There were at least two op-eds in the New York Times in the last few days arguing that if Harris was to win last night’s debate, she could not spend her time attacking Trump but had to show that she had tangible policy proposals for the American people. Well, Harris did win the debate (I’m not aware of anybody who disagrees with this, including conservative websites like the National Review), but it was not because of her policy proposals. (Fortunately, I managed to stay awake to watch the whole thing.)
The NYT was wrong: Harris won the debate hands down, not by presenting tangible policies (she did mention a few), but by doing what she was told not to do: baiting and attacking Trump. She did it calmly but persistently, to the point where Trump became so baffled and enraged that he simply lost it, becoming unhinged and yes, almost deranged. And when that happened, his narcissism and lying became uncontrollable. In fact, at some points I thought that, like Biden, he had simply lost his ability to think. It seems to me now that Trump is showing signs of age, in a manner different in degree but not in kind from the kind of fogginess that brought down Biden in his last debate with Trump.
I suspect that some of Harris’s debate practice involved confecting statements that would unsettle Trump, and, sure enough, they worked, like a red cape shown to a bull. Perhaps the most effective was Harris’s assertion that people got bored at Trump rallies, which were insubstantial and full of pop culture, and simply left them early.
That was enough to unsettle Trump, who claims that his rallies were, like everything else he does, the greatest in the history of America. And he never recovered his equilibrium. The lies and misstatements spouted forth like water from a fountain. There was the statement that Haitians were eating pets in Ohio, the claim that Harris met both Putin and Zelensky and failed to secure a peace (she never met Putin), the false claim that tariffs on foreign goods wouldn’t result in higher prices for consumers, that if was elected he could settle the Ukraine/Russia war before he took office, that Harris was a Marxist, that some Democrats support the execution of children after birth, and so on. None of that is true. When Harris said that world leaders were laughing at Trump’s ineptitude (another statement guaranteed to bait him), his response was to quote Hungarian President Viktor Orbán, a minor figure who admires Trump but also admires Putin. Was that the best he could do?
The WaPo and other sites have compiled a list of Trump’s lies and exaggerations, and it’s long. Now Harris wasn’t immune to misstatements, either, but they were far fewer, and included her statement that “And as of today, there is not one member of the United States military who is in active duty in a combat zone, in any war zone around the world, the first time this century,”, which isn’t true. She claimed that the Biden administration created over 800,000 manufacturing jobs (the true number is close to 625,00). But these are trivial compared to Trump’s fulminating and arrant lying.
I don’t know how many undecided voters would have been swayed by Trump’s performance to vote for him, but I doubt that it’s anywhere close to half. The debate was really a contrast in likability and personality, and Harris’s cool demeanor and failure to get flustered made her look far better than Trump, whom I’ve always said suffers from a form of personality disorder. And voters want to like the person whose box they check on the Presidential ballot.
Both candidates evaded some questions, including Trump’s denial of any responsibility for Project 2025, his failure to own up to the “fine people on both sides” statements he said after the far-right rally in Charlottesville, and his failure to specify how he’d rid the country of 11 million illegal immigrants. For her part, Harris didn’t really explain how her policies could change if her values didn’t, and she didn’t own up to her change of policy on fracking nor admit the seriousness of the immigration issue. This was balanced by two statements by Harris that were eloquent and, at least to me, somewhat moving: her defense of abortion rights for women and her rebuke of Trump for failing to stand for America’s democratic values by not supporting Ukraine.
No, Harris wasn’t strong on presenting policies (she did outline some, like her $6,000 tax credit to parents with newborns and a reduction in tax credits, and her website now outlines specific plans, including giving $25,000 to first-time home buyers). Whether her plans are financially viable is another question, but neither she nor Trump were asked that. (Note that, according to the New Republic, many of Harris’s policies were lifted directly from Biden’s campaign website).
The one issue on which I strongly disagree with Harris is the stand on Israel she espoused. While she said she strongly supported Israel and its right to defend itself, she also argued that the death toll of civilians in Gaza (something that’s been lifted from Hamas’s figures) is too high, and that we need both an immediate cease-fire and especially a two-state solution. Both of those policies explicitly deny Israel the right to defend itself: a cease-fire now is a loss for Israel and a victory for Hamas, and we simply cannot have a two-state solution now. There are not honest brokers on either side, and of course neither Israel nor the Palestinians really want a two-state “solution”, which won’t solve any problems. (Israel now has no faith that a Palestinian state will be peaceful, and the Palestinians want the erasure of the state of Israel far more than they want their own state alongside Israel.) I have little faith that Harris will conduct an israeli policy to my liking, but of course many Americans are far less pro-Israel than I.
As for the moderators, they were pretty good, though David Muir dominated the questions over Linsey Davis, which seems to me a bit sexist. However, the questions were generally good, and I thought the policy of fact-checking false claims during the live debate was a good one (and probably threw Trump off even more).
I believe that the Democrats, flush with victory, are now calling for a second debate, but I’m not sure there will be one. If the polls show that voters (and the electoral college) have moved towards Harris, Trump will surely not agree to a second debate.
If Trump loses, then MAGA is gone and Trump has lost most of his influence in the GOP. If Harris loses, then the Democrats have to become yet more centrist (though I have to add that Harris has deliberately become more centrist recently as a pragmatic issue to win).
We don’t know who will win the election, and the next few days will show how much Trump’s embarrassing performance will cost the GOP. (Remember, he’s always been an awful debater but has nevertheless come out on top twice.) But regardless of that, there’s no question that the winner of the debate was Kamala Harris.
I’m still not a big fan of hers, but was reminded last night why I’ve always regarded Trump as a joke—but a very dangerous joke.
1 comment:
Harris was handed softball questions, assisted by the moderators and given ample opportunity to bait instead of debate. Of course she won.
Trump lost focus. All he had to do was keep saying "If you didn't do it in the last 4 years, why are you saying you're going to do it now" but he didn't.
Worst was the cat comment. It's clear that illegal immigrants are increasingly turning to rape, violence and crime but instead he says they eat cats?
Again: I wangted Bill Maher vs Nikki Haley. That would've been an excellent debate.
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