What Trump refused to say is significant.

Fox News’s Chris Wallace — who had spent most of the debate with the demeanor of someone unexpectedly pulled from the audience to ride a bronco at a rodeo — pushed Trump on his recent reluctance to say that he would ensure a smooth transition should he lose.

“Will you urge your supporters to stay calm during this extended period, not to engage in any civil unrest?” Wallace asked. “And will you pledge tonight that you will not declare victory until the election has been independently certified?”

Oh hell no. Of course he won’t.

“I’m urging my supporters to go into the polls and watch very carefully, because that’s what has to happen,” Trump said. “I am urging them to do it. As you know, today, there was a big problem in Philadelphia. They went in to watch. They were called poll watchers, a very safe, very nice thing. They were thrown out. They weren’t allowed to watch. You know why? Because bad things happen in Philadelphia, bad things.”

In fact they were asked to leave because of the pandemic restrictions.

There is a utility to having poll watchers in place, people trained to track voter turnout or, for those with particular expertise, to assist those who might need help casting a ballot. What Trump is obviously encouraging is to poll watching what armed militias are to police: self-appointed experts whose priority is less keeping order than confronting perceived enemies. It wasn’t the first time that Trump had similarly called on his supporters to serve in that capacity, but it was probably the call that had the largest audience.

And let’s not forget that this is in a country with a long and murderous history of such “poll watching” to keep the descendants of slaves from voting. Black people were lynched for voting not that many decades ago. Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner were murdered in 1964, when Donald Trump was 18.

That was in a different Philadelphia.