Cornered

"The conservatives who were skeptical of Trump in 2016 but are all-in in 2024 are the wildest case-studies in self-delusion."
 -- Sarah Longwell, publisher of the conservative news site The Bullwark
     September 13, 2024​

It’s been fascinating, but not surprising, bordering on the edge of reality where the intersection of pathetic and hilarious meet, to read all the various reactions by MAGOPs cornered by Trump's devastating loss at the debate and desperately try to come up with ways to explain it as a win.

It's a loss that a CNN poll had viewers saying VP Kamala Harris won 67-33, and an Ipsos poll had her winning 54-26.  (Many more undecideds, but an even bigger margin.)
 
The MAGOP whitewashing of reality began immediately after the debate with Trump claiming that non-existent polls had him winning with 90% of viewers.  And 71% and 80%.  The only thing surprising is that he didn’t say that it was even over 100% and make it easy on himself by not having to worry about margin-of-error.
 
And yesterday, Trump used this mythical result to defend why he won’t debate again, saying that since he supposedly won the debate all polls have said he was crushed by, only the losers call for a rematch.  Reality aside, he leaves out that this isn’t a boxing event, and presidential races have almost always had multiple debates, not “rematches.”

The problem for Trump in claiming that he is who won, despite all polls saying impactfully the opposite is the punchline of the joke, "Who are you going to believe?  Me, or your lying eyes?"  As former Republican National Chairman Michael Steele put it, "WWhen you come out and try to frame this the way Donald Trump is framing it after we saw what we saw, right. It's not like this was one of those things you only heard on radio or you just didn't tune in and missed it. No, a lot of people saw this."
 
A lot.  Around 70 million Americans saw it.  But because Trump insists he won, the most loyal MAGOP base has had jumped in, as well, despite all evidence that we and they saw, to explain away Trump’s humiliation (some analysts calling it the worst debate performance in presidential debate history) and claim -- like Trump -- that he really won, or at the very least that he didn’t actually lose because (of course) it was all rigged. 

Keep in mind that after President Biden’s debate, he acknowledged he did awful and even subsequently dropped out of the race.  But not in the MAGOP!  No, to them, painted into their corner, Trump didn’t lose the debate because Trump can never lose.  Never.  After all, Trump has said he doesn't go to confession because he hasn't ever done anything that requires it.  Indeed, it appears that in the MAGOP mind, Trump can almost literally do nothing wrong. He says he won the 2020 election, so they still insist he won the 2020 election. He says the only possible way he can lose in 2024 is if it's stolen. And so, that's what they believe to be true, as well.  And despite seeing him with their own eyes get pummeled in a debate, Trump says he won by 90%, and so they dig through the magical mystery toy bin to pull out every possible excuse why losing could not happen.
 
Willful ignorance is no virtue.
 
If you ignore reality, you can’t fix the problem.  If you insist a brick wall looming in front of you isn’t there and speed towards it at 90 MPH, you will crash into it and your car will be crushed.  Probably  you, too.  Not believing the world is round doesn't make it flat.  It only means you will be living in delusion.  And every choice you make related to that will be based on a lie.

The wall of reality always win in the end.
 
Among the more notable efforts to rewrite the debate reality was a conspiratorial-laced article by Matt Taibbi in New York Magazine.  Jonathan Chait of the publication posted a tweet promoting it, “An intriguing theory by Matt Taibbi."
 
Well…not so much.  Matt Taibbi's theories dropped far below "intriguing" long ago. They now generally range between "Got your attention, didn't it?!!" and "Well-typed."
 
Taibbi’s conspiracies to suggest Trump did far better than people think (among them, people who literally watched the debate) include him referencing a news release from the Harris campaign they posted on social media with debate talking points that, to Matt Taibbi, supposedly proved that her responses were prepared ahead of time.  This was an remarkable accusation since it involved twisting the reality of time -- that’s because the news release was posted and time-stamped after the debate, quoting things previously said at the debate.
 
Further, his additional conspiracy-flavored excuses for Trump further claimed that moderators rigged the debate by not bringing up a range of topics he listed – topics which had literally nothing to do with being President of the United States.  Subjects like that moderators never brought up “speech panic” (whatever on earth that is) or that Dick Cheney “suddenly” (Taibbi's word) endorsed Kamala Harris.
 
Then came the news story that one of the ABC moderators, Linsey Davis, was in the same sorority as Kamala Harris, and this therefore rigged the debate.  To be clear, the story didn't say that the two women had lived in the same sorority house and at the same time, and were close friends or even knew each other.  It just hinted that, or hinted at some double-secret sorority cabal.  In reality (that pesky reality again), Alpha Kappa Alpha is a national sorority founded 114 years ago, and has several thousand local chapters, with 360,000 members who live across 12 countries.  And in this reality, VP Harris and Ms. Davis went to completely different colleges, were in different chapters and did so in totally different decades, 13 years apart. 
 
