Donald Trump confirms everyone’s worst fears
By E.J. Dionne Jr.
It was a two-track debate. At times, it was the setting for a detailed argument over serious issues in which Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump offered voters a relatively straightforward clash of progressive and conservative perspectives.
But this is 2016, and eventually the third and final debate on Wednesday reached the fundamental issue of the campaign: whether Trump is fit to be president. Despite her substantial lead in the polls, Clinton did not hang back, as many predicted she would. Instead, she pressed Trump sharply on the entire catalog of his shortcomings, accusing him of being a “puppet” of Russian President Vladimir Putin and denouncing his treatment of women, his mocking a disabled reporter and his habit of saying that any contest he loses is “rigged” against him.
And she clearly signaled one of the closing themes of her campaign when she declared that Trump had shown “a pattern of divisiveness, of a very dark and ... dangerous vision for our country.”
Trump drew from his own arsenal of favored attacks on Clinton, from the work of the Clinton Foundation to her use of a private email server and her role in the Obama administration’s foreign policy. “She’s been proven to be a liar,” Trump said.
Had the exchanges come down to an ideological fight and simple tit-fortat, fire and counterfire, it might have constituted a kind of victory for Trump, given his polling deficit and his gaffes and lies in his earlier debate performances. But as the debate wore on, Trump once again left behind moments that will reinforce doubts many voters already have about him.
to once disown Repeatedly,again Putin, praisedhe and refusedhim he relative to both Clinton and President Obama. “She doesn’t like Putin because Putin has outsmarted her at every step of the way,” he said.
And again and again, when Clinton repeated things that Trump had actually said, he simply denied saying them, providing fact-checkers with another rich Trumpian trove.
From the start, Chris Wallace, the moderator in Las Vegas, tried to press Clinton and Trump on a series of specific issues — what sort of justices they would nominate, how they viewed the Constitution, where they stood on abortion rights and gun control. In each case, they stressed themes congenial to their core constituencies.
Clinton strongly endorsed Roe v. Wade, sharplyzens United attacked decision the that Citiundercut campaign finance restrictions and stressed that she wanted justices who would stand with ordinary citizens against the wealthy and the powerful. Trump began with his commitment to the Second Amendment and gun rights and kept coming back to the issue. Although Wallace pressed him repeatedly, Trump refused to say if he wanted Roe overturned, though he predicted that because his Supreme Court appointees would be “pro-life,” Roe would fall. The most important moment was Trump’s refusal to say that if he lost, he would accept the outcome. Never has a candidate for president challenged the legitimacy of the entire electoral enterprise in which he was engaged. Clinton’s core claim is that Trump is a dangerous man who lacks respect for American institutions and American democracy. On this central issue, Trump chose to prove Clinton right.
E.J. Dionne Jr. is a Washington Post columnist.