THE MORNING PLUM:
The two biggest moments of last night’s debate also work neatly in tandem to suggest how the ending to this whole ugly campaign might surprise us all. The first was Trump’s repeated refusal to say he will accept the legitimacy of the outcome, which is properly being denounced as an outrageous effort to undermine our democracy.
The second key moment was Trump’s suggestion that Clinton is “such a nasty woman.” This seemingly helpless slide into low-grade pettiness, in response to the most cursory of efforts to needle him over his taxes, hints at another way this could all turn out.
Trump is trying to go out in a blaze of frightful demagoguery that threatens to take our democracy down with him. Indeed, he appears to be laying the groundwork to question the outcome’s legitimacy long after the election is over as a way to keep his followers engaged. But, should things continue as they are, Trump may end up furiously tweeting about the election’s “rigged” outcome at 3:00 a.m. as a sidelined, shriveled, increasingly buffoonish figure, a failed demagogue who is beneath the attention even of late-night TV comics.
Trump’s effort to cast doubt on the integrity of the election, of course, has specific aims. He hopes to create the impression of a sh*tshow election, to depress enthusiasm and turnout among Clinton supporters. Trump’s own advisers have said this is their closing game plan.
But the early signs are that this is failing. Demographics expert Michael McDonald made an important point about this to Reuters: “The risk he faces by engaging in a scorched-earth policy is that he activates people rather than turning them off.”
McDonald’s calculations have found that, if anything, Trump’s antics are spurring more resolve to vote for Clinton, rather than less. McDonald found that after the first debate, there was a surge in absentee voter requests among women in North Carolina (a state Trump must win) and Georgia (a state that may actually be in play, which would be utterly disastrous for Trump, though this may not prove real). As McDonald concluded, the early evidence suggests that women who are increasingly tuning in to the choice between Trump and Clinton are responding by “exercising their right to vote.”
That was after the first debate — before the sex tape emerged, before Trump dismissed his own lewd boasts as “locker room talk” at the second debate, and before a parade of women responded to that by alleging unwanted sexual advances. And at last night’s debate, Trump essentially confirmed everything many female voters must be concluding about Trump’s dim view of them, when he called Clinton “such a nasty woman.” It seems plausible that all of this may only further engage female voters.
For some TV commentators, Trump’s “such a nasty woman” moment captured the depths of his failure last night — he has now squandered his final chance to broaden his appeal and settle doubts about his temperament and fitness for the presidency. If that is right, and it likely is, then he may well be heading for a decisive loss.
In that context, Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway made an accidental concession this morning that could reverberate later. Asked on Good Morning America whether Trump will accept the outcome, should he lose, Conway said Trump “respects the principles of democracy.” But she then said: “He can’t say what’s going to happen if the election is very close,” adding that “we just don’t know what will happen.” She compared such an outcome to the contested election in 2000.
That’s a silly comparison, since what distinguishes Trump’s current campaign is that unlike in 2000, he is questioning the legitimacy of the outcome in advance, something historians say may be unprecedented in U.S. history. Beyond that, Conway is essentially admitting that the only conceivable way Trump can continue casting doubt on the outcome is if it’s very close. But it’s now looking like it might not be close at all. Consider just how absurd it will really look if Trump actually goes through with his threat to continue claiming the outcome was rigged if he has lost the popular vote by five or more points and has suffered a massive landslide loss in the electoral college.
Trump also obviously hopes to sow doubts about the legitimacy of his defeat to keep his following engaged, in ways that maintain his potency as a political force and cause GOP leaders to quake with terror. He has already signaled his intention to direct his mob of supporters to blame GOP leaders for a loss. But what if all this just ends up fizzling? As GOP strategist Rick Wilson puts it:
“After 2008, there was a little Sarah Palin cult that has lasted, but it hasn’t changed the party. I see the same thing with Trump: a group of die-hards building a whole mythology about, ‘He was betrayed.’”
I don’t mean to minimize the danger Trump poses. But here’s what might happen in response to it: voters may turn out in record numbers, reaffirming our faith in our democracy.
