At a rally in West Palm Beach Thursday, Donald Trump responded to a wave of sexual-assault allegations by, essentially, asking his supporters which of these scenarios is more likely:
(a) That a man caught on tape bragging about kissing and groping women without their consent actually did so. (Note, many of the women who say that he did aren’t even hot.)
or,
(b) That all of the women accusing this man of sexual misconduct are liars hired by Crooked Hillary Clinton, to distract from the fact that WikiLeaks just revealed her plot to sell off the American government to a cabal of international bankers.
The answer is obvious, is it not?
“These vicious claims about me of inappropriate conduct with women are totally and absolutely false,” Trump declared. “And the Clintons know it. And they know it very well. These claims are all fabricated. They’re pure fiction, and they’re outright lies.”
The Republican nominee made the stakes of those lies perfectly clear, telling his supporters, “For those who control the levers of power in Washington and for the global special interests … Our campaign represents a true existential threat like they haven’t seen before. This is not simply another four-year election. This is a crossroads in the history of our civilization that will determine whether or not we, the people, reclaim control over our government.”
“It’s a global power structure that is responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth, and put that money into the pockets of a handful of large corporations and political entities,” Trump continued. “We’ve seen this firsthand in the WikiLeaks documents in which Hillary Clinton meets in secret with international banks to plot the destruction of U.S. sovereignty in order to enrich these global financial powers, her special-interest friends, and her donors.”
Thus, Trump reasoned, “It’s no coincidence these attacks come at the exact same moment, and all together at the same time as WikiLeaks releases documents exposing the massive international corruption of the Clinton machine.”
There are a lot of frightening things about these remarks. For one, Trump’s references to international bankers hell-bent on ending American sovereignty sound, to some ears, like a dog-whistle rendition of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
But even if one gives Trump the benefit of the doubt — that he merely intended to make (hyperbolic) reference to the genuine desire among some elites to transcend nationalism and embrace world governance and open borders — his comments would still be terrifying.
He is telling his supporters that there is a global conspiracy to end democratic governance in the United States and that his election is the only thing that can prevent it from succeeding. He is telling them that the conspirators are powerful enough to take control of the entire American media — and may even be capable of stealing the election itself.
If the globalists win on November 8, what will his supporters do on November 9? If American sovereignty can’t be secured through a fair and open political process, must they not emulate their founding fathers and secure it through armed conflict?
Of course, very few Trump voters will take the mogul’s rhetoric to its heinous — but logical — conclusion. But very few people can hurt very many.
Beyond violence, Trump’s delegitimization of the democratic process threatens to exacerbate the political dysfunction that has crippled American governance and pushed the nation to the brink of debt default.
All of which is to say: Donald Trump is going to be a problem for the United States for a lot longer than one more month.
