Typically, when an attorney-general launches an investigation into an organization's activities, that organization asserts its innocence while promising full co-operation. But not in the nether world of this American election.
The New York Attorney-General Eric Schneiderman announced Wednesday his office was investigating reported irregularities in the Donald J. Trump Foundation, the charitable arm of the Republican presidential nominee's business empire. Here's how Trump spokesman Jason Miller responded:
It is true that politics in New York is particularly bare-knuckle. Mr. Schneiderman, who is a supporter of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, is also the force behind the lawsuit against the defunct Trump University.
But the Trump camp's contemptuous response reflects the real division in this campaign between conservatives and radicals, between those, like Ms. Clinton, who defend the institutions of the American republic, and those, like Mr. Trump, who hold those institutions in contempt.
The most important word in Mr. Trump's lexicon is "rigged." Everything is rigged, and rigged against him.
He insists the corrupt Federal Reserve has rigged monetary policy to make the Obama administration look good.
He accuses the corrupt Commission on Presidential Debates of rigging the debates by choosing biased moderators.
Far, far the worst of all, he has repeatedly warned, "I'm afraid the election is going to be rigged. I have to be honest."
Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin, a Trump supporter, expanded on that theme during a speech last weekend:
America, he warned, would pay a price in blood if Hillary Clinton became president. "The roots of the tree of liberty are watered by what? The blood, of who? The tyrants to be sure, but who else? The patriots."
The orderly transition of power between one party and another after an election is the foundation of democracy.
When Mr. Trump questions the legitimacy of the election itself, he undermines that foundation. When his supporters warn that the only solution to a Clinton presidency might be to take up arms, they deepen that crisis of legitimacy.
That's what makes Mr. Trump and his supporters radicals and Ms. Clinton and everyone who supports her, including many Republicans, conservatives.
The latter seeks to preserve the republic; the former would replace it with … who knows? But Mr. Trump promises it will be great.