How To Rig An Election

My latest newspaper column:

Wanna rig elections? No problem. Here’s a primer: 

First, create a core of voters dismissive of facts and expertise. Do this by establishing a media conglomeration that includes radio, newspapers, and TV committed to misinformation. Hire people undisturbed by pushing conspiracy theories and blatant propaganda.  

Next, having created that cadre of ready, willing, and angered citizens, feed them a continual list of scapegoats: racial, religious, and ethnic minorities; immigrants, intellectuals, reporters for all but your own networks. Fan the flames of resentment. Make your views on important issues that affect those voters, like health care, social programs, environmental protection, education, disappear under a suffocating blanket of manufactured paranoia. 

Spend decades convincing your audience that government is evil, that it’s “the problem,” corrupt and in need of destroying; if not by electing people dedicated to making government (and presidents) fail, then by armed revolt. (Deny you really mean that, but don’t disavow those saying it.) 

Then – this is critical – appoint to the Supreme Court a life-long opponent of the Civil Rights Act who spent a career trying to get courts to repeal it but couldn’t unless he became the court. Brush off the fact that the day after his ruling, your party in states across the land enacted legislation aimed at suppressing votes of people likely to vote against you. Pretend members of those legislatures haven’t admitted their aims and gloated about them. 

Make sure no one on your side accepts the mountain of evidence that voter fraud is statistically a thing of the past. Insist the flood of stories of life-long voters and legal citizens being unable to get the required ID and being denied the right to vote are the price we must pay to protect that right, even though it’s only your cozenage and cynical legislation which have put it in peril. 

Appoint Justices that’ll allow unlimited and untraceable money from a handful of billionaires and corporations to influence elections. It helps when your Court can do so with the declaration that “independent expenditures do not lead to, or create the appearance of, quid pro quo corruption.” Best if they can manage to say it with a straight face. 

To solidify the indoctrination, convince people science is a hoax. (Well, maybe not when it comes to cell phones and satellites, airplanes, antibiotics, and nuclear power; just about climate change, the age of Earth, and evolution.) Appealing to biblical literalists makes it easier, as does a continuing effort to convince Christians that restricting prayers in public schools and crèches on courthouse lawns puts their religious freedom in immediate danger. In lying about it, make sure to obfuscate and disclaim the ways in which maintaining separation of church and state is, in fact, the single most important principle by which their religious freedom and that of all others (yeah, maybe don’t mention that part) is respected and preserved. That secures more votes than a Kansas voting machine. 

Now you need to discredit the most important components of our democracy: free press, quality public education, compromise, and trust in the process. Claim the other party just wants “free stuff,” that mitigating income inequality and helping the poor to escape poverty doesn’t make capitalism work better. At which point they’re ready to vote for your tax cuts for the wealthy, paid for by taking away that “free stuff,” convinced that trickle-down fixes everything, even though it’s been proven false over and over. Your efforts are paying off: by now they’ll neither notice nor care. It’s the time-tested effectiveness of constant disinformation. 

Finally – and this is what it’s all been leading up to -- you reduce polling places, voting machines, and personnel in precincts that tend to vote for the other party, and you make sure polling places are closed at the times they’re most able to vote, forcing intolerable wait times. 

So that’s it: misinform enough voters on one side and prevent votes of enough on the other. If you’re still worried, you could tell your people to show up at opposition-dense polling places, preferably armed, to intimidate or scare away voters. But no one would do that, right? Unless you’ve convinced them it was the other side doing the rigging.  

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The Damage Is Done

My latest newspaper column:

Win or lose, Donald Trump has done incalculable damage to America. It can’t be overstated. A disordered egomaniac who can’t abide not being adored by others as much as he adores himself, he’s doing everything he can to delegitimize the core of our democracy. Free and fair elections. Unencumbered press. And, above all else, trust in the process. This is worse than his career of cheating and lying, even worse than his sexual predation. It fits the definition of sedition. It’s unspeakably dangerous. He doesn’t care. 

