If this was a boxing match, it should have been called after the first round: technical knock-out for the clear victor over Donald Trump, Kamala Harris!
But the bout, or rather the debate, went on for more than ninety minutes tonight. Trump got in a few good punches, but the evening clearly belonged to Harris.
She outdid him on both style and substance, leaving Trump fumbling and mumbling his way through answers to questions that he clearly was incapable of using to his advantage. Largely this was because Trump is so bad at talking about specific policies, preferring to resort to name-calling and fear-mongering.
Trump was smart to talk about undocumented migrants flooding across the border early on in the debate. But he repeated that line so many times, often in response to questions that had nothing to do with immigration, it got boring and stale real fast.
MSNBC's Chris Hayes had a good way of putting it in the post-debate analysis. He said that Harris would repeatedly throw out a tasty lure that she suspected would attract Trump's attention, such as her comment that people who attend Trump rallies are seen leaving early because his speeches are so boring.
OUCH! That got Trump's attention. So rather than spending precious debate time talking about the deficiencies of the Biden-Harris administration, Trump would get distracted and chase after the shiny object that Harris had skillfully gotten him to bite on.
This showed how weak and easily manipulated Trump is, a point Harris made. She said that all world leaders like the authoritarian heads of state of Russia, China, and North Korea have to do is praise Trump and he follows their lead happily.
A memorable moment in the debate, which I'm pretty sure made the heads of Trump's advisors explode, because it was exactly what they'd advised Trump not to do, was when he brought up the absurd MAGA lie about immigrants from Haiti eating pet cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio. Obviously that's completely false.
When Trump blathered on about this lie, I stopped our recording of the debate to take a photo of the split screen reaction from Harris. Her look, along with Trump's angry expression, summed up the entire debate. Harris relaxed and pleasant, Trump tense and angry.
I suspect polling about the debate will show that Harris was judged the clear winner. It wasn't even close. She did much better than I expected, while Trump did much worse. I thought that at times Harris was going to be able to push Trump's buttons, but she far exceeded that. Harris had Trump jumping around like a puppet, not in control of much of his own words and thoughts. Assuming he ever is.
Then there was Taylor Swift endorsing Harris after the debate, signing her Instagram post "Childless cat lady." The whole evening was sweet for us Democrats, but Swift's endorsement was the icing on the cake.
One of the MSNBC analysts said that at times Harris looked like she was pitying Trump. I had the same reaction. It was kind of sad to see a grown man implode, but since this was Trump, I was a lot more happy than sad.
Yes, a good day for those who vote for genocide! Well, in their own heads at least.
Make the United States of Israel great again!
Posted by: manjit | September 11, 2024 at 03:01 AM
@manjit what’s your real gripe? That Jill Stein wasn’t on stage? I’m not big on Kamala’s take on Israel, but Donald Trump uses Palestinian as a slur. You’re gonna get one or the other. Don’t let your pride be a factor in the downfall of our ow nation.
Posted by: Evan W | September 14, 2024 at 08:19 PM