The Only Thing That Mattered in the Third Presidential Debate

In attempting to save face from a potential defeat at the polls, Donald Trump might just guarantee it.

It was all going so well for Donald Trump. As the final Presidential debate began the Republican nominee was calm, measured, and sober. He was scoring on the substance too. His attacks on Hillary Clinton were well-chosen and he landed his blows squarely. Trump was on track for his best debate performance yet.

But, then it happened. When asked whether he would accept the outcome of the election, a question that no American Presidential candidate since our nation’s founding would hesitate to answer in the affirmative, Trump would not. Jaws dropped. Hillary Clinton pounced. The media is predictably aghast.

Newspapers across the land are leading this morning with blaring above the fold headlines like this one from the New York Times: “Trump Won’t Say if He’ll Accept Election’s Result.”

In the din of what promises to be days of outrage and parsing of exactly what he meant, whatever good Trump did last night to win over voters will be lost. This is the story of the debate and sadly, perhaps the story of the election.

That the election will be “rigged” is all Trump has been talking about for more than a week. This should not have come as a surprise, but somehow we are floored all the same.

Ironically, it was a concession of a peculiarly Trumpian sort, a foreshadowing of how he will reconcile his insistence that he is a winner with the results of an election still two weeks away that he appears to already believe he has lost. For the sake of the supporters who are working hard for his election, for Republicans, the vast majority of which are supporting him even though most of them preferred someone else in the primaries, and out of respect for this great republic, Trump should reverse himself immediately.

Voters are desperate to upend the status quo. They don’t want to vote for Hillary Clinton. By all rights, this election should be Republicans’ for the taking. Americans are willing to accept some inappropriate remarks and rash policy positions to upend a political process they overwhelmingly believe is no longer working for them. But, to insult the free and fair elections that are the very foundation of our democratic process will be, for many, a bridge too far.

Some 200 years ago, America shocked the world when John Adams conceded to Thomas Jefferson in the election of 1800. It was the first peaceful transfer of power the world had ever seen and among the great watershed moments of human history. It is a scene that has repeated itself every four years since in this country and thousands of times in nations around the world that were inspired by our example.

The media is biased against Trump, as they tend to be against any Republican Presidential nominee. But, that’s a much different matter than calling into question the election process itself.

American Presidential elections are administered independently by the 50 states and overseen by poll-watchers of both parties in a transparent and open process. The idea that the voting would be rigged is preposterous.

That Trump is persisting in this fiction is deeply disappointing to me not just as a life-long Republican, but as an American.

If you listened carefully enough in the early morning stillness as the curtain closed on the final 2016 Presidential debate, you could almost hear the whooshing sound of Donald Trump’s presidential bid deflating.

Postscript: This afternoon, Trump, while not fully reversing himself, took a somewhat more defensible position:

“I would accept a clear election result but I would also reserve my right to contest or file a legal challenge in the case of a questionable result.”

Credit where credit is due.