Trump won’t commit to accepting election results, telling people to vote, then to go to “certain places” to be on the watch for unspecified dastardly voting activity. He believes (or, at least, wants you to believe) his losing could only occur if the election is “rigged,” which happens to be impossible. His latest lie: the US is letting undocumented immigrants “pour into the country” to vote. This is deliberate incitement. If our democracy isn’t about respecting the outcome of elections, it’s about nothing. He doesn’t care. 

To avoid personal embarrassment, he stokes anger and resentment. Physical attacks on reporters, death threats to them and their kids are signs of what’s to come. The latest foreshadowing: standing threateningly, locked and loaded, outside Democratic offices. Post-election plans for attacks are being uncovered. This imperils us far more than ISIS. He doesn’t care. 

It’s entirely attributable to his words. For Trump, it’s about rationalizing failure, but his supporters accept his ravings as truth. As with his birther lie, systemic harm is of no concern, only aggrandizement and revenge. Especially revenge: his career is rife with acts of it. Handing pitchforks to an angry mob, he’s tearing the country asunder. He doesn’t care. 

Expecting a fawning press and lying with impunity, as it had been in his “business” career, Trump now bans and blames news organizations that uncover his lies. Enabled by supporters taught to pre-reject facts based on source not content, and to mock expertise, he claims media bias. But our democracy depends on a free and skeptical press and a well-informed electorate, both of which he scorns, because they’re constitutionally intended to protect our country from the unbridled power that he seeks. He doesn’t care. 

As he strikes out (in both senses), his rallies become more frightening. Having swallowed the paranoid Trumpic rantings, ignorant of the reasons for the First Amendment, his minions are convinced media are the enemy. To explain away revelations of his vulgarity and unethical business practices, Donald Trump pretends he’s the victim. And his supporters scream at the bulwark of democracy. He doesn’t care. 

For a narcissistic and pathological liar, this has been perfectly predictable. Facing the inevitable, he’s become a cornered rabid dog. In full conspiracy mode, speaking recently in Florida, resorting to a time-honored anti-Semitic trope, he imagined a planet-wide conspiracy against him, run by “international bankers.” Making ever-wilder claims, likening his suffering to Jesus, he fed fuel to the fires festering within his furious fans, who stand ready to burn it all down. (I’m glad Democrats raised money to rebuild that firebombed Republican office.) You’d avoid a guy ranting like this on a street corner. That this one is the Republican nominee for President of the United States embarrasses us all. He doesn’t care. 

The description may not fit all of his enthusiasts, but if Trump wins, the most democracy-rejecting, misinformed haters of nonwhite and non-Christian Americans will find themselves welcomed into the mainstream. If he’s defeated, there’s no doubt they’ll buy his claim of rigging and respond accordingly. They already have. What then? Two sides, separated by a deliberately constructed wall of hate for the winner, the losers readying, literally, to shed blood. A country in flames? He doesn’t care. 

Donald Trump says “America,” but it’s only himself he’s ever wanted to make great, because, I think, somewhere inside he knows he’s not. As losing looms, he’s lashing out even more at the essential qualities of America, willing to take it down with him. It’s past time for true conservatives and their “leaders” to admit the damage he’s doing and call it out. It’s getting worse by the day. Win or lose, that is his legacy. Donald J. Trump doesn’t care.

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When It's Obvious, It's Hard To Be Original

All the things that I'd be saying about that third debate have already been said, by pretty much all observers. Hard to point to something new about something so obvious.

So I'll just mention two things: first, Trump was allowed to avoid answering whether he'd leave a residual force in Mosul. Hillary was clear: no. I think it's at the heart of Middle East policy: Does having a mass of troops in that region promote stability or foment resentment and continuing conflict? If it's necessary for stability, what's the endpoint? Can there ever be one? Hillary seems to have learned the obvious lesson.

Second, not that it's as big a deal: Trump claimed (in the long list of things he denies he's ever said or done, for which there's documented evidence that he did) he never said he'd be fine with various countries having nuclear weapons. To which Chris Wallace said nothing. It was in an interview with Chris Wallace that Trump said it.

