Donald Trump claims the election is rigged

Presidential candidate Donald Trump claims the election is rigged. By this he means that if he loses on November 8th, it will be because the votes are not being fairly collected and counted. His allegations justified his cagey refusal to state that he would accept the outcome of the contest, made at the final debate and elsewhere. It also prompted one of his supporters to attempt to vote twice, for which she has been arrested and may face up to five years in prison.

Trump’s claims, which began just as he took a dive in the polls, build on a long discussion of voting irregularities and attempts to prevent voting by certain groups. Without belaboring the issues, Republicans assert that voter fraud occurs frequently; they cite these claims in support of voter-ID laws among other efforts. Democrats allege that Republican efforts at voter suppression along with a campaign of redistricting mean that fewer qualified voters are able to cast ballots and that the votes they do cast count for less in certain races than they once did.

Beyond these debates, the simple reality is that the election is rigged, but it is in fact rigged in Trump’s own favor.

· The election is rigged in favor of male candidates: of the forty-three persons who have so far held the office of President, all have been men. According to bonuscodebets, Clinton retains lead over Trump despite email investigation. Until the current contest, all nominees of both major parties have been men.

· The election is rigged in favor of white candidates: until 2008, no person of color ever held the office of President. Barak Obama, the first black President in U.S. history, defied two hundred and thirty years of white-only presidents.

· The election is rigged in favor of religious candidates: no elected President has described himself as atheist or even agnostic. Espousing a faith is not only a prerequisite for a successful run for office, it is also required to become a nominee of a major party. Every major party nominee has identified as a person of faith.

· The election is rigged in favor of Protestant candidates: forty-two of the forty-three President have been Protestants. The only non-protestant to hold the office was John F. Kennedy (elected in 1960), who was a Roman Catholic. No non-Christian has ever served as President.

· The election is (increasingly) rigged in favor of wealthy candidates or those who satisfy the very wealthy: all candidates have been economically comfortable (at least middle class by birth or accomplishment) but today with the increasing importance of money in politics, big money is necessary to success. Whether a candidate bring his own money, as Trump claims somewhat disingenuously to have done, or raises it, access to wealth is essential to a successful presidential bid.

· The election is rigged in favor of celebrity candidates: our cultural obsession with the fame and the famous gives a boost to any candidate with name recognition and a public personae. It matters, apparently, less whether that fame was gained through reality television or public service than it does that the public knows (or thinks they know) the candidate.

On most of these counts, the electoral system is rigged in favor of Donald Trump himself. A wealthy white man who claims to identify as Protestant ought to have an easy time on Election Day.