介绍： The third debate: Final insult
Donald Trump suggests the election will be rigged
From The Economist 20161022

Audio:

0:00




TOWARDS the end of the third and final presidential debate, in Las Vegas on October 19th, Donald Trump was asked to confirm that he would accept the verdict of American voters on No...

介绍： The third debate: Final insult
Donald Trump suggests the election will be rigged
From The Economist 20161022

Audio:

0:00




TOWARDS the end of the third and final presidential debate, in Las Vegas on October 19th, Donald Trump was asked to confirm that he would accept the verdict of American voters on November 8th. “I’ll tell you at the time, I’ll keep you in suspense,” he replied. Mr Trump had in fact been rehearsing this line over the previous week. Trailing his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, by six percentage points (on average), he has repeatedly suggested the election will be rigged. A startlingly large portion of his supporters appear to agree; in a recent poll, 73% of Republicans say the election could be “stolen”. But it was still amazing to hear Mr Trump stoke that baseless fear—and whatever small but not insignificant risk of post-election violence is attached to it—at the final set-piece occasion of this wretched campaign.

He had perhaps not even planned to air this latest conspiracy theory, which his running-mate, Governor Mike Pence of Indiana, has been quick to disavow. Because for most of the debate Mr Trump was restrained. He did not repeat his promise, made in the second debate, to imprison Mrs Clinton; he did not appear to boast of paying no income tax, as he had in the first. He spoke softly and, despite a few tics (his immigration policy, Mr Trump explained, was aimed at ridding America of “some bad hombres”) he appeared to be trying to articulate his positions: for example, on the sanctity of the Second Amendment, the disasters of recent American policy in the Middle East and the hurt inflicted on some communities by globalisation. He only plugged his hotel once.

Ably moderated by Chris Wallace, a Fox News anchor, this debate was the most serious examination of the stark choice the nominees are offering Americans. Plump for Mrs Clinton on November 8th and they will have a continuation of Barack Obama’s presidency; albeit, she stressed, with a couple of differences. She will not rethink her rejection of the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal and she would try to pass immigration reform, including a path to citizenship for the undocumented, within 100 days of taking office. Or they can plump for Mr Trump and have a more conservative Supreme Court bench, more border security and an aggressively transactional trade and foreign policy that would transform American power.


Mr Trump’s Republican advisers always wanted him to debate in this way, to woo the many conservatives who want reassurance of his seriousness. Had he done so earlier, he would be doing better. But this debate also underlined how difficult restraint is for Mr Trump. Because the longer he debates issues with Mrs Clinton, the more embarrassingly apparent it becomes that she knows what she is talking about and he mostly does not—and the more uncomfortable that makes him. He does not wear his inexperience lightly, as George W. Bush did in his sparring with the professorial Al Gore in 2000. And Mrs Clinton, who put in her best debate performance, is expert at needling him.

In the end, sure enough, he fell apart. Castigated by Mrs Clinton, in response to his querying of the election’s legitimacy and for his lifelong habit of crying foul when he loses, he made himself look ridiculous. Mrs Clinton gave as an example Mr Trump’s past suggestion that the Emmy awards were rigged because a television show of his had not won; “Should have gotten it,” he growled. She later mused on her plans for welfare reform. “Such a nasty woman”, Mr Trump blurted into his microphone. He did not sound threatening so much as absurd.


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