And second second, speaking of Wallace: a couple of his questions were long-time Fox talking points, framed inaccurately. The rate of economic expansion, for one.

(Third second, not original at all: it's really depressing that in three debates, climate change wasn't a topic. Hillary did mention that Trump thinks it's a hoax, to which his in-depth response was "I never said that." Which he has, many times, many ways.)

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In Plain English

That Firebombing

That firebombing of a Republican headquarters in North Carolina is very disturbing and, if it was self-identified "liberals" who did it, disappointing in the extreme. For one thing, I've always believed such things were much more likely (mainly because it's true) to be the work of right-wing zealots. Planned Parenthood, Mosques, Democratic offices, homes, and, you know, what-not.

I was impressed by Hillary Clinton's response. Donald didn't disappoint, either, but for opposite reasons. And I'm very glad that local Democrats and many from far away have been raising money to rebuild the building. Whoever did it, one hopes, will be found, and (after a fair trial and adequate legal representation) locked up for a long, long time.

I can't help but point out, however, that if it had been an attack on a Democratic office, Alex Jones would be leading the chorus of claims that it was a "false flag" operation (a term with which I'd not been familiar until he used it in reference to the murders at Sandy Hook). Just sayin'.

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They Hate America

My latest newspaper column:

I thought it might be overlooked in the morass, but Mike Pence pointed to it as “one of the better moments of the debate.” Trump’s henchpeople in the audience whooped and hollered their unbridled (and, one would hope, thoughtless) approval. Their campaign manager called it a great night for democracy. What they were celebrating was the reincarnation of Joseph Stalin and his gulags. 

And I’d thought the worst moment of the night would be when Trump held a pre-debate news conference with women who claim to have been abused by the spouse of his opponent. Or when he repeated the Foxilimbeckojonesan lie about Hillary Clinton laughing at a rape victim, now sitting next to him, to whose case the courts had assigned her. The lie is Trumpic on many levels, not the least of which is rejecting a mainstay of the American system of justice: the right of the accused to a fair trial and effective counsel. Never mind that the truth, as usual, is entirely different from Trump’s massive falsehood.  

Donald Trump thinks, as do his followers, the “I know you are but what am I” defense is how to deal with his admission of being a sexual predator; and, evidently, he believes he’s diminishing Hillary by mentioning her husband’s infidelities. But if it does say something about her, it says the same about his own wife. (You may choose up to three.) And, for the record, had he used another p-word, say, pudendum, it wouldn’t have made the revelation any less sordid. Because it’s not his words. It’s his bragging about acts which, if adjudicated, would require that he register as a sex offender. 

But there I just went, distracted by the enormous vulgarity of the man, at the expense of his much more disturbing inclination toward tyranny, and the enthusiasm with which his followers embrace it. 

This is the Donald Trump about whom I and everyone else who’s paying attention have been warning: the one who’d undertake to jail his political opponent if he wins the election. The one who’d emulate the worst despots, past and present; the one to whom the future of the country is less important – so much so that it doesn’t register with him at all – than the coddling of his own disturbed ego. He’d round up and jail his opponent. (Why even bother with the “special prosecutor,” Trump? You’ve already announced the outcome.) And they cheered. Polluted by decades of propagandizing, they cheered, exhuberently, the end of democracy, the burying of our Constitution under the weight of deliberate and undeniably effective endumbification. They cheered it like a Wilson to Baldwin touchdown. 

Because, according to the vision that was planted in their brains, the system is so corrupt we must destroy it to save it (Vietnam reference). It justifies electing a vindictive, power-hungry, lying, know-nothing claimer of knowing everything. It justifies cheering for the imprisonment of political opponents. Cheering in the certainty it’d never be them in the boxcars, because they are, after all, white, Christian, native-born patriots (assuming patriotism includes hating everything else about our country, including most of its people and, definitely, its legal system.) They cheered. Couldn’t help themselves. Dreaming of vengeance, of watching others suffer hard justice that cometh from an almighty personal savior, ceding all power to him, they cheered. Enraptured, grateful for the first coming of Donald Trump, they cheered. (Okay, bad metaphor: nothing about Donald Trump is remotely like Jesus. Which broaches a mystery for another time.) 

