The Trump-Harris Debate

I'm usually of the opinion that debates are useless, that the participants don't really answer the questions and the moderators don't hold the candidates' feet to the fire, asking follow up questions. I certainly don't believe you can clearly declare winners and losers. After Tuesday's debate, I'm changing my mind, at least about this one. 

The debate between former President Trump and President Biden, was short on substance as usual. Biden presented his ideas and policies and mostly answered the questions, but he did so in such a halting manner, appearing confused and befuddled, and once even trailed off into unintelligible mumbles. All Trump had to do was stand up straight and speak in a confident tone and he appeared to be the stronger candidate. It brought focus to a situation which many Democrats had long feared: that Biden was not mentally and physically able to effectively campaign. (Whether he can still effectively lead for the remainder of his term is an open question). So the Democrats closed ranks and united behind Vice President Harris.

From the time it was clear that she would be the replacement nominee to the day of the debate Harris was written off as a weak candidate. That she had no accomplishments, that she was a "DEI Hire", that she was unintelligent, that she was incoherent when she spoke and had no plans. All of that was put to rest on Tuesday night.

I'm going to concede that she could have more clearly answered some of the questions. But I'll give any politician a pass if answering a question about a mistake is a no-win scenario. In a perfect world I'd like to see our elected office holders come clean when they erred, but what happens in reality is that the mea culpa becomes an out-of-context clip or meme that is used to attack them. For example, former Speaker of the House Pelosi has recently said that she takes responsibility for the events of January 6th, not because she actually did anything wrong, or incited the rioters, but because she was taking a "the buck stops here" position due to her position as Speaker. Right wing trolls have used this brief quote to claim that Pelosi was the instigator of the attempted overturning of an election. Harris addressed some of the questions aimed at her weaknesses and did as well as anyone - what she didn't do was attack the moderators for asking, calling them "nasty" and losing her temper. About the only time she got even a little bit rattled was when she talked about her change of position on fracking. 

MAGA world is accusing her of lying throughout, but most of what they are calling lies, might be misleading or out of context.

• The Trump National Sales Tax: Trump isn't proposing a national sales tax per se, but Harris is saying that his huge tariffs increases as effectively a tax increase since they will be levied on sales
• Trump supports Project 2025: Trump has specifically disavowed the plan, but many of his own proposals are mirrored in Project 2025, and in general they are not that different
• Trump calls for a bloodbath if he loses:  Trump used the term "bloodbath" to describe the state of the auto industry if he lost in November
• Trump will sign a national abortion ban: Trump says he won't, his VP pick, Vance, says he will. Trump has been all over the map on abortion, but he did very specifically nominate 3 avowedly anti-abortion justices to the Supreme Court

Many of the other things that the Trumpists are calling lies, were, in fact, true. One example is the post Charlottesville quote "there were very fine people on both sides". He said it, Harris quoted it accurately. Snopes recently posted an article debunking a misquoting of his statement - he did not literally say "Neo-Nazis and White Supremacists are very fine people". Snopes was clear in their article that most of the people on one side were Neo-Nazis and White Supremacists and that he did say "there were very fine people on both sides". 

Trump has bragged that he doesn't need to prepare for debates, whether this is true or not is up for debate (ha ha), but it's very obvious that Harris did prepare. The questions were ones that you would expect and she thought through ahead of time how she would respond. She didn't need to be given the questions prior to the debate. Trump is bragging that he won and also that the debate was rigged against him. Harris is accused of wearing CIA quality in-ear receivers so that she could be fed answers. Repeating information heard through an earpiece in real time would not have resulted in the smooth, no hesitation, delivery of Harris' responses. 

Trump did himself no favors. His responses were, from the start, defensive and rambling. His claims of baby executions and cat eating by immigrants (still no videos of that, despite every American having a cell phone camera with them 24/7 - if there is, I will gladly admit Trump was right) was only the tip of the iceberg. What really decided the winner of the debate in my opinion was how Harris was able to take control and goad Trump into losing control and lashing out angrily over inconsequential things like the size of rally crowds and whether people left early. She kept her cool and determined the way things proceeded. 

Harris did say she was willing to debate again, but Trump has come out and said that he will not agree to any other debates...because he won. His rationale was that a loser in a prizefight will always ask for a rematch...even though after he debated Biden, Trump immediately asked to meet for another debate! make up your mind Donnie!

I doubt many minds were changed. The Trump cult is still 100% for Trump. The Harris camp isn't going to defect to Trump. Maybe a few people along the undecided fringes (who are these people?) will realize that Harris is a strong candidate and will be a strong president. I believe that some lukewarm anti-Trump voters will decide that sitting it out isn't in the cards any longer.

Meanwhile Losin' Don and his minions continue on, evil minds plotting destruction, sorcerers of death's construction, poisoning brainwashed minds.