We begin today’s roundup with this editorial from The New York Times regarding Donald Trump’s threat to sue the paper for reporting on sexual assault allegations:
...Justice William Brennan Jr. wrote that “public discussion is a political duty, and that this should be a fundamental principle of the American government.” Such discussion “may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.”
In Donald Trump’s view, these principles shouldn’t exist. “I’m going to open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money,” he said in February. Never mind that as president, he would have no power to alter state libel laws.
Of course, Mr. Trump’s threat to sue may be an empty one, as so many of his previous threats — intended mainly to energize his angry base — have been. But it is yet another frightening reminder of what a Trump presidency could bring.
Timothy O’Brien, who was sued by Trump in the past, writes about Trump’s baseless lawsuits:
For starters, the attempts at intimidation are familiar. In the run-up to the suit, Kasowitz showed up at a book reading I was giving to tell me, with a grin, that he was a writer, too. The Trump team recorded the reading with a video camera posted across the street, and the audience included a few obvious plants (literally dressed in raincoats) who asked probing questions like: “Didn’t you write this book to hurt Trump because you don’t like him?” I think I said something really shrewd like, “Of course not,” without thinking to add: “Are you crazy? The guy could be president someday.”
In retrospect, I realized that Kasowitz and his crew were preparing for the libel suit Trump filed against me a few months later. The suit dragged on for several years — in part because Trump was slow to respond to discovery requests for his financial and tax records — before the court tossed it out in 2011. In short, Trump lost his case, and he spent boatloads of money litigating it.
Trump never seemed to have thought through the implications of sitting through discovery in a hotly contested lawsuit — which is why my lawyers had the opportunity to depose him for a two-day stretch during which he lied 30 times about his career and finances.
Turning now to this historic editorial from The Idaho Statesman, which endorsed Hillary Clinton for president:
We know Trump launched his presidential candidacy by disparaging people of Mexican heritage — many of whom are our neighbors, friends and co-workers here in Idaho. While Trump has tried to walk back his stances, Clinton has steadfastly presented a more realistic approach. According to Politifact: “Clinton has presented herself as an advocate for comprehensive immigration legislation, emphasizing a commitment to keeping immigrant families together, giving undocumented workers a chance to ‘come out of the shadows’ and pushing for immigrant integration.” Several Idaho agriculture industries depend upon foreign workers to get the job done. Whereas Trump has indicated employers should first be mandated to hire the nation’s unemployed before recruiting foreign workers, we consistently hear from Idaho employers that such a willing American workforce does not exist. Clinton recognizes that immigrants and migrant workers play a critical role in supporting America’s agricultural economy, according to statements she provided to ModernFarmer.com. [...]
We live in the real world, with real problems that need real solutions. We need someone with pragmatic approaches that include patience and compassion. We need Hillary Clinton to be the next president.
And here’s Newsweek’s “Total Meltdown” story on Trump:
The Trump campaign, party insiders admit, could do irreparable damage to a generation of prospects by rendering them enablers. Rivals for the nomination, like Texas Senator Ted Cruz, had cozied up to him until they realized it was too late. Elected officials had hesitated to oppose him lest they rouse his army of pitchfork populists. Many of the leaders of the religious right repeatedly blessed a candidate who bats 0 for 3 on the biblical injunction to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly. Barring a last-minute surprise, Trump is on track to lose his race. The question now is whether he’ll destroy the party’s congressional majorities as well.
The Sacramento Bee also looks at a desperate Trump campaign:
Donald Trump, the presidential candidate obsessed with “winning,” is about to be a loser. Unfortunately, he’s a sore loser and coping in ways that are becoming too dangerous to ignore.
The Republican nominee made that clear in a stomach-churning, rambling speech in West Palm Beach, Fla., on Thursday. Using Breitbart-scripted smears and populist grievances, he went the full demagogue, blaming everybody but himself for his campaign’s disintegration.
