I am busy today doing interviews for my book, but I want to make a quick post about last night’s debate. I think it was a landmark in American history — in all the wrong ways.

It was a disgrace, and Donald Trump is almost entirely at fault.

Old Joe Biden is a feeble man, no doubt about it. Trump hit him hard a couple of times in the debate, and showed how weak he is. He is going to be a transitional figure towards a harder, more ideological left, which will dominate him if he is elected president. I expect no good things to come to us from a Biden administration. He refused to say he wouldn’t engage in court-packing. I expect that wokeness will advance throughout the government, paralleling its march through society’s institutions, and that life for conservatives, small-o orthodox Christians, and other dissenters will get much tougher.

Having said that … my God, I never imagined I would see an American president refuse to say he would accept the results of the election if he loses. That’s our democracy, right there. That’s it. A constitutional democratic order depends on the peaceful transfer of power. Trump’s refusal simply to follow the ordinary rules of debate last night — his constant talking over Biden — symbolized his inner refusal to live by the rules that govern our constitutional order. It was repulsive and frightening. He is unfit for office.

He pointedly refused to condemn white supremacists. He disgustingly rubbed Joe Biden’s face in the fact of Hunter Biden’s drug abuse — something that I don’t believe will play well at all with most people. All of us have in our families or circles of friends someone who has struggled with drugs or alcohol. One of the things I admire about Joe Biden is that he has not disowned his failson. I think Hunter Biden’s capitalizing on his father’s power for personal gain is fair game, but for pity’s sake, don’t trash a man’s son for his brokenness with substance abuse. If they weren’t politicians, but two ordinary guys in a bar, I would have loved to have seen Joe Biden walk over and cold-cock Trump for trashing his boy.

I can’t believe I wrote that line about a presidential debate. This is what Trump, the chaos agent, brings to our politics.

What a disaster for Trump! The thing is, Trump really could make some powerful critiques of Biden and the Democrats. When Trump talked about rooting out anti-white racism in the federal government, that should have been a clear winner for Trump. It’s not “racial sensitivity,” as Chris Wallace deceptively framed it, but straight-up racism. Trump is right on that issue. But he didn’t explain that clearly, and his later refusal to condemn white supremacists played right into the hands of the left.

Biden wasn’t great at all, but he won that debate by seeming normal. This is deceptive: Biden described the racist indoctrinations that so many of us are now subjected to in the workplace as mere sensitivity training, teaching people how to be more decent. It’s not true! But he got away with it because Trump seems to irrational. Biden earlier this year described transgender rights as “the civil rights issue of our time.” That is incredibly radical, but nobody sees that because it doesn’t get called out, and because Trump’s maniacal blustering makes Biden, who, like the contemporary Democratic Party, really does advocate radical things, seem like the sane center.

I watched the debate with my family. The kids are older, and understand what’s going on. It was a civic exercise. By the end of it, we all felt sick and angry and anxious — and it was all Trump’s fault. By the end we were shouting at the TV, “Shut up and let him talk!” There was nothing remotely edifying about that display — and again, it was Trump’s fault. What the hell are my kids supposed to think of their country when a bully like that is president, and believes that that’s how a president behaves? Trump turned it into Meet The Press by way of The Jerry Springer Show.

This is so damned depressing. I have just published a book about how the left, driven by social justice warriors, is going to institute soft totalitarianism. Last night showed me how it’s going to happen. Trump is likely to lose this election because a majority of voters are just tired of all the chaos and craziness. Trump defeated himself last night.

Anyway, Trump is likely to lose, and cause a constitutional crisis by contesting the election past any reasonable lines. Removing him is going to be a deeply destabilizing event. He’s not going to go away, either: he’s going to carry on trying to undermine Biden, and urging his supporters toward civil unrest. It seems clear from last night that that is his plan.

This is going to provide an excuse for the Democrats and all their ideological allies throughout American corporate life and institutional life to tighten the vise on anyone who dissents. They are going to do whatever they can to try to prevent another Trump from rising.

This is what Trump’s crackpot bullying is going to cost us. I received this letter this morning from a reader, who gives me permission to publish it without his name:

I am a lawyer in Missouri (not exactly a bastion of progressivism). Missouri has adopted a continuing legal education requirement of 1 hour per year for “implicit bias” training. I was sitting in the webinar yesterday and noted a few things.

The instructor opened up with the following statement: “I don’t want to take time to convince you that implicit bias exists – we all understand that it does.” This is quite a presumption, given that the implicit bias studies have had, generously, mixed results. But I think it’s revelatory that the woke religion is pretty much the default, assumed faith nearly everywhere.

Another interesting thing that was said up front was that our instructor did not want to guilt us.He contrasted his presentation with one he’d attended entitled “We are all criminals” (I’m not kidding). He went on to say that we probably are, but that such an approach would not be “effective.” So, in sum, white lawyers are “criminals” but we’re not going to say it out loud because we want to convince them to get on board. It reminded me of every time the left does or says something reprehensible, there are always the liberal columns that “condemn” the action not on substance, but on the fact that it was a tactical misstep. A prime example would be the torrent of articles to condemn Beto O’Rourke’s promise to strip tax exemption status from religious organizations who didn’t get on board with the new orthodoxy not because it’s wrong, but because it gave conservatives a talking point.

In a profession that is a mere 17% conservative leaning, this will probably go unchallenged. I would be surprised if, in a generation, the legal profession will even tolerate dissenting views within its ranks.

He’s right about that. This is part of the soft totalitarian order that the left is advancing through the institutions right now! We conservatives ought to be on our best game to fight it. Instead, we got the revolting spectacle of Donald Trump last night. Again: he has in principle a powerful case to make against the left. But he’s too lazy and undisciplined to make it. He just trash-talks and bullies. Even if somehow he happens to be re-elected, look for leaders in the many institutions of American society (e.g., law schools) to radicalize even further in opposition to him.

Former TAC editor Dan McCarthy has been one of the most articulate supporters of Trump. But he thought Trump lost last night because of the ridiculous way he behaved:

Trump chose to fight not only Biden but also the debate process and conventional politics itself. The cost of this, besides turning off wavering voters, is that it blotted out most of the substantial arguments that could be made for the president’s agenda.

Exactly! Trump came across as an authoritarian goon. And should Biden win, and the left continues to bring about soft totalitarianism throughout American society, all of us on the right should remember last night’s debate. (Note well that authoritarianism means a consolidation of political power in one person or party; totalitarianism is an extreme form of authoritarianism, which is the consolidation of political power in a society in which everything has been politicized.) Given the power of our enemies, our side needed a skilled fighter; we got a saloon drunk who demeans his office and our democracy. The Greeks were right: character really is destiny.

OK, time to do another interview about Live Not By Lies, which is becoming ever more relevant by the day. It is hard to have watched that spectacle last night and have much hope in our democracy. It was a terrible night for America. It feels like the republic really is dying.

UPDATE: A friend does not share my view:

I spent several weekends camping with Trump supporters this summer. They literally see him as the only thing standing between them and socialism and totalitarianism.

You cannot underestimate the fear of what the Left has become.

This isn’t about personalities. This is about competing views of what our country should be.

Both conservatives and liberals I talk believe the country will split in their lifetime, that union cannot, and perhaps should not, hold.

Thanks for writing this, Rod. I can see some of the parallels that you are seeing with the Romanovs—unforced errors that amplify the discontent of the masses and kindle the fires of revolution.