American democracy has survived slavery, the Civil War and political skulduggery thanks to an ingenious arrangement of checks and balances – and plenty of goodwill. Then along came the 45th president.
Donald Trump has dominated the affairs of his nation like nothing or no-one in living memory. And in this election he has seemed unstoppable, at least until Vice President Kamala Harris became the Democratic candidate.
US presidential debates used to be staid, structured, largely predictable affairs, but Trump’s arrival on the scene changed everything. From the day he stepped up to debate his Republican primary rivals in 2015, his complete disregard of formal limits has turned politics into a spectacle that no serious student of humanity can ignore.
The 2015-16 Republican primaries were like nothing the party had ever experienced. A record field of 16 opponents was utterly defeated by Trump’s ability to steal the limelight with outrageous personal insults and a complete disdain for the truth.
They and conventional media treated Trump as a political novice, a fringe-dweller and a simpleton who would eventually self-destruct. That was their first mistake. Throughout that long primary campaign he crushed experienced opponents by breaking all conventions and constraints of traditional conservative politics.
Among his many political positions, the one that stood out then and now is cultural grievance. He was and remains a mouthpiece for every base prejudice against difference: people whose skin colour, language, religion, birthplace, gender – you name it – aren’t the same as his.
Against the background of a chequered past with women, leading into the general election he debated the Democrats’ battle-hardened Hillary Clinton, an event marked by his standing close behind her and talking over her.
The consensus that Clinton won that debate missed some critical markers. What Trump lacked in wisdom and verbal acuity he made up for in forceful behaviour and brutally simple messaging. Central to that is a personality trait which according to his niece, psychologist and author Mary Trump, was well known in the family from his childhood.
“The kids in the neighbourhood alternately despised and feared him; he had a reputation for being a thin-skinned bully who beat up on younger kids but ran home in a fit of rage as soon as somebody stood up to him,” she wrote in her family memoir, “Who Could Ever Love You”.
“That is one of the most damning and dangerous things about Donald Trump,” she added in a CNN interview last week. “He’s never evolved from that. That’s still who he is… This is a man who has spent his entire life pushing the envelope to see what he can get away with, and as soon as he realises nobody’s going to stop him he pushes the envelope far more.”
Trump, who likes to give his opponents derogatory descriptors, has called Harris Comrade Kamala (alluding to her liberal politics) while deliberately mispronouncing her name.
At the start of last week’s televised debate Harris, who had not previously met him, approached him, shook his hand and made a point of pronouncing her name. During the 90 minutes of debate she would often mention him by name and turn to face him. But Trump could never bring himself to look in her direction and referred to Harris only as “she” and “her”.
Harris also called out his lies, as did the debate moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis. The speed and accuracy of the latter’s fact-checking – conventional media doing what it should always do – unsettled Trump, used to riding roughshod over questioners.
One of the “facts” they corrected, using a rebuttal from the city manager of Springfield, Ohio, was Trump’s false claim that “illegal” Haitian immigrants were abducting and eating Springfield residents’ dogs and cats.
Trump and running mate JD Vance later doubled down on those claims, extending the lie to include an equally discredited allegation about Haitian migrants snatching geese from parks. The claims have had a devastating impact in Springfield, which had provided asylum to legitimate refugees who are now in fear for their lives.
Trump’s career still has a way to go. Even if he loses the election, he and his acolytes have already flagged their intention to do what they did four years ago and seek to overturn a negative outcome, except this time with far more preparation. We should take that as seriously as we would an approaching cyclone.
Early this month Trump spoke scathingly of climate scientists as “poor fools” who “have no idea what’s going to happen”. The driver of political chaos is also a driver of climate chaos, one more reason why he should never step inside the White House again.