Conservative Charles Krauthammer calls out Trump for his “lock her up” chants:
Such incendiary talk is an affront to elementary democratic decency and a breach of the boundaries of American political discourse. In democracies, the electoral process is a subtle and elaborate substitute for combat, the age-old way of settling struggles for power. But that sublimation only works if there is mutual agreement to accept both the legitimacy of the result (which Trump keeps undermining with charges that the very process is “rigged”) and the boundaries of the contest.
The prize for the winner is temporary accession to limited political power, not the satisfaction of vendettas. Vladimir Putin, Hugo Chávez and a cavalcade of two-bit caudillos lock up their opponents. American leaders don’t.
One doesn’t even talk like this. It takes decades, centuries, to develop ingrained norms of political restraint and self-control. But they can be undone in short order by a demagogue feeding a vengeful populism.
Eugene Robinson:
Inside the gilded Trump Tower bunker, the self-described habitual groper is reported to be in a constant rage. His narcissism leads him to blame everyone else for his predicament — the women who alleged the assaults, the news media that seek to hold him accountable, the Republicans scrambling for the lifeboats. He will never, ever blame himself.
Trump and his inner circle apparently believe that screaming about Bill Clinton’s sexual peccadilloes will somehow excuse or neutralize what we have learned over the past week. But Hillary Clinton is on the ballot, not her husband. Voters know the difference.
Timothy Egan likes Trump to a “wounded bear”:
A wounded bear is a dangerous thing. Detested and defeated, Donald Trump is now in a tear-the-country-down rage. Day after day, he rips at the last remaining threads of decency holding this nation together. His opponent is the devil, he says — hate her with all your heart. Forget about the rule of law. Lock her up! [...]
In a powerful speech Thursday, the nation’s most respected public figure [Michelle Obama] scorned the “hurtful, hateful language” of Trump and its effect on children: “The shameful comments about our bodies. The disrespect of our ambitions and intellect. The belief that you can do anything to a woman. It’s cruel. It’s frightening.”
So it has come to this: The core lessons that bind a civilized society are in play in the last days of this election. We long for family dinners where Trump no longer intrudes, for tailgate parties where football is all that matters, for normalcy. Remember those days? They may be gone forever.
At The Washington Post, Dan Balz praises Michelle Obama’s speech:
Two speeches. Two Americas. A pair of apocalyptic arguments and one call to burn down the house. That’s the summation from just two remarkable hours Thursday that crystallized the final month of Campaign 2016.
In back-to-back appearances, in what might be the two most compelling hours of the entire election, Michelle Obama in New Hampshire and Donald Trump in Florida delivered the fiercest, most provocative and hardest-hitting speeches of an election cycle that has been without precedent in hot rhetoric.
Speaking of The Washington Post, it makes its closing case against Trump using Trump’s own video taped words against him. It’s worth a click.
John Nichols at The Nation also praised Michelle Obama’s speech:
Michelle Obama spoke a truth that must be recognized, and embraced, by everyone who cherishes the American experiment.
And we end the roundup today with Molly Ball’s analysis of Trump’s campaign chaos:
[T]he whole flimsy Trump edifice is crashing down. His predatory boasts have come to light; the women he has preyed upon, realizing they are not alone, are coming out of the woodwork. The other Republicans on the ballot, trapped like doomed deer in oncoming headlights, are frozen between fleeing in terror or continuing to insist that Clinton is even worse, that bad people can do good things, that Trump remains a gamble worth taking.
The Republicans appeased Trump, thinking that placating him would stave off chaos. But the chaos came anyway, and now it has taken over.
"I always figure things out, folks," Trump says. "There's a whole sinister deal going on."
As the campaign enters its gruesome, death-rattle phase—yes, there are three and a half more weeks of this to endure—Trump is refusing to go down without a fight. He intends to drag them all with him if he can, down into the swirling chaos. Scary clowns have been popping up all over the country, and somehow this does not seem like a coincidence.
