Well, chillun, the hour it is getting late to be sure . . . the witches are gatherin’ and mixing up their stew what lets them see things that ain’t there for the likes of you and me.  I axed one of dem witches dis question, what’s gonna happen after de ‘lection is over?  She say “Honey chile, you’s got to see inside your own heart to know de answer to dat question . . .”

Den I wakes up . . . excuse me, I meant to say: Then I woke up.  The sun was streaming brightly through my bedroom window.  The cat was a-meowing and stretching in the corner just before she made a mighty leap onto the bed and wiggled her way across the covers to my hand.

I had a newspaper deadline and a story due in two hours that I hadn’t even started!  Why?  All because for the last two nights I had the exact same dream and awoke with the exact same question dogging my mind: how will the candidates act after the election is over?

It’s easy enough to speculate.  Winning candidates will display a generous and forgiving mood; they can afford to be generous amidst the high spirits of their winning campaign.

When candidates lose, though, that’s another story altogether; it certainly requires far more self-control to be graceful in conceding defeat right after being handed the bad news.

Most candidates manage it somehow or other but then I got to thinking about Donald Trump: if he loses, how will he handle it?  I think there are three main choices here:

  1. Donald Trump will handle it gracefully, with tact and deference. He will congratulate the winner, Hillary Clinton, and promise his support in building strong national policies for the betterment of the whole country.
  2. He will be a bit on the quiet side: disappointed, pensive, perhaps biting his lip—but still, he will go through the rudimentary motions of saying what he has to say and keeping any other nasty thoughts or ugly utterances in abeyance. He will recognize it is Hillary’s moment in the spotlight, not his, and wait for another day and time to speak.
  3. A defeat would get under his skin like venom; he would not be happy about being asked to accept such results; he would make caustic accusations and let fly insults willy-nilly; he would risk an unprecedented epic narcissistic meltdown the likes of which the world has never before witnessed.

Rating these options in terms of likelihood:

  • As regards the first choice, “graceful all the way”, nearly everyone in the country will agree that this is the most unlikely. The idea of Trump turning polite and dignified at the very moment of the final blow is simply too challenging to imagine!
  • As regards the second choice, the same sort of reasoning applies here as to the first. Perhaps he will make a mighty effort to contain his anger and disappointment—letting his emotions show but nevertheless keeping his cool in a pleasant and surprisingly professional manner.  There’s just one problem: every week of the campaign so far proves that such restraint is impossible for Trump.  He has a hard time containing his impulse to hurl accusations and insults at anyone he perceives to have had a hand in criticizing him.

This second choice may have a slightly greater chance than the first, but the slightness of the difference is so small as to melt quickly away into virtual nothingness, given the boisterous personality of the man in question.

  • That leaves choice number three: he will lash out at his opponent, the press, the “rigged” election system and nearly everyone else he can think to attack as being responsible for his defeat: perhaps even his own party and staff.

This is the Donald we have seen over and over again; this is the common pattern of his approach to life: strike back, blame others, deflect all criticism, make wild accusations, escape from the facts and substitute his own version of reality any which way he can.

Sad to say, choice #3 becomes the most likely response.

Voters must make up their minds in their own way, but the notion of how one candidate might act if he loses feels me with a sense of curious apprehension.  While I may have exaggerated slightly how The Donald could go into a nuclear melt down, it doesn’t take much imagination for the reader to at least see the possibility.

Would Donald in defeat remain quiet and gracious or would he start making excuses, blurting out insults, and blaming others for his debacle?

I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to ask the reader to imagine how Donald might act after an election defeat—or to picture him acting in exactly the same impulsive, insulting, and rude manner as he so frequently exhibits now.

The notion of voting for someone who may be temperamentally unfit to hold the office of president of the United States is a frightening thought.

The notion of voting for someone who may have a psychological meltdown if he loses amounts to suggesting the same thing: a candidate who cannot act in a dignified manner should he lose is temperamentally unfit to hold such high office.

Have I embellished this scenario to such an extent that any reader can honestly think over the above choices and say “I see no chance of The Donald acting arrogantly, belligerently, and impulsively should he lose”?  That is the question.

Do we expect a leopard to change its spots?

What will happen should The Donald lose?

As a very wise man I once knew was fond of reminding me:

“The answer is in the question.”