Watching the ongoing post-debate coverage it seems to me clearer than ever just how far what Trump says & does has been normalised in the public discourse. It’s v troubling.

We are dealing in this election with one candidate who is persistently and vocally undermining key rights in the US (the right to vote at this precise moment is the most concerning) & trashing the norms of public debate (going right back to 2016 race).

And on the other side a candidate certainly flawed but who respects the democratic process & tries to uphold some norms of public discourse. Those two candidacies are simply not equally problematic.

The tendency to treat both as similarly awful in the debate (with Trump just a bit worse) carries a broader implication of candidacies wch can be judged to equivalent standards. I think that interpretation of debate is mistaken, I think that wider implication is deeply dangerous.

It seems to me that the first question in covering this campaign is whether US democratic processes should be upheld. If that doesn’t bother you then fine. But as long as it does that is I think the first thing that has to be said in discussing these candidacies.

Limited comparisons can perhaps be drawn to elections in 1800 or 1860 but I think there is a critical distinction: there were issues of principle at stake on those occasions, with Trump it is first & foremost about him.

Trump’s argument is not the election result might have to be rejected because of this issue my position on which is foundational to the republic (as Southerners argued in 1860)...

Nor is it that the republic cannot be trusted to the deeply flawed character of his opponent (an aspect of Federalist arguments in 1800)...

Instead for Trump the legitimacy of the election is shown if the system re-elects him.