Doug Thompson: The voters decide, Mr. Trump

Ready or not, the result is coming

Donald Trump gets to cast one vote, just like the rest of us.

Trump and his major opponent for president, Hillary Clinton, debated Wednesday. Trump refused to say whether he would concede if he loses, which he will. His refusal alarmed many. It shouldn't.

American democracy is no fragile thing. The voters get the last word. Trump complains about fraud. Will someone, somewhere pull something in this election? Yes. Will it make the slightest difference in the beat-down Trump will get? No.

The proof that fraud won't affect this presidential race is in the glaring lack of any difference it could make. Trump is a Republican who could lose Utah to a complete unknown whose merits consist entirely of being a decent fellow and a Mormon. Fraud is not an issue here. Trump's open contempt for the mandate bestowed by the voters is.

To reiterate, Trump is disrespecting the soon-to-be-expressed will of "we the people of the United States." This may become the longest-remembered, unforgiven blunder in a campaign most of America wants to forget. Trump showed that cushioning his ego from his approaching humiliation matters more to him than anything. He never learned that this country, with one insignificant exception, consists entirely of other people.

Clinton, on the other hand, never would have made it to Wednesday's debate stage if she hadn't humbled herself, however grudgingly, to the will of Democratic primary voters in 2008. She even joined the administration of the freshman senator who defeated her.

But Trump is undermining our tradition of peaceful transfer of power, the worried say. They shouldn't worry. It will take more than the huffing and puffing of a sore loser to blow that house down. Yes, his snarling sets a bad example. It's irresponsible. I expect the example the voters are about to make of him will discourage others from following. Trump's sneering might have posed some danger if this election was going to be close. His insult to voters on Wednesday probably scotched the dim remaining chance of that. If he was ever a threat to our democracy, our voters are about to fix it.

The media is against me, Trump insists -- being a Republican nominee that not even the Arizona or Dallas papers could endorse. Here's a bulletin: The voters aren't sheep who rely on an institution trusted barely more than Congress to tell them how to vote. Trump's biggest problem is not a mainstream media that hates him. Trump's biggest problem is a mainstream media that shows him on live TV and quotes him correctly.

This ending whine to a sorry campaign begs a question. The GOP has never been stronger at the state and congressional level. So how can it be so strong everywhere but such a flaming wreck at the top? I've pondered this a lot. I think it's because the GOP's great strength locally is its great weakness nationally. The party has no consensus.

A Republican in any particular political subdivision -- district, state, whatever -- can win. Some places elect establishment Republicans; tax-cutters and free-traders. Others elect Christian conservative Republicans. Others elect the angry. Others elect any combination of the above, strong or weak.

All successful political parties reconcile local interests into a somewhat coherent -- or at least creaky but moving -- whole for a presidential election. Republicans don't anymore. They learned the wrong lesson from Mitt Romney's lengthy ordeal in 2012. They wanted to just shorten the suffering and name a candidate. From winner-take-all primary states to the rush-rush, do-it-now primary schedule, Trump won because Republicans only wanted to look like they had unity. They shunned the tough internal fights needed to forge the real thing. Look at how panicky they became when a contested convention seemed possible.

The other major factor here is that the GOP "establishment" discredited itself from 2001 to 2008. It gave its donors what they wanted -- a tax cut -- then botched the job for its voters, who got almost nothing they wanted. After eight years out of power, the establishment then tried to anoint another Bush -- as if nothing bad had ever happened.

A Republican presidential primary is not a clash of ideas with clear winners and losers among the major factions. It's more like a long car trip by a dysfunctional family on vacation. Everybody starts out hoping for love and consensus. Very soon, they all just want to get through the next day without a fight.

They need a fight. Somebody needs to win it, or they all lose.

Commentary on 10/22/2016

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