Noting it for the long-term record: August 1, 2016 — four days after the end of the Democratic convention, three days into the Captain Khan disaster (for Trump), on the same day as the post-convention polls shifted strongly in Hillary Clinton’s favor — Donald Trump began emphasizing that the election this fall could well be “rigged.”
From around time 17:00 onward in the clip below, showing a discussion with the nonpareil Sean Hannity, Trump warns that something fishy is going on. The clearest statement is around time 18:05: “Starting on November 8, we better be careful, because that election is going to be rigged.”
Why this is worth noting, beyond its departure from norms:
- A powerful element of the emerging Picture Of Trump is that nothing is ever his fault. For instance: When it seemed that the final-night ratings for the DNC, featuring Hillary Clinton, might have drawn a bigger audience than his own convention-acceptance speech, Trump stressed to reporters that he had not really had much to do with the convention — he had just showed up. But when the ratings came in and showed that he had actually “won” that final night (although the Democrats got larger audiences for the other three nights), he began promoting that fact in multiple tweets. Success is his; screw-ups are by losers.
Since nothing is ever his fault, then if polls seem headed the wrong way, the only explanation can be cheating. “A lot of people are talking about something going on.”
- Assuming that current results hold up and Trump loses in November, it does not bode well for the country to have a rigged-election / stab-in-the-back narrative seeded so far in advance. Compare, for instance, both Richard Nixon after the 1960 results came in and Al Gore in 2000, each of whom had much stronger grounds (especially Gore) to challenge the legitimacy of the outcome, but both of whom said: let’s move on.
Thus we note one more bit of damage Trump is inflicting on the body politic, with 97 days to go until the election —and still no tax returns or medical report.
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After the jump, reader comments on Trump’s “rigged” narrative.