I’ve been reading the post-debate analyses that, after acknowledging that Harris not only ate Trump’s lunch (and dinner, and breakfast), still feel they have to take her to task for not doing it the way they, the Commentators of the Universe, thought she should have. What a load of lort.
(We’re in Copenhagen right now, and “lort” (also “skidt”) is Danish for sh!t. I should be avoiding the news, but we were mid-flight when the debate happened, so of course I had to check it out. Plus I couldn’t sleep any longer. Back to the rant.)
This election is not about politics, really. Yes, there is Project 2025 hovering like some demented monster over the horizon, but that is really an extension of Trump’s personality. Harris’s policies are mainstream, or close enough to it that we don’t have to worry she will haul off all the White Supremacists to concentration camps. This election is about personality.
Harris knew this going into the debate and she played on Trump’s personality. His vanity, his narcissism, his obsession with (crowd) size. Her campaign even telegraph the punch, saying she would try to bait him. And he walked right into it. He couldn’t help himself.
And he did it in front of 67 million people.
That was the job Harris set out to do. The media have so covered for and excused and downplayed Trump’s demented nonsense ("sanewashing" is now a thing) that the only way for Harris to make the country see what he is really like was to do it herself. Which she did, brilliantly.
Quote from one commentator I do respect: Jennifer Rubin (Harris excels. ABC does its job. Both were deadly for Trump.)
Vice President Kamala Harris demonstrated in Tuesday night’s presidential debate, in case any rational person had doubts, that she is the only decent, prepared and fit candidate in the presidential race. In both her answers and demeanor, she demonstrated the unmistakable contrast between a mature, responsible adult and someone who resembles the mean, crazy relative no one wants to sit next to at the holiday table.
Rubin also has the same feelings I do about her colleagues:
Disregard any post-debate analysis that says the confrontation won’t matter, won’t change any minds. Harris did superbly Tuesday, and it will make a difference. Fair-minded voters will notice.
Also this: Sarah Longwell in The Atlantic — How Swing Voters Reacted to the Trump-Harris Debate
I conduct focus groups with voters every week, and I’ve heard one theme come up again and again: They often worry about Harris’s ability to stand up to dictators such as Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. . . .
Last night, Trump was, in a certain sense, a stand-in for strongmen like Putin and Xi, and the voters I spoke with right after the debate said that Harris held her own. They appreciated her ability to bait Trump, counter his lies, and look calm while doing it. Her decision to point out how easily foreign despots use flattery to influence Trump also did her a lot of good.
As I said, this election is about personality.
The nine-person focus group my team spoke with this morning weighed in on Carol’s question. We asked these voters how they would describe Harris’s performance. The most common response: “presidential.”
OK, I’ve said my rant. I’m off to take photos of the sunrise.