Faced with deciding whether or not to prosecute his predecessors Dick and George for what were, by definition, war crimes, President Obama chose not to, sparing his country and the world the divisive spectacle, not to mention learning the depth of the atrocities, only now being revealed, committed in our names. In that case, the criminality was obvious. In Hillary’s, millions of dollars and wasted hours spent kangarooing her have not led to criminal charges. So Trump and his still-faithful proposed punishment by assumption, by conspiracy theory, by dictatorial fiat. Stomping on the Constitution, waving the flag and shouting USA, USA, USA! 

And it was the p-word that was too much for Paul Ryan (kind of) and John McCain. 

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There's Hypocrisy, And Then There's Hypocrisy

I was gonna write something like this, but then I found it pretty much already wrapped up with ribbon. I don't know who "Alex Schiller" is. But it's evidently making the cyber rounds (I saw it on Kos):

Bill Clinton cheats on his wife. Impeach him. Trump proudly brags about sexual assault (and has cheated on his wives). Elect him. Hillary oversaw the department of state while 4 people died in an embassy attack. Put her in jail. 2 Republicans were in office while over 200 people died in embassy attacks. No problem. Immigrants don't pay taxes. Round them up and kick them out. Trump doesn't pay taxes. He's a business genius. Hillary's foundation only spent 87% of their donations helping people. She's a crook. Trumps foundation paid off his debts, bought sculptures of him, and made political donations to avoid investigations while using less than 5% of funds for charity (and he got shut down by NY State). So savvy... Put him in the white house. 

Trump made 4 billion dollars in 40 years, when an index fund started at the same time with the same "small loans" he received would be worth $12 billion today... without a trail of bankruptcies, thousands of lawsuits and burned small business owners. He's a real business whiz. Hillary took a loss of $700k. She's a criminal. Trump is the first candidate in the modern era not to release his tax returns, and took a billion dollar loss in 1 year. Genius. Hillary takes responsibility for private email servers and apologizes. Not credible. Trump denies saying things (on the record) he actually said (on the record), he's just telling it like it is. 

Your arguments are thin. Your ignorance of reality is shocking. Your double-standards are offensive, and your willingness to blindly support him and recycle the rhetoric is absurd. Your opinion is not fact. Your memes are not news articles. And your hypocrisy is not a platform.
Alex Schiller

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Asshole

This is Donald Trump, after a woman fainted at one of his rallies:

... When she came back, after being treated for passing out in the tarmac heat, Trump boasted that his supporters were tough — tougher, even, than the safety rules in place to protect professional football players. “That woman was out cold, and now she’s coming back,” Trump said from the podium. “See, we don’t go by these new, and very much softer, NFL rules. Concussions — ‘Uh oh, got a little ding on the head? No, no, you can’t play for the rest of the season’ — our people are tough.”...

At this point, he could save himself and his supporters a lot of time by reducing his speeches to this:

"I'm an asshole. I'm the best asshole, that I can tell you. I have great asshole words, believe me. I know more about being an asshole than anyone, even some pretty great assholes. Vote for me because I'm an asshole and so are you."

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The 'Splain In Maine Is Plainly Insane

The governor of Maine (a state I'd always considered kinda staid and definitely sane) is a nutjob of epic proportions. But at least he's unbagged a cat whose condition was deducible from the start. Said he:

“Sometimes I wonder that our Constitution is not only broken, but we need a Donald Trump to show some authoritarian power in our country and bring back the rule of law,” LePage said in the interview. “We’ve had eight years of a president — he’s an autocrat — he just does it on his own, he ignores Congress, and every single day we’re slipping into anarchy.”

