2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumDonald Trump’s dangerous ploy to destabilize democracy - Washington Post Editorial Board
By Editorial Board October 14 at 4:32 PM
INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES teach their officers how to respond in case of exposure: Admit nothing, deny everything, make counter-accusations. While perhaps good advice in the amoral context of espionage, these are not, or should not be, words to live by for those who take part in democratic politics. Yet when Republican Donald Trump was outed as a serial abuser of women, first by his own words and then by testimony from a lengthening list of alleged victims, he responded with tactics worthy of the Russian ex-KGB man Vladimir Putin, whose leadership he so admires. Mr. Trump branded the women liars and blamed the establishment and their media enablers for the purported smear.
One reason to believe the charges is Mr. Trumps own repugnant boast, captured on videotape in 2005 and first reported a week ago by The Posts David A. Fahrenthold, about how he likes to grab women by their private parts and force himself on them, as an exercise of his star power. Lacking the decency to take responsibility for this, beyond a thin layer of apology in a thick sandwich of excuse-making, Mr. Trump went on to compound verbally the insult he already inflicted on his victims, through his conduct, with predictable attacks on their veracity, motives and, of course, appearance. Thus did the GOP nominee further confirm his unfitness for the White House, as well as the cravenness of those elected leaders in his party who continue to endorse him.
And then Mr. Trump, speaking Thursday in West Palm Beach, Fla., escalated: Beyond merely denying the truth of the allegations about his treatment of women, he recast them as evidence that U.S. democracy itself is no longer legitimate. Follow the logic here, if you can: The country is under the control of a conspiracy, involving not just his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, and the media, but also the entire political establishment, Republicans included, in league with unnamed international banks, whose goal is to enrich themselves by controlling the central base of world political power . . . right here in America and imposing radical globalization and the disenfranchisement of working people. Mr. Trump, and the movement he heads, are all that stand in the way of this evil cabal. This election, therefore, is no ordinary political contest but a crossroads in the history of our civilization that will determine whether or not we the people reclaim control over our government. Ergo, the cabal will destroy Mr. Trump by slander unless the people stand up and resist a small handful of global special interests rigging the system.
This language which he read from a prepared text fed into a teleprompter is inflammatory beyond any demagoguery Mr. Trump had offered previously. Coupled with his repeated warnings, echoed by his followers, that the Democrats may be cooking up Election Day fraud, the speech seems to prepare the ground for resistance in the increasingly likely event that things dont go his way Nov. 8. Indeed, anyone who agrees that the alternative to a Trump victory is civilizational disaster, the fruit of a sinister deal, as Mr. Trump put it in another Florida speech, would feel obligated to deny the legitimacy of a Clinton victory, should it occur. Trump-for-President is not a campaign to redeem American democracy or even to take it back, as Mr. Trump puts it; it has morphed into a campaign of destabilization.
-snip-
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/donald-trumps-dangerous-ploy-to-destabilize-democracy/2016/10/14/105ca4f4-9225-11e6-9c52-0b10449e33c4_story.html?utm_term=.eadb5dc31c7d&wpisrc=nl_headlines&wpmm=1
femmedem
(8,196 posts)Cha
(296,848 posts)and paranoid trump is.
He's so pissed he got busted and humiliated by his own hand.. he wants to take the whole down with him.. seriously.
treestar
(82,383 posts)In the increasingly unlikely event he was POTUS, he would melt down every day. POTUS gets criticized daily and he would be mired down in that.
Zorro
(15,722 posts)NastyRiffraff
(12,448 posts)what Trump is planning. From his recent rhetoric, I think he's finally realizing that he's going to lose, and of course, that's because of multiple "conspiracies" against him. Never mind that it's damn near impossible for banks, the Congress (both parties!) and the rest of the "establishment" (whomever that may be) can get together long enough to plot a conspiracy. The frightening part is that he's already urging an insurrection. What his deplorables don't realize is that should they heed his call (and some will), he'll hang them out to dry, twisting, as they say, in the wind. He won't be in the forefront of those protests; in fact, he'll deny all knowledge.
I truly think he is becoming certifiable.