Pam's Points: One more debate, an unrigged election and healing

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump listens to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton during the second presidential debate at Washington University in St. Louis on Oct. 9, 2016. The third and final debate is tonight. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump listens to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton during the second presidential debate at Washington University in St. Louis on Oct. 9, 2016. The third and final debate is tonight. (AP Photo/John Locher)

The baloney of 'rigged'

Tonight will be the final debate between GOP nominee Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

Watch for plenty more talk about a "rigged" election, WikiLeaks, the wall we don't need and a number of other things that don't really get at what matters to most Americans - our pocketbooks and our quality of life.

Mostly - just prepare yourselves for endless Trump bluster - anything to divert attention from his poll numbers and his attitudes about women, people of color, religions he thinks he can use as weapons and his complete lack of preparedness.

Even Republicans this week were fighting back on Trump's unfounded claims of a "rigged" election. Numerous GOP state governors, election commissioners and Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., took to podiums in front of cameras to assure voters that Trump is wrong to question the legitimacy of this election rather than accept polls that show him dropping further and further behind Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

Rubio, in the battleground state of Florida, was perhaps the most forceful, noting that Trump "should stop saying this."

"Florida has 67 counties, each of which conducts its own election," Rubio said. "I promise you there is not a 67-county conspiracy to rig this election."

He went on to note that the Republican governor of Florida appoints the people who run the Division of Elections, "and there's no evidence" behind Trump's claim of widespread voter fraud, which many observers see as a threat to voter turnout.

Then Rubio brought it home: "This is a state that literally has millions of people who came here because they could not vote in the nation of their birth. It would be a tragedy if they gave up their vote here as well."

Yet with each false hammer Trump uses to dent American trust and cohesiveness, he harms this nation's chances of eventually bridging the growing class and ideological gaps that will need healing come Nov. 9.

Tonight's debate begins at 9 p.m. ET and will be broadcast on CNN and all major networks.

Speaking of healing

How do we heal this country on the morning after the general election?

The question sparked some thoughtful commentary Tuesday on MSNBC's Morning Joe.

Mike Barnicle, a veteran journalist, noted that both Trump and Bernie Sanders gained populist-leaning followers because of loss. Barnicle's first example pointed to today's 20-year-olds serving in Iraq or Afghanistan - young people who were 5 when the war began. His second example was their parents and grandparents, millions of whom in 2008's Great Recession lost their jobs, their homes, their 401[k]s and their life savings. They think they have no voice in government, and they are not being represented by professional politicians who raise money for their re-elections but don't talk about these real people's lives.

They go to a rally for a guy who has said something they like, but they don't really know anything about. Then they hear later on the news that this guy's supporters are probably racists because of things the candidate says, Barnicle says.

"And they take offense - because we [journalists and pundits] don't understand their lives, and we don't cover their lives." The same was true of Sanders and his supporters, who were called young, insolent, ignorant children.

Anand Giridharadas, author of "The True American," and another Morning Joe panelist, offered a similar worry from the liberal camp. What will happen if polls are to be trusted and Trump loses? Trump will fly off in his helicopter, but these millions of ordinary, real and trusting people who, without malice themselves, made an attempt to elect a "race-baiting, resentment-oriented demagogue?" They will still have to live next to millions of people that the Trump campaign "belittled and threatened and made feel small."

The panel agreed there's a way to honor Trump supporters, even while disliking Trump. After all, those supporters were drawn to Trump because they were repelled by "elitism" and a "broken" Washington, said Bloomberg View columnist Margaret Carlson. "And Mitch McConnell was no more listening [to the plight of these real people] than Harry Reid," she added.

The panel agreed there must be a reckoning.

"The people who supported Trump and supported things about women that they don't actually support and supported things about the bashing of Muslims that they don't in their deepest of hearts support, need to think about the fact that globalization was hard on everybody," said Giridharadas. "It wasn't just hard on white guys. Women lost their jobs in globalization, and black and brown people lost their jobs in globalization, but [they] managed not to lash out. There needs to be a reckoning, frankly, with white manhood in this country. We need truth and we need reconciliation."

Show host Joe Scarborough summed it up: "If Abraham Lincoln after the Civil War can say "with malice toward none," we can say it after this petty, petulant election."

Here's hoping.

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