Donald
Trump’s Contempt for Democracy
By THE EDITORIAL
BOARDOCT. 19, 2016
Donald Trump turned,
in the third and final presidential debate, from insulting the
intelligence of the American voter to insulting American democracy
itself. He falsely insisted there were “millions of people”
registered to participate in the election who did not have the right
to vote and declared he would not commit to honoring the outcome.
Hillary Clinton was
clearly shocked that he was attacking the very foundation of the
republic, the American tradition of peacefully transferring power.
“That’s horrifying,” she said, rightly. At one point, Mr. Trump
even said, outrageously, “She shouldn’t be allowed to run.”
The presidential
debate was another exercise in narcissism, bombast and mendacity by
Mr. Trump. One could only hope that this might be the last grand
display of his gross unfitness to be president.
Mr. Trump arrived at
the debate in Las Vegas after days of making venomous attacks on the
democratic process, and by implication, the voters’ ability to make
sound choices. Asked about whether he would accept the election
result, he tersely answered, “I will look at it at the time.” In
rejecting his answer, Mrs. Clinton noted that Mr. Trump is a chronic
complainer when he loses, even in an Emmy award competition. But
applying his loser’s lament to an American presidential election is
a far different proposition than whining about a TV show. “He is
talking down our democracy,” Mrs. Clinton warned.
Mr. Trump and Mrs.
Clinton clashed over Mr. Trump’s favorable view of President
Vladimir Putin of Russia. She pointed out that Russian hackers have
been traced by numerous government intelligence agencies as the
source of leaks undermining the Democratic Party and the American
election. Mr. Trump defended the Russian leader, insisting he had no
close relationship with him, but that Mr. Putin had “outsmarted”
Mrs. Clinton “every step of the way.”
They clashed as well
on the issue of abortion, with Mrs. Clinton noting Mr. Trump had
previously said abortion should be illegal and women who have them
should be punished and that he also wants to defund Planned
Parenthood. Mr. Trump said he would appoint anti-abortion justices to
the Supreme Court.
And he stood by his
insistence that he would build a massive wall across the Mexican
border. “We have some bad hombres here,” he said, maintaining his
insulting allegations that Mexican immigrants are criminals. Mrs.
Clinton, clearly trying to needle her thin-skinned opponent, said he
ducked the issue in his visit to the Mexican president: “He
choked.”
The debate was
tightly directed by the moderator, Chris Wallace, but Mr. Trump
showed no inclination to back off his bullying and cunning in keeping
the focus on himself rather than on the problems of the nation.
Mr. Trump again
faced the issue that sent his reputation into a tailspin in recent
opinion polls — his hot-microphone bragging in 2005 that he
sexually assaulted women. Women have come forward to offer evidence
of instances of abuse, and Mr. Trump insisted, falsely, that the
accusations have been debunked. “They want either fame, or her
campaign did it,” he said. “She got these people to step
forward,” he said of Mrs. Clinton, as usual offering no evidence
for his claims.
“Nobody has more
respect for women than I do,” Mr. Trump declared, in one of his
more transparent lies of the night.
Mr. Trump’s
meltdown in the closing weeks could be dismissed as a sore loser’s
bizarre attempt at rationalizing his likely defeat. But his trashing
of the democratic process, in service of his own ego, risks lasting
damage to the country, and politicians of both parties should recoil
from him and his cynical example.
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário