Sixteen years after “hanging chads” became part of our political lexicon, a new term has surfaced, compliments of a new type of presidential candidate.
It’s called a “rigged election,” coined by Donald Trump, and it took center stage Wednesday night in the third and final debate between the GOP nominee and Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Believe what you want, but Trump, whose bold talk has turned this election cycle upside down, has got the country talking about a disturbing concept: For months, he’s been claiming the election could very well be rigged because of biased media coverage and systematic voter fraud calculated by the Clinton campaign.
And because of that belief, Trump shocked the country when he refused to say he’d accept the results of the general election on Nov. 8
And that, Christine Nordlund of Hillsboro says, means Trump just doesn’t get it.
“He has no clue about how serious some of the things are that he says,” said Nordlund, who owns Bead It in downtown Concord. “That’s how we transfer power in this country, and I don’t think he understood the importance of that. He’s just ignorant.”
Historians, news network anchors and pundits pounced during post-debate coverage, saying Trump had given an unprecedented answer, one that seemingly questioned how we choose the most important and powerful leader on the planet.
“I will look at it at the time,” Trump told moderator Chris Wallace, plus millions of voters watching on TV. “I will keep you in suspense.”
“That’s horrifying,” Clinton responded. “Let’s be clear about what he is saying and what that means. He is denigrating – he is talking down our democracy.”
Clinton supporters see this as dangerous, a ploy to tear the country apart, allowing Trump to emerge from the rubble as our next president. Trump wants Trump voters to monitor what’s happening at election polls. Something fishy, he says, might happen.
And Laura Miller, the president of downtown’s Marketplace New England, sees this as a wedge attached to dynamite. The longer Trump waits to acknowledge the integrity of our voting system, the more explosive things might become.
“It’s so startling about voting,” said Miller, standing inside, near her North Main Street entrance, “because we’re Americans and we pride ourselves on a peaceful transfer of power. He’s just creating more anxiety and divisiveness by waiting. He’s causing intimidation and tension.”
Pam Marrone, who works for Miller at Marketplace New England, put it another way. She said that by Trump’s thinking, the primaries and general election have become his own version of a reality show.
“He’s talking like it’s a TV show, like a cliffhanger,” Marrone said. “It’s as if he thinks that if I tell you what I’m really thinking, you won’t stay tuned.”
Bob Gifford, a Concord barber, agreed, saying, “That’s really going to hurt him in the election.”
And Ted Donovan of Pembroke, who owns a painting business, sat with his morning cup of coffee at the Works Bakery Cafe and said Trump blew it big time by hinting that he won’t go quietly should he lose the election.
“It’s a big deal, sealing the envelope,” Donovan said. “He’s just pushing the boundaries of outrageous behavior. I say out loud to myself, ‘We as a society are considering him for president?’ It’s just embarrassing.”
But hold on, folks. Not everyone in Concord believes Trump’s idea, the one about a rigged election, is as wild as his hairstyle. Jim Bashios, owner of South Street Market, has never been afraid to speak his mind, and this time was no different.
Bashios reads the Drudge Report. Corruption at the polls? You bet.
“The balloting is fixed,” Bashios told me. “The machines are geared toward the Democratic party. And military votes are never reaching here. That’s what happened in 2012.”
Richard Apostal, a retired BAE worker, stood in Bashios’s market, near the magazine rack with the National Enquirer headline about a “Hillary Hitman” claiming Clinton ordered “me to destroy Bill’s sex victims” and “pay hush money to hookers.”
Apostal cited reports about Clinton supporters “who were hired and paid to disrupt the Trump rally in Chicago.”
“In California, they’re giving driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants who then potentially vote,” Apostal continued.
In Pittsfield, the McCoy couple, Joe and Linda, feature a 52-foot long trailer on their property off Route 107 that shouts, “TRUMP!” They claimed that Trump has every right to be suspicious about our election process.
“I believe it could be rigged,” Joe said. “There are a lot of media against him, and people have been voting two or three times in past elections. He upset Hillary a few times during the debate to where her smile could not surface.”
Real smiles, smiles connected to affection and warmth and respect, have not been part of these debates between these two candidates. Campaigns often get ugly, but this one is in another galaxy.
In fact, Trump said during Debate 2 that he’d have Clinton investigated for her emailing practices while serving as secretary of state.
“Why didn’t they bring charges against her?” Linda McCoy asked.
“If Trump is in office, he should have her investigated because if we did what she did, we’d be in prison,” husband Joe added.
And this from Apostal: “I’d be in jail for what she did. People have been put in jail for a lot less.”
The more I traveled Thursday morning to take the pulse of voters, the more it became apparent that once a supporter of one of these two, always a supporter, that minds have already been made up, that the attempt by each camp to sway independent voters is, by now, a waste of time.
On one hand, I was told that Clinton had the questions ahead of time for one debate, her foundation is generating far more personal wealth than she’s admitting, her husband’s track record with women is worse than Trump’s and she’s rolling out the red carpet for immigrants and refugees, many of whom want to kill Americans.
On the other hand, I was told Trump views women as play things, his bullying tactics might not translate well with respect to foreign policy, his financial dealings are shady and he’s as presidential as Jim Carey in Dumb and Dumber.
Now, with the debates in our rearview mirror, we wait. Soon, we vote, hopefully in an honest fashion. And soon, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton will no longer dominate the news.
“Yes, I’m tired of it,” Concord business lawyer Dan Luker told me downtown. “It’s giving my wife a headache.”