So the problem today's Republican party has had with Barack Obama is not that he's acted like an autocrat (a common if ridiculous claim) but that he's the wrong autocrat. Not their autocrat.

And if you think, well, Gov. LePage (isn't that glue?) is just speaking for himself, what is it about Donald Trump's "message" that his flock are cheering on? It sure as hell isn't because he's a constitutionalist.

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Makes Sense

Prepare The Gulags

Well, the second debate was hard to watch, mainly because neither of them did themselves, or us, very proud. Hillary was able to get in some serious policy discussion, and when asked at the end what she admires about Trump she managed to come up with some praise for his kids instead of the more truthful but probably less politic "Not one fucking thing."

Still, it was mostly a bunch of personal insults, the more grievous of which came from Donald, as expected. His were more personal, tacky, and pointless than hers ("She has hate in her heart," said the Mexicans-are-rapists candidate.)

Lost in the morass was the single most disturbing thing Donald Trump said: if he wins he'll appoint a special prosecutor to go after Hillary Clinton and put her in prison. That got enthusiastic applause from his henchpeople in the audience and, no doubt, will be cheered across the digital landscape that's found in a certain deplorable basket.

But think about it: if you piss off Donald, he puts you in prison. A gulag, I'd guess. Nor do his supporters find the idea the least bit repugnant or frightening. And they say when we liberals call him a demagogic tyrant and criticize his supporters, we're being nasty. Maybe that promise of his will burble up through the cesspool and be seen for what it was: the announcement of a would-be dictator, the first step toward subjugation, cheered on by those who assume they'd never be next.

I can't help thinking of President Obama right after he was elected, when there were calls for prosecution of his predecessors Dick and George for what were actual, undeniable, by-definition war crimes. Not in the country's best interest, the president decided, in what was the first of several decisions that disappointed the leftest side of his supporters. (For the record, I thought it was the right decision, but would have, on a personal-satisfaction level, loved to have seen it happen. But we liberals are able to think beyond immediate and selfish gratification.)

No, that was damn scary stuff, what Donald said and how his delusional followers reacted. USA! USA! USA! Give me your tyrants, your poorly informed, your huffing masses yearning to bleed me...

[Added: looking at various sources after I wrote the above without searching, it seems others saw it as I did. Reassuring on some level. Mike Pence, however, called it one of the best moments of the debate. So there you have it.]

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They're Shocked. Shocked!

Here's the thing: there's nothing that the pussy tape revealed about Donald Trump that wasn't already known. It's just that, being so glaringly on the record, it's harder for the hypocrites to continue to look the other way.

So this mini-flood of unendorsements and calls for dropping out are nothing more than admissions of that hypocrisy; that until it became screamingly undeniable it was okay to overlook his vulgarity, his pathological lying, his business scams, his fake charity, his instigating of violence, his attacks on the electoral process, on the press, on all Americans who aren't white Christian native-born males, his rallying of the worst of our American racists. And none of the suddenly awakened have criticized any of that, not even now.

Instead of proclaiming their born-again moral standing, they should be publically shamed for waiting so long.

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Hats On For Trump

It's Not Too Late

My latest newspaper column:

The Dallas Morning News. The Arizona Republic. The Cincinnati Enquirer, The New Hampshire Union-Leader, The Richmond Times-Dispatch. The San Diego Union-Tribune. Et mucho cetera. Conservative newspapers, which have always endorsed the Republican candidate for president, some of them for well over a century. Not now. In rejecting Donald Trump, most endorsed Hillary Clinton. A couple nodded to Gary “Aleppo?” Johnson. USA Today, having never opined on a presidential race, implored readers not to vote for Trump. 

“Dangerous, unstable, liar, thin-skinned, vindictive, uninformed, ” they said, costing them readers and evoking death threats. (Death threats: America’s answer to Voltaire.) Turns out defending true conservatism is heroic. 