That might actually happen. If so, all of Trump’s threats to continue sowing destruction may end up fizzling ignominiously. Or, alternatively, if Trump’s loss is humiliating enough, he may not even go through with his threat to continue contesting the outcome at all.
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* CLINTON WON DEBATE, POLL SHOWS: A CNN poll taken just after the debate found that watchers said that Clinton won, by 52-39. Some key findings:
54% of those who watched said it would have no effect on their vote, and those who did feel swayed were about evenly split between Trump (23%) and Clinton (22%)….White voters who hold college degrees said Clinton won by a 58% to 33% margin, while those who do not have a four-year degree say Trump won by a 48% to 41% margin.
Non-college whites liked him, but they already support him by large margins, and Trump apparently did nothing to expand his appeal among college educated whites, who don’t.
* CLINTON BEAT TRUMP BY VARIOUS OTHER METRICS: A YouGov poll also found that Clinton was seen by respondents as the winner of the debate by 49-39. And:
69% said Hillary Clinton showed “excellent” or “good” knowledge of policies, compared to 40% for Trump. Meanwhile 61% say Trump was excellent or good at showing “passion and conviction”, compared to 57% for Clinton. While 59% rated Clinton positively on acting presidential, only 40% did the same for Donald Trump.
Apparently showing “passion and conviction” while being completely ignorant and incurious about the substance at hand isn’t enough.
* TRUMP LIED ABOUT ABORTION: Post fact checkers Glenn Kessler round up all of last night’s lies and distortions. Trump exaggerated badly about the prevalence of late-term abortions:
Trump asserted that abortions can take place just one day before birth. This doesn’t really happen. Most abortions take place early in the pregnancy. One-third take place at six weeks or pregnancy or earlier; 89 percent occur in the first 12 weeks, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights….On top of that, Guttmacher says that 43 states already prohibit some abortions after a certain point in pregnancy, such as fetal viability, in the third trimester or after a certain number of weeks.
It’s worth noting that Trump, in garbled fashion, did confirm that if he is elected president, Roe v. Wade will get overturned by the Supreme Court justices he nominates.
* PAUL RYAN IS IN CROSS HAIRS AS GOP SPLIT LOOMS: Robert Costa reports that the GOP will be split in the wake of a Trump defeat, as Trump’s supporters target GOP leaders for recriminations. The first target is Paul Ryan:
Trump’s backers, both inside the House Republican caucus and out, are already talking about a takedown. Fox News host and Trump ally Sean Hannity said in an interview after the debate that Ryan was a “saboteur” and “needed to be called out and replaced.” Hannity said he would actively urge hard-line conservatives to launch bids against him.
Apparently continuing to support Trump through months and months of racism, demagoguery, xenophobia, and hate won’t spare Ryan the Trumpists’ wrath.
* IT’S LIKELY THAT TRUMP IS ALREADY LOSING: An important point from Dan Balz:
With voting now underway in a series of states and with more states to begin soon, the focus will increasingly shift to the more granular competition of turning out every vote. Here too, Trump’s campaign is at a huge disadvantage, dependent either on the candidate’s ability to rouse organically a silent army of voters who have stayed on the sidelines in recent elections and will materialize at the polls this year or, more realistically, on relying on efforts by the Republican National Committee to function as his get-out-the-vote operation.
It’s likely that Clinton is already banking a lead, and all indications are that this silent army of voters will not prove big enough.
* VIEWERS GOOGLED ONE OF TRUMP’S BIG LIES: After Trump once again falsely claimed he opposed the war in Iraq, Clinton called on people to Google “Donald Trump Iraq.” Then this happened:
Shortly after her comments, searches for the phrase spiked, according to search data from Google Trends. About an hour after the debate ended, the search engine provided data showing the phrase was searched significantly more than other topics discussed by the candidates.
Trump’s campaign is premised on the idea that he can say anything he wants, as long as he gets a lot of media attention. But maybe Trump’s Big Lie technique isn’t magical, after all.