Donald Trump is injecting poison into the nation's political bloodstream. He repeatedly advances wild conspiracy theories -- the election is rigged, the press is out to get him, President Obama is a founder of ISIS.
Trump has a fervid following, some of whom persist in believing his bizarre assertions. He started his political ascent as the leading proponent of the ``birther'' theory -- the idea that President Barack Obama is not a natural-born U.S. citizen and is therefore an illegitimate President. That idea has been conclusively disproved. But it continues to thrive on the political fringe. A year ago, 20 percent of Americans said they believed that Obama was not born in the United States.
Now Trump is raising suspicions that the debates may be fixed because two of them are being held on the same nights as National Football League games. ``I wouldn't be surprised if [Hillary Clinton's] people had something to do with putting them on these evenings,'' Trump has said. Never mind that the debate schedule was set seven months before the NFL schedule was released.
Trump has also charged that ``there's a lot of dirty pool played at the election, meaning the election is rigged.'' Never mind that elections are run by state and local authorities that follow their own rules. Remember the chaos over Florida's rules in the 2000 election?
Trump has denounced efforts to strike down voter identification requirements that may be discriminatory. ``If you don't have voter ID,'' Trump charged, ``you can just keep voting and voting and voting.'' Never mind that instances of voter fraud are rare. An analysis of 2,068 instances of alleged voter fraud since 2000 by the Carnegie-Knight Initiative found that the rate of actual fraud has been ``infinitesimal.'' The study turned up only 10 proven cases of voter impersonation that might have been prevented with voter ID laws. ``Those ten cases represent one of about every fifteen million prospective voters.''
Now Trump is calling on his backers to sign up to be ``Trump Election Observers'' and police the polls on Election Day ``to stop crooked Hillary from rigging this election.'' He said in Pennsylvania, ``We have to call up law enforcement.'' According to The Washington Post, such election monitoring activities could violate rules against voter intimidation. An election law expert warned, ``One of the things that this can do is get rogue people riled up. Trump sets the fuse and let's someone else do the explosion.''
And speaking of setting a fuse, Trump called on ``Second Amendment people'' to act to prevent a President Hillary Clinton from appointing judges who threaten gun rights. The Clinton campaign immediately charged that Trump was encouraging violence. Trump said later that he was referring to ``the power of voters'' who support the Second Amendment to oppose Clinton's election. But Clinton could appoint federal judges only after she wins the election.
The cases of spreading political poison continue to pile up. When he attacked Muslim Gold Star parents who had lost a son fighting for the U.S., Trump claimed in a Tweet,``The story is not about Mr. Khan [the father]. . . but rather RADICAL ISLAMIC TERRORISM.'' He charged in Florida that President Obama -- whom he called ``Barack Hussein Obama'' -- was a ``founder'' of ISIS and Hillary Clinton a ``co-founder.'' Trump later said he was being sarcastic ``but not that sarcastic.'' Sarcasm is not a notably presidential quality.
The poison Trump is spreading is the taint of illegitimacy. That can be debilitating for a President. Some conservatives were relentless in their opposition to President Bill Clinton because he embraced the elite liberal values of the 1960s -- cultural changes they never accepted. President Obama's legitimacy has been under constant challenge by those who believe he is Muslim or foreign-born. Many suspect such charges are driven by racism.
Trump has said, ``We are led by a man that either is not tough, not smart, or has something else in mind.'' Something else in mind? Trump insinuates that ``there's something going on'' and leaves it to his supporters to imagine what it could be.
Most voters dismiss Trump's ravings as the feverish product of a disordered mind. Those who believe him are far from the majority he needs to win the election. But they will challenge the credibility of the result if Hillary Clinton wins, particularly if the election is close. Even after the election is over, a poisonous residue will remain.
``All I do is tell the truth,'' Trump says. ``I am a truth teller.'' As fact-checkers have amply demonstrated, he is not a truth-teller. He is a poison-spreader.