I agree liberals don’t have exclusive answers to our many problems. (We’re totally right about trickle-down economics, though.) I get why people dislike Hillary Clinton, even if their reasons are largely based on Foxilimbeckojonesean lies and exaggerations. I know people want “change.” But it’s long past time for true conservatives to admit, as The Atlantic put it, an “ostentatiously unqualified” person has won the nomination of their party, one who neither represents their politics nor the kind of change they want; who ought never become the personification of The United States to the world. Simple observation is all it takes. 

Donald Trump spent last week tweeting awfulness about a former Miss Universe because Hillary Clinton berated his treatment of her. He couldn’t stop himself. Day after day it continued, childishly, compulsively. Well, Trumpites, fustigation comes with the political territory. Only the most Foxilimbeckojonesian can say President Obama hasn’t handled the disrespect he’s received from Republicans with dignity and restraint. What would Donald do to those who offend his brittle ego? What has he done throughout his career, and threatened to do as president? If the prospect doesn’t frighten you, I’d love to know the medications you’re on. 

An embarrassing onslaught of adolescent insults and incoherent rambling followed his debate loss. To a woman! During the VP debate Donald tweeted that Hillary’s ties to Putin, for whom he professes admiration, with whose country he does business, need to be investigated! And he mocked Tim Kaine’s looks. What sort of mind... ?

I’ve heard from readers who declaim their hatred of “everything” about liberals, using it to excuse supporting a candidate so obviously lacking integrity. “It’s not a personality contest,” one reasoned, evidently ignorant of the difference between personality and character. It’s impossible to open their eyes to the malignant mentality of Donald Trump. If he hates the same things they hate, it’s immaterial that he’s a psychologically unfit, narcissistic, vengeful, congenital prevaricator who, throughout his life, has shown no sense of personal or shared responsibility. “Finally,” they say. “Someone who thinks like I do.”

Backing a man so bereft of decency, a “businessman” who’s cheated, broken laws, gone bankrupt (losing a billion dollars in an up market and using trickle-down tax law to pay no taxes shows “business savvy,” they say, faces straight as a rifle barrel); needed daddy’s bailouts, repeatedly, to keep him afloat; run scams and phony, illegal charities; been sued thousands of times; regularly stiffed and bullied people who worked for him; a recidivist vulgarian who smears his opponent for her husband’s infidelities while claiming he’s proud of his marital behavior (but pled The Fifth about it in court) – this confirms they’d vote for anyone, no matter how unsuited, even a classic demagogue, as long as he’d enrich them or punish people unlike themselves. This is immorality greater than Trump’s: he can’t control himself. They could. 

My pen pals won’t change, nor will the white supremacists flocking to Trump. I disbelieve they represent all supporters, though. Surely there are some to whom the continuing revelations of his incompetent and unscrupulous behavior will reach the point of awakening. Those Republican newspapers got there, after all. And they have company. 

It’s always been too late for my epistolers, but not for you, honorable conservatives. If Hillary Clinton is as bad as you think, and if your party finds a credible candidate, it should be easy to defeat her in four years. This singular election isn’t about political philosophy. It’s about keeping a vulgar, sociopathic grifter out of the Oval Office. Have the self-respect to acknowledge and act on it. It can be our little secret.

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To Be Fair

Donald Trump has said and done plenty of awful things, far more than enough to disqualify him from the presidency. So it pisses me off when people mischaracterize what he (or any politician they don't like) says, because it weakens the very real, the very deep and broad and iron-clad arguments against him. It gives ammunition to those who claim "the media" are unfair to him.

Case in point: today he spoke to a veterans' group and was asked about the high suicide rate among veterans (the question was really about spiritual care, i.e., chaplains being involved). His answer has gone spirochete, and is being reduced to "Veterans who kill themselves are weak." This is NOT what he said. This is what he said. (The video is within the linked article.)

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It's fair to suggest it's yet another campaign promise that'll be ignored. It's fair to comment that "can't handle it" isn't a helpful way to describe the problem. And it's fair to wish, as I do, that someone had asked where he plans to get the money and the necessary personnel, and whether, based on past performance, the Rs in Congress would provide the funds. But I'd say he really didn't imply that suicide is about weakness. Watch for yourselves and see if you agree.

