John Stoehr/Editorial Board:
Harris shattered his glass ego
She may not win in the end, but Trump is permanently wounded.
She controlled the man who is said to be uncontrollable. She tamed him. She neutered him. They say he’s a bull in a china shop? Well, last night was nutting season. And she did all this by telling the truth, addressing the American people directly with appeals to democracy, decency and the rule of law, and using his own insults against him.
She called him weak.
She called him confused and boring.
She suggested he was old.
Most painful of all, for Trump, she seemed to pity him.
If this debate were a title match, and if Trump were the undisputed heavyweight champion of American politics, Harris was the challenger who saw weakness in him that no one has yet been able to exploit.
She delivered a knockout punch.
John’s a pessimist by nature (the debate ≠ the election), but he makes some good points.
Simon, otoh, is not a pessimist 😇.
Karl Rove/Wall Street Journal:
A Catastrophic Debate for Trump
He was angry and fixated on the past, and he failed to define Harris or her policies.
Will this debate have an effect? Yes, though perhaps not as much as Team Harris hopes or as much as Team Trump might fear. But there’s no putting lipstick on this pig. Mr. Trump was crushed by a woman he previously dismissed as “dumb as a rock.” Which raises the question: What does that make him?
Washington Post:
Trump’s time with Loomer, a far-right activist, upsets his GOP allies
Loomer insisted this week that she does “not work” for Trump, but the campaign has declined to say why she has been part of traveling entourage.
A few days earlier, Loomer launched a racist attack against Trump’s Democratic opponent in the November election, Vice President Kamala Harris, who is Indian American. If Harris wins, Loomer wrote, the White House “will smell like curry & White House speeches will be facilitated via a call center.” In July, Loomer baselessly called Harris a “drug using prostitute.”
Wait, so the October surprise is Trump divorcing Melania (and reality) for Laura Loomer?
Anne Applebaum/The Atlantic:
The Americans Who Yearn for Anti-American Propaganda
Russian-backed influencers with an authoritarian message find a ready audience.
But the real question is not whether the talking heads of Tenet Media—the founders, Lauren Chen and Liam Donovan, who were the main interlocutors with the Russians, but also Tim Pool, Lauren Southern, Dave Rubin, and Benny Johnson—had guessed the true identity of their “investor.” Nor does it matter whether they knew who was really paying them to make videos that backed up absurd pro-Moscow narratives (that a terrorist attack at a Moscow shopping mall, loudly claimed by the Islamic State, was really carried out by Ukrainians, for example). More important is whether the audience knew, and I think we can safely say that it did not. And now that Tenet Media fans do know who funds their favorite influencers, it’s entirely possible that they won’t care.
Here’s some wonky stuff from Tom Bonier, but important points are being made!
Tom Bonier/X via Threadreader:
Jill Lawrence/The Bulwark:
The Remarkable, Unexpected Competency of the Harris Campaign
She out-debated Trump—and outran her caricature.
I should also mention that Harris’s head-shaking bemusement, quizzical looks, and smiles of disbelief were an effective if tacit way of fact-checking throughout the split-screen livestream of the nearly two-hour debate. And there was never a moment when fact-checking was not needed. Her silent skepticism substituted for explicit corrections of fact and assertion that were never made. They couldn’t be. It was impossible to keep up. And really, it’s hard to envision the right response when Trump says of Biden, “I’ll give you a little secret. He hates her. He can’t stand her.”
Harris just shook her head. My take: Who exactly hates Harris and can’t stand her? This sounded like Trump projecting his feelings and thoughts on others, a special talent of his.
Peter Hamby/Puck:
The Media Is Not the Message
Despite the historic nature of this unprecedented topsy-turvy election, a staggering percentage of persuadable voters are not tuning in—and they’re definitely no longer tuning in on linear TV, making it harder than ever for the campaigns to find them.
Despite the consequences and the historical plot twists, this election’s biggest news events are simply not penetrating the public consciousness nearly as much as we political addicts assume. In a survey of battleground state voters released Monday, the Democratic polling firm Blueprint found that swaths of swing voters hadn’t seen or heard anything about many of the topics that have dominated campaign news coverage. About 30 percent of voters, Blueprint discovered, either never watched or never heard a single thing about Harris and Trump’s convention speeches.
That much-hyped Harris interview on CNN with Dana Bash? More than a third of swing state voters (34 percent) didn’t know it happened. More than half of voters (53 percent) haven’t seen or heard any of Trump’s many podcast interviews this year. Almost half of battleground state voters (43 percent) said they’ve never seen or heard a Harris meme on social media. As I wrote a few weeks back, TikTok gets a lot of press coverage. But TikTok, like Twitter, Is Not Real Life.
You can find an example of the tuned in/tuned out statistics here.
Cliff Schecter features Eric Swalwell:
