King Donald Crowns Himself

Roger Simon
Thu, 20 Oct 2016 00:46:51 -0700
Opinion

History will note that Donald Trump had a chance, albeit a slim one, to become president of the United States.

But he moved the dial from slim to none Wednesday night, at the final presidential debate, when he said he might not accept the results of the Nov. 8 vote.
Updated: Thu Oct 20, 2016

History will note that Donald Trump had a chance, albeit a slim one, to become president of the United States.

But he moved the dial from slim to none Wednesday night, at the final presidential debate, when he said he might not accept the results of the Nov. 8 vote.

"I will look at it at the time," Trump said.

"That's horrifying," Hillary Clinton replied.

She got that one right.

Some historians believe that the greatest thing George Washington ever did was to give up the presidency at the end of his second term. Many thought he would simply stay and rule as a king. He was popular enough.

But Washington knew that establishing an orderly transition of power was as important as wielding power. It was the most important thing he could do for the infant American republic.

Donald Trump is no George Washington, however. Trump believes that if he thinks a vote has been stolen in St. Louis or a voting record altered in Altoona, he can invalidate the entire election and ... what?

Demand a new one? Order the armed "militias" of the extreme right, who like to tramp around in the woods and play soldier, to march on Washington and seize the White House so Clinton cannot move in?

Maybe the highly paid consultants he has surrounded himself with can come up with some face-saving plan for him.

Maybe he will get everything east of the Mississippi and she will get everything west and then they will switch after two years.

But who would trust anything he agrees to? And who would trust him not to redecorate the place in 50 shades of gold.

For about the first third of the debate, Trump was doing fine. Clinton had a clear plan — bait Trump and make him lose his temper — and Trump had his usual plan: to make no plans at all.

"He choked," Clinton said of Trump and his trip to Mexico.

Trump just scowled.

"He used undocumented labor to build the Trump Tower," Clinton said.

Trump just scowled some more.

Vladimir Putin would "rather have a puppet as president," Clinton said.

"You're the puppet," Trump said back. "Putin has outsmarted her at every step of the way."

But he kept his temper. He even used some of his crowd-tested lines. "The one thing you have over me is experience," he said, "but it's bad experience."

Then there was the matter of him and those women.

"I didn't even apologize to my wife ... because I didn't do anything," Trump said about his sexual escapades.

Yes, he apologized for the bad language he had used and his "boy talk" — boy talk from a 59-year-old boy.

But Clinton was on a roll. She slammed him for belittling women for their looks, for mocking a disabled reporter and for attacking a federal judge for having Mexican parents.

And then Clinton showed why she spends so much time prepping. She tied everything into a neat bundle to show the "pattern" of Trump's attacks.

"So it's not one thing," she said. "This is a pattern, a pattern of divisiveness of a very dark and, in many ways, dangerous vision of our country where he incites violence."

That is not what America is, she said, and with Election Day less than three weeks away, "it really does come down to what kind of country we are going to have."

Then Trump sealed his own doom. The country we are going to have is apparently one where Trump will refuse to recognize the power of the people to choose their own president.

Didn't the Supreme Court do something like that in 2000? Yes, sort of. But the Supreme Court is the Supreme Court.

And Donald Trump is "the most dangerous person to run for president in the modern history of America," Clinton said.

Clinton also found another pattern. Whenever Trump thinks things are going against him, he says the system is rigged. In the past, he has blamed the FBI, a federal judge, the Wisconsin primary, and on and on.

"There was even a time when he didn't get an Emmy for his TV program three years in a row and he started tweeting that the Emmys were rigged," she said.

"I should have gotten it," Trump said.

He is going to get it, all right. Come Nov. 8, I think he is going to get it but good.