As expected, Trump’s refusal to make a pledge accepting the outcome of the election stirred up the usual hysteria on the left and the right. According to the New York Times, Trump’s response was “a remarkable statement that seemed to cast doubt on American democracy.” The other P.R. firm for progressives, the Associated Press, said Trump was “threatening to upend a fundamental pillar of American democracy.” Prominent NeverTrumper John Podhoretz was even more vehement: “It was a shocking and cravenly irresponsible thing to say, the sort of thing that threatens to rend our national fabric, and for that alone, Trump has earned his place in the history of American ignominy.” Right alongside Benedict Arnold and John Wilkes Booth, I guess.
All these hyperbolic responses are curiously similar to Hillary’s during the debate. Sniffing political opportunity with all the olfactory acuity of an outhouse rat, Hillary thundered, “Horrifying . . . He is denigrating [sic]. He is talking down our democracy. And I for one am appalled that someone the nominee of one of our two major parties would take that kind of position.” As opposed to trading uranium mines to a Russian firm in exchange for donations to her family foundation? Once again, over-the-top rhetoric that serves political interest substitutes for clear thinking and moral distinctions when it comes to Donald Trump.
Indeed, these preposterous claims of “threat to democracy” and an unprecedented violation of a “democratic tradition” conjure up apocalyptic scenes of Alt-Right and KKK and Survivalist battalions swarming from basements and Klaverns and foothills with their gun-show “assault rifles” to spark a civil war in the streets, while Vladimir crawls out of his coffin in the Kremlin and dispatches legions of little green bats to destroy the Republic and anoint Donald “Renfeld” Trump as dictator. All the while that Hillary’s corruption and subversion of the Constitution––genuine threats to democracy––are tsk-tsked then swamped by anti-Trump hysteria.
Not that Trump should be let off the hook for his typically thoughtless reply, a bad habit that might cost him the election. Chris Wallace’s question was ambiguous, asking if Trump “will absolutely accept the result of the selection” and claiming “no matter how hard fought a campaign is, that at the end of the campaign, that the loser concedes to the winner.” But what did Wallace mean? After the results of the voting have been certified by the states, according to each state’s laws? Or after results are announced by the media and the states, but not yet certified? And doesn’t the “campaign end” on November 7, which suggests Wallace meant the latter?
