Three horrifying Trump moments
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In the final presidential debate, Republican nominee was downright contemptuous of American democracy
WEDNESDAY night’s presidential debate – the last, thankfully, of this cycle – was not a revelation, but confirmation. This election is not about left or right, your team or mine, tax cuts or hikes, expanding or crimping the welfare state, Obamacare or the Ryan budget, a slightly more liberal Supreme Court or a persistently conservative one. It’s about something much more fundamental: the resilience of democratic culture.
Over the course of three debates, Donald Trump has admitted he is a threat to the peaceful transition of power and the rule of law, and turned a blind eye to a hostile foreign power trying to undermine the integrity of the US presidential election.
Wednesday brought perhaps the most detestable moment in contemporary American political history.
Moderator Chris Wallace asked Trump if he would accept the results of the presidential election. “I will look at it at the time,” he said, before swirling off into a garbled mess of conspiracy theories about media corruption and voter fraud, punctuated by a bizarre outburst about how Hillary Clinton should “not be allowed to run”.
The highlight of the night may have been Wallace’s follow-up question: “There is a tradition in this country – in fact, one of the prides of this country – is the peaceful transition of power and that no matter how hard-fought a campaign is, that at the end of the campaign, the loser concedes. Not saying you’re necessarily going to be the loser or the winner, but the loser concedes to the winner and the country comes together, in part for the good of the country. Are you saying you’re not prepared now to commit to that principle?”
Trump’s response? “I’ll keep you in suspense.”
Meanwhile, Trump’s insistence that Clinton “not be allowed” to run not only makes one wonder who, in his world, would ban his opponents from campaigning for office. It also echoes his declaration at Clinton in the last debate that, if he won, he would “instruct my attorney-general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation”, even though FBI director James Comey insisted that no reasonable prosecutor would have brought a case against her based on the State Department email scandal.
“It’s just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country,” Clinton responded.
“Because you’d be in jail,” Trump replied. Overriding the judgement of the FBI and the Justice Department is not “law and order” – it is lawlessness. Petty dictators in unstable countries jail their opponents.
For the moment, it is only the case that Trump is petty. When Clinton challenged him on Wednesday night simply to acknowledge what the US intelligence community has concluded – that the Russian government is using electronic means to meddle in the election – Trump refused.
Instead, he spoke about how Russian President Vladimir Putin has said “nice” things about him, how it would be “good” to get along with Russia, and how no one knows who is behind the release of hacked emails timed to damage the Clinton campaign.
Trump could have argued that the content of the leaks should be up for discussion, even if the source and its motives are suspect. But he did not even do that. Instead, he said Putin has “outsmarted and outplayed” Clinton and that the Russian president does not respect her.
More likely, Putin considers Trump a fool he can outsmart.
Strangely enough, Trump’s best debate performance of the general election turned out to be his first – widely seen as disastrous – one. At least then he did not launch a full-frontal assault on the foundations of the country’s political system.