The dangers of a Trumped up conspiracy theorist

IT has been just over a year since Donald Trump put himself forward as a candidate to become holder of arguably the most powerful title in world politics – President of the United States of America – but in that short time he has been guilty of many truly terrible transgressions.

Not only has he dragged America to the deepest depths of gutter politics, he has outraged an entire religion by calling for a complete ban on Muslims entering the US; insulted Mexico with threats of building a border wall; been labelled a misogynist and now stands accused of sexually assaulting a number of women.

However, as our US Correspondent Andrew Purcell reports today, Trump’s ramping up of conspiracy theories about the Presidential election being rigged could be his most dangerous deception yet.

America is no stranger to political scandal and even rigged elections. The legacy of Richard Nixon’s 1972 Watergate cover-up has meant that more than 40 years later, American is still susceptible to notions of electoral fraud. That is despite the fact that countless attempts in the decades since to uncover any wrongdoing have failed to produce any meaningful evidence.

Even so, facing a slide in the polls and inevitable defeat, Trump’s rhetoric that the election is being stolen from him by nameless corporations and the media reveals what we on this side of the Atlantic have known for a long time: Trump is a bad loser.

However, for a man who struggles to utter a coherent sentence, he has one very powerful skill – his ability to make many millions of Americans believe in his hyperbole. That is why, as we reveal today, there are genuine fears of bloodshed on American streets if, as expected, Trump loses the race to the White House.

Donald Trump is a joke and we have all been guilty of writing him off as such. We can only hope that America isn’t the punchline.