Taking stuff out of full context, twisting words -- that's SOP for all the RWS™. With a horrifyingly pathological guy like Donald J. Trump, there's no need to distort what he says. Which, by the way, is why Hillary's ads that consist only of him saying what he says are so powerful.

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Can't Believe I Watched The Whole Thing

My latest newspaper column:

These moments happen in life. You’re faced with a challenge up to which you fear you might not be. You call upon all of your strength and resolve, looking for something within yourself you’re not sure is there. On such occasions, you convince yourself there’s no choice but to go forward, take whatever comes. It’s the right thing. It’s life. We do what we must. 

So I watched the debate. 

Turns out a lifetime of accusations of everything from murder to fidelity has prepared Hillary Clinton for the likes of Donald Trump. I was wrong to think he could rattle her. Compared to his annoyance, her (mostly) calm was impressive.  It goes without saying, of course, that his supporters wouldn’t change their minds if he’d danced naked singing “I am the Walrus.” Nor could she have done anything to put off her committed voters. Our predictable opposing opinions don’t matter, though: the question is how “undecideds” were affected, along with those who’ve said they wouldn’t pay attention until the first debate. What did they make of it? More importantly: are people who’ve not yet made up their minds (hard to believe) the sort who’d truth-check the lies Trump told? To recognize how alarmingly unsuited he is for the presidency, even as it was there for the observing. 

Will they make the effort to discover that, though he denied it straight up, he really did say climate change was a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese? (His actual words: “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.") Rather than accept his pretense, will they confirm that his only public comment before the Iraq invasion, when asked if he was for it, was, “Yeah, I guess so.” Or that the first public record of him stating his opposition was in 2004, well after the fact, when the calamity was apparent to everyone not named Bush or Cheney or employed by right-wing media. Will they gape at his claim of a non-existent endorsement by ICE? Or at his bass-ackwards concept of Chinese money and piggy banks? (But he understands finance!) 

Mr. Trump got a whoop from somewhere in the crowd when he non-sequitured that he’d release his tax returns when Hillary released those deleted emails. (How does one release deleted emails?) Secretary Clinton reminded him that being audited is a phony excuse for not releasing his taxes, suggesting the obvious: they must hold embarrassing information. Like not paying any. About which he bragged. After bemoaning deficits and crumbling infrastructure, things the rest of us pay for, because we’re citizens. Interviewed after the debate, he baldly denied that he’d said, mere moments earlier, that not paying taxes made him “smart.” 

Scorekeepers counted interruptions: Fifty-one times he interrupted her. Seventeen times she interrupted him. (Seventeen too many, if you ask me; but, under the circumstances, remarkably restrained.) 

The lies, though. If Hillary, like all politicians, has been known to stretch or fudge the truth in her favor, and if she’s occasionally had a “bullets in Bosnia” moment, Donald’s lies are a lifestyle choice. In the debate, the matchup wasn’t even close.  

The careful observer might intuit that there is much about Donald Trump that bothers me. But his lies are something truly unnatural. He repeats them when shown to be false. He denies statements that are on the record, continuously. What can it mean? Does he think so little of his supporters that he assumes they won’t notice, or care; or that they like him best when he’s lying? Does he believe that as words pass his lips, no matter how demonstrably false, they metamorphose into truth, because he’s The Donald? Whatever the explanation, “normal” isn’t on the list. 

In claiming his temperament is the best thing about him, “by far,” he did say one true thing. As an example, ex post debato, his campaign pointed to the fact that the serial adulterer hadn’t mentioned Hillary Clinton’s husband’s infidelities, demonstrating a keel most even. Amazing! No, at the debate we saw his true temperament: peckish, rude, repetitive, limacine, prevaricating, unprepared, thin-skinned in ways no president should be. And there’s this. By his own words, that’s the best part of him. So, yikes. 

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