The Corrosive Election and the New Abnormal by Linda Greenhouse
'The only presidential inauguration I’ve attended was Bill Clinton’s first, on Jan. 20, 1993. I took two spare tickets from the office, and brought my 7-year-old daughter, bundled against the cold like a little abominable snowman and old enough, I figured, for a civics lesson.
These were not V.I.P. seats, and we were far back on the National Mall, the proceedings barely visible. What I remember most vividly was what occurred immediately after the ceremony’s conclusion. A helicopter took off noisily from somewhere near the Capitol. I wasn’t sure at first what was happening, but word passed through the crowd that it was Marine One, carrying away the now ex-president George H. W. Bush and his wife, Barbara. Where were they headed — Kennebunkport? Houston? The destination didn’t matter. The helicopter receding into the winter sky was a richly evocative symbol, power transferring peacefully before our eyes from the defeated candidate to the victorious one, the old president to the new. I told my daughter: This is how democracy works.
That image came to mind last week during the third presidential debate. I watched the debate on a hotel television in the company of fellow participants in a conference I was attending. All were lawyers. As the debate proceeded, the group’s attention occasionally drifted, and we chatted a bit. But at Donald Trump’s refusal to say that he would abide by the election results, everyone snapped to attention. Someone had to break the stunned silence, so as the only one in the room with journalism experience, it fell to me to state the obvious: “That’s the headline.”'>>>
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/27/opinion/the-corrosive-election-and-the-new-abnormal.html?
