that Clinton could win a Goldwater-scale landslide. (She never was in peril, in my opinion, because he’s simply tiresome and moronic.)
However, this cannot happen if the voters don’t turn out.
“Justice is on the ballot, civility is on the ballot, democracy is on the ballot,” says President Barack Obama. “Vote.”
Hopefully the message is heeded and the Democrats humiliate Trump, not just beat him because much depends on the quality of the outcome.
If Trump gets 30 per cent or less, he will disappear from screens to battle the IRS, his ego and his demons.
If he gets 35 per cent, he will launch Trump TV.
If he gets 40 per cent, he will lead the Republican Party.
And, if he wins, America loses.