Were it not for the seriousness of the bet, Trump’s accusation of “rigging” falls somewhere between comedy and farce.  The notion that a billionaire is the first to cry foul certainly makes one want to laugh aloud!  By all reputable accounts, voter fraud is not a problem in this country nor has it been for a very long time.  Who is doing the “rigging”, then, if not the Republicans and their nominee?  Let us take a look.  For starters, they do so in two obvious ways:

  • Through gerrymandering, the Republican controlled states have re-drawn congressional districts in such fashion as to ensure their own electoral success.
  • Through new voter ID laws and other restrictions, the Republican Party is attempting to disenfranchise certain targeted groups. The poorest among us, along with urban and rural minorities, suffer the most from these new laws, groups expected to favor the Democrats.

The “rigging”, so called, began here!  Were the Republican nominee truly against “rigging”, he could insist that his party oppose gerrymandering shenanigans and the imaginary villainy created “to justify” new exclusionary voter ID laws.

Consider this: the GOP controlled a majority of governorships and state legislatures when Barack Obama stood for president, first against Sen. John McCain and then against Mitch Romney.  Were these state-by-state legislature “majorities” a true reflection of popular sentiment, one would have expected the GOP nominee to sweep to victory in the presidential election.

What happened next–did the GOP nominee win?  No, of course not!  In both 2008 and 2012, Pres. Obama won handily.  Why?  Because the election for president still remains a national contest far less susceptible to the tricks of gerrymandering within individual states.

As to voter ID laws, that pious fraud continues to target legitimate American citizens to keep them from voting; while the new rules can affect the total number of votes cast, the number of citizens unfairly disenfranchised so far remains a relatively small percent of the tens of millions of votes cast.

True, in a very close election this Republican technique of cheating voters in one of the key swing states one day could affect the outcome, but President Obama won by such wide margins that this particular danger was stomped to smithereens.  (The year 2000 serves as a far better example of a contested and “stolen” election.)

Of course, Donald’s wild accusations are thrown in every direction and over a far wider field: his enemies are conspiring against him in a myriad of ways; shades of a persecution complex have begun to surface along with his suffocating narcissism.  According to Trump, the electoral system itself is “fixed” (i.e., rigged) so he will lose; apparently the polls are rigged as well.  He’ll “accept” the election results only if he wins—sentiments previously expressed only by dictators.

Here, he threatens the vitality of our democratic system at its core—if he can’t have his own way, he threatens to accuse and sue anybody and everybody!   Women are “against him” by revealing that he harassed, groped, and kissed them without their consent and a serious charge of raping a thirteen-year-old girl is being filed in New York.

The students suing him for fraud because Trump University turned out to be a sham, they are against him–plus the attorney general of New York State—the list is lengthening.  Everybody who criticizes Trump or fights back is doing so because they have a personal agenda and fail to realize that he is Donald the Great!

His accusations don’t stop there: journalists are also against him, according to Trump, thus “rigging” social media.  Finally, even leaders of his own party have it in him for him!  He still doesn’t have a clue how bad a candidate he is when fellow Republicans must turn against him.  Never mind the fact that it is always the words and actions of Donald himself that invite review and spark criticism—the audio and video Access Hollywood tape is pure Trump.  Of course the media reported the story; that’s their job!

It is a news item for which only one person can be blamed: Donald Trump.  If he hadn’t made the vulgar remarks in the first instance, there would have been no story for the media to report.  And yet he blames the media and not himself!  This is an inability to grasp reality bordering on the ludicrous.

He himself brags about the “publicity” his antics engender as though he prefers to go from one calamitous example of poor judgment to another rather than talk seriously of policy and goals: “free publicity”.  He still clings to the fatuous and totally indefensible notion that “there’s no such thing as bad publicity.”  Actually, there is, and it is his life that is proving the point beyond a shadow of a doubt!

Being called a “sexual predator” is not the kind of “publicity” any sane candidate in his right mind would ever court or welcome!  If Donald did something good—if he were a generous philanthropist funding programs to help the less fortunate—the media would certainly have to cover such philanthropic enterprise, just as they report his blunders.  Only The Donald is not generous—he appears to be quite greedy.

He shouldn’t be shocked, therefore, when people and media portray him as selfish and greedy, because he is.  He can hardly deny the obvious without his nose growing faster than Pinnochio’s.  Blaming others for one’s own fault of character and temperament?  Hardly a logical or coherent basis upon which to proceed!

Some pundits have adroitly conjectured that he is preparing his excuses should he lose, which appears likely.   Yet even within Donald’s distorted version of reality, certain additional elements of illogical falsehood leap out at one:

If there is a problem with undue influence in our electoral system, it is being exercised by a small group at the expense of the many; its roots trace to status and wealth.  Think about all the connecting points that involve wealth: what is meant when people express dissatisfaction with how things get done in Washington DC?  One common complaint is the “undue influence” exerted by lobbyists working for private companies.

Who can afford to pay professional lobbyists to represent their special interests?  Generally, you need a whole lot of money to hire a lobbyist–so only the wealthiest individuals, companies, and corporations can expect to influence legislative action through their paid lobbyists.  Simply put, rich people can influence political outcomes in ways that average Americans, whether middle class or living below the poverty line, can never hope to equal.

