The nation’s largest newspapers said Donald Trump has “contempt” for and is “trashing” American democracy by refusing to say in Wednesday’s debate that he would concede the race to Hillary Clinton should she win.
Trump refused to say categorically that he would concede the race, which alarmed Clinton and many others, especially since he’s been saying the election is “rigged” in favor of Clinton. It was a remark Trump’s team quickly worked to rein back in as soon as the debate was over.
But for many major papers, the damage was done. The New York Times said Trump showed “contempt” for American democracy, and said Clinton was rightly shocked by his statement.
“Donald Trump turned, in the third and final presidential debate, from insulting the intelligence of the American voter to insulting American democracy itself,” the Times editorial board wrote.
“Mr. Trump’s meltdown in the closing weeks could be dismissed as a sore loser’s bizarre attempt at rationalizing his likely defeat,” it added. “But his trashing of the democratic process, in service of his own ego, risks lasting damage to the country, and politicians of both parties should recoil from him and his cynical example.”
The Washington Post said Trump showed a “breathtaking repudiation of American democracy.”
“Ms. Clinton rightly called his stance a ‘horrifying’ repudiation of U.S. democracy,” the Post’s editorial board said. “Respecting the will of the voters has since the end of the Civil War allowed for a peaceful transition of power that has made this country the envy of the world.”
The Los Angeles Times lead analysis, from Cathleen Decker, said Trump undid his “best debate performance in just a few words.”
“[W]hatever good he might have done for himself was flattened in two moments in which he appeared unable to take responsibility for his actions and unwilling to put aside personal disappointment for the nation’s good,” she wrote.
And at the Chicago Tribune, Eric Zorn wrote that Trump “proved a disgrace to his party and his country” by refusing to say he’d concede the race.
“Trump’s last chance to turn his fortunes around vanished in a misguided flurry of opacity, arrogance and vanity,” he wrote.
