I am struggling to understand the universal shock-and-awe reaction to Donald Trump’s refusal to accept the results of this election. My lack of comprehension may well be a side effect of the pain meds I’ve been on this week, but I really don’t get it. Every major news outlet led its Wednesday night debate coverage with Trump’s remarks challenging the legitimacy of an election he appears to be losing.
The lede on the Associated Press debate story began with these words, “Threatening to upend a basic pillar of American democracy. . .” Serious politicians and thinkers of all political stripes have been shaking their heads in deep disdain ever since.
Arizona Sen. John McCain, the defeated 2008 Republican nominee for president: “A concession . . . is an act of respect for the will of the American people, a respect that is every American leader’s first responsibility.”
Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer: “This is political suicide.”
Veteran Republican campaign strategist Steve Schmidt, saying Trump’s remarks were “disqualifying,” added, “The campaign is over.”
New York Times editorial: “Donald Trump turned . . . from insulting the intelligence of the American voter to insulting American democracy itself.”
Believe me, I am not rising to his defense. Trump’s refusal to acknowledge the validity of the election process he willingly entered into was absurd and nonsensical. But I would submit, from the totality of the record, that, (a) we should not have been at all surprised, and, (b) he has repeatedly repudiated decency, respect for law and the American way of life. When it comes to graven depravity of political thought, Trump has mastered the art of consistency.
After all, The Donald has called for: the assassination of Kim-Jong-um and the families of terrorists, shutting down the mosques, deporting U.S. citizens whose parents entered the country illegally, reducing U.S. debts by defaulting on them and banning Muslims from entering the country. This is the candidate who wished for the housing market to crash so he could make money off it, kept a collection of Adolph Hitler speeches in a cabinet by his bed, refused to rule out using nuclear weapons on ISIS, fraternizes with avowed white supremacists on Twitter and urged supporters to beat up protesters at his rallies. And this is the candidate who secured his party’s nomination on the back of one word: “winning.” America doesn’t win anymore, he said. The other candidates were weak losers. Trump defined himself as a winner, the only person who can make our country win again.
Did we actually expect him to walk onto that final debate stage, down seven points and falling, and tell Chris Wallace that yes, of course, he would graciously concede this hard fought election to Hillary Clinton, should that be the outcome, and then pledge to do everything he can to help the Clinton Administration Make America Great Again? If he had, that would have been one hell of a story. First year journalism students are taught that it’s not news when a dog bites a person, but you’ve got yourself a story when a person bites a dog. In Wednesday’s debate, Trump merely bit himself, just as he has been doing since the start of this campaign. Had Mitt Romney or John McCain said the same thing about not recognizing the validity of the election process, it would have been a stop-the-presses moment. In 2016, it was merely Trump being Trump.
It is abundantly clear that this guy is, in every way, totally ill-equipped to handle even the lowest level of public leadership, let alone the presidency. He lives in his own world, constantly creating and revising a reality to suit him for the moment. He supported the Iraq War when he thought it was the thing to do, but denies it now. He supported abortion rights, but says he didn’t. He spent his life objectifying, denigrating and sexually assaulting women, but insists that “nobody respects women more than I do.” The very predicate of his presidential candidacy is that he, Donald J. Trump, is a winner. When he wakes up on Nov. 9 with less than 270 electoral votes, he will experience the worst bout of cognitive dissonance in his life. He will sputter with foolish excuses and scapegoats. Ultimately, it won’t matter. Our country is stronger than that. Under the law of the land and in our hearts, The Donald will be what we’ve always known him to be: the World’s Biggest Loser.