Now what is Trump’s financial status?  He is a billionaire.  He himself brags about how much he is worth, claiming to be worth as much as ten billion dollars!  (Forbes and other sources believe this to a ridiculous exaggeration; they place his worth at half or less of that claim).  Still, even one billion dollars is a hell of a lot of money, so the notion that any part of our political system is rigged against a billionaire, is delightfully laughable.

If there is any “rigging” and “fixing” going on, you can bet the wealthiest people are involved!  The same with our system of taxation: who can afford to create tax shelters to avoid paying their full share of taxes, if not the rich?  How many poor people do you know with offshore bank accounts and their own team of lawyers and accountants to look for new ways to dodge paying taxes?

If Trump is so honest, why does he not release his tax returns?  If he wishes to cast aspersions freely, he should remember the old adage: “People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”  The wealthy create and control the economic and political system of our nation by which they so richly and continuously profit; is it not ridiculous to suppose these financial and political systems are rigged against them?

If elections are unduly influenced by money and status, who but the rich can lay claim to having the wherewithal to exert their nefarious influence by spending fabulous sums of money to buy air time?   Who but a billionaire candidate is most likely to get away with advancing his political fortunes through unconscionable smear campaigns against all his critics and opponents, with ads aired repeatedly until the most ridiculous accusations are drummed into voters’ heads as “plausible” after all?

If voters are concerned about how “outside money” influences the workings on Capitol Hill, who in the country is best able to exert this influence if not the biggest corporations and the wealthiest individuals: the billionaires?  It is a joke to think of Trump as an “outsider” when he was born and bred of all the advantages that wealth can provide, a son destined to inherit a large family fortune, as he did.  He was born to wealth and privilege inside a system that entirely favors wealth and privilege!  Poor little billionaire, being unfairly put upon . . . by whom?

Trump as a businessman once became heavily dependent upon bank loans, to the tune of millions of dollars, to finance his building plans.  This dependency became accentuated after he was forced to declare bankruptcy, not once but several times.  The banks certainly could have called in these loans but instead decided to advance him more millions of dollars, a kind of “too big to fail” insight having seized hold of their financial imaginations. (It’s also a convenient way to buy someone’s soul and to own them lock, stock, and barrel for all future considerations).

Can you imagine the little guy losing his home to foreclosure or the small business forced to declare bankruptcy, and the bank stepping in to save the day?  No need to foreclose, no need for you to lose your business—we’ll give you more money to keep you going!  Holy mackerel, if the system is rigged, is it not rigged in favor of the fraternity of the rich when weighed against the interests of the rest of the people in the country?  Who is rigging what, pray tell?

  • The wealthiest families influence legislation through “think tanks” and paid professional lobbyists (let us not say “they buy votes”—that has such a nasty ring to it–although in the end “influence” and “buy” both lead to the same result);
  • The wealthy elites manipulate the tax system to their own advantage through numerous “loopholes”, offshore accounts, and other tax-avoidance strategies (which they themselves have helped create and of which Trump has so frequently bragged);
  • The wealthy can afford the costs of running for office better than anyone else; if they are not so inclined to a “career of public service”, they can find plenty of avatars and puppets to run in their place and be trusted do their bidding;
  • The wealthy use gerrymandering and restrictive voter ID laws to increase their chances of winning elections, to re-elect incumbent conservatives, and to prevent truly independent, courageous, and progressive leaders from ever entering the political arena;
  • The wealthy use their funds, power, and status to control and influence the economic and political system in a thousand and one ways. It is rather strange, then, to hear someone as wealthy as Donald Trump bitch and complain about how unfair things are!

A rich man like Trump complaining the system is rigged against him?  That is truly a perversion of history and the standing of truth upon its head.  What he perceives as “rigging” is really far simpler: a majority of the American people has had its fill of Trump’s ego, his misdeeds, his complaining, his bragging, his belly-aching, and his excuse-making.  They have had enough of his lies, vulgarity, and unfounded accusations.  He is a ruthlessly ambitious man who does not distinguish between ends and means; he does not care who he hurts or who he has to trample to advance his own personal interests.

The American people remain committed to the highest standards for the presidency.  A man who is so temperamentally unfit cannot be trusted; lately, he appears hell-bent on proving that he is morally unfit as well; perhaps it is not too soon to ask whether he is mentally unfit as well?

There is a kind of mental instability surfacing with Trump that must give every American who puts country above party grave concern.   He has already shown himself to be dangerous as a colossal egotist, for narcissism raised to that extreme degree can never be trusted.

He has increasingly shown himself to be dangerous in another way, as a forerunner of fascist-like thinking in his assertion he may refuse to accept the results of the election!  It is not reassuring to witness his growing dependence upon all the techniques of the Big Lie popularized by Hitler and the Nazis (the bigger the lie, the better).   Trump’s actions and accusations fly against the heart of democracy; they can never emanate from the soul of a true patriot but only a self-seeking career opportunist in love with himself, ruthlessly ambitious, and recklessly devoid of conscience and empathy for the real needs and hopes of all Americans.

He is the antithesis of what our Founding Fathers envisioned and enshrined as sacred principles in their writings, speeches, and brave actions.  He is actively undermining American democracy and becoming a disgraceful exhibitionist mocking our free elections.  He is fooling himself into thinking his delusions of grandeur can replace the Constitution and all the ways in which American people guard their freedom, including their right to vote.

He may believe the American people are ready to give up their faith in American democracy and start supporting him as a dictator but he will find out to his sorrow, as all demagogues have found out before him, that he is sadly and irrevocably mistaken.