In fact, I would suggest that in every presidential debate there has been some connection of some sort between moderators and the candidates, and arguably much closer than this.  Perhaps the same political party.  Or same college.  Or have had a friend who knows the same friend.  Or, very likely, that they’ve actually even met and did an interview together.  (Or, even more directly, are -- like ABC moderator David Muir and Trump -- both white men who've had careers on television.)
 
But there was Mike Lee (R-UT) outraged.  Mike Lee, who was profiled in this week’s The Atlantic for an article, “Why Mike Lee Folded,” noting he changed so much that by 2020 "he was trying to help Trump overturn the election". Mike Lee, who went from being outraged by Trump’s Access Hollywood “Grab them by the p*ssy” tape and calling for Trump to drop out of the race to now becoming full-MAGA and all-in on Trump, to the degree that he's considered a possibility to be Attorney General if Trump wins.  Mike Lee, who now tweets, “We are not a democracy.”  Outraged by two people who were in the same 114-year-old sorority 13 years apart among 360,000 members across 12 countries. Calling it “shameless.”  And decrying how “The left’s near-complete domination of broadcast TV couldn’t be more obvious.”

Fun Fact:  Broadcast TV is how Trump came to national fame by hosting The Apprentice over 14 years. 
 
And then there was dear Megyn Kelly, as well, who wrote yesterday about the “absolute gall” of the two women being in the same 114-year-old sorority, 13 years apart.
 
In fairness, Megyn Kelly’s standard for "absolute gall" is significantly lower than people would think, so that's important to know for perspective here. For instance, she also just wrote -- within hours of being "galled" -- that it was "disgusting" how Taylor Swift endorsed the Vice President of the United States.
 
Should ABC not have had a moderator from the same sorority as one of the candidates?  Tempted as I was to initially say "perhaps not" – I can’t say that because I doubt it would have even been a hiccup of an issue in any other non-Trump presidential debate in history, and because I doubt there haven’t been moderator/candidate connections in other debates that were far closer, and since I’m sure there would have been not a single peep of "outrage" if Trump had swamped VP Harris, rather than the other way around. 
 
But much, much more to the point, left out of these wounded cries by those trying to explain away Trump’s devastating losing performance, was how did Linsey Davis actually bias the debate???  And how did she make Trump say that he had no health care plan, but only a “concept of a plan”???  And how did moderator Davis make Trump bring up the fake, racist, ludicrous story about eating pet dogs and cats??  And how did she make Trump take credit a year ago for overturning Roe v. Wade and now claim that doing so was what “everybody” wanted???  And how in the world did Ms. Davis make Trump glower and refuse to look at Kamala Harris all night??
 
Y’know, pesky questions like that.  And many, many more.  But when  you find yourself cornered and trying to find any excuse for Trump being pummeled in the debate so that you can pretend he really was the winner, you grasp at anything.
 
Like when podcaster David Sacks wrote –
 
“If the debate was truly fair & impartial and revealed Harris to be a much deeper and more confident candidate than previously thought, why doesn’t she press her advantage and do all the press interviews & podcasts she can over the next month? She would win the election easily.”
 
Back in reality, Trump and MAGOPs have been saying for the past months VP Harris was "stupid" and "dumb" and that she would collapse at the debate without a script.  Well, oops on that, right?  And contrary to this very same reality, the cornered Sacks keeps up with that utterly foolish suggestion here, as well – totally oblivious that as the elected Vice President, U.S. Senator, Attorney General (twice) and District Attorney, she's done debates and countless interviews in the most populous state of the country – and across the country -- for 20 YEARS.
 
And, wait, before we go further:  he thinks Trump is deep???!
 
Further, while there’s far too much to choose from online, this one tweet speaks for much of the pure fantasy about what has become the MAGOP’s standard cry, contrary to everything they and the 70 million saw, that Kamala Harris was, as they've been told, "stupid" and incompetent and that therefore she did terribly, which means that Trump actually demolished her --
 
“If you haven’t noticed by now, Kamala Harris’s debate performance was scripted to the last word.
 
“Check her social media—every line, every pause, pre-planned for the perfect clip.
 
“This wasn’t a debate and Kamala didn’t treat it as such; it was a performance, with Harris delivering taglines, not thoughts.
 
“She was about as authentic as a three-dollar bill, she sticks to script because off-script is off-limits for her.
 
“No interviews, no podcasts, just the safe, rehearsed echo of her political persona. Everything about Kamala Harris is fraudulent.”

I have to admit, as far as unwarranted, fanciful complaints of her go, this one puts Kamala Harris in a truly great light.  After all, considering that apparently everything she said during the debate — every line, every pause, every thought pre-planned for the perfect clip, all of it there already posted on her social media site for anyone to see ahead of time, everything scripted to the last word, even every response to whatever unknown answers Trump would give -- all of that fully written out beforehand, and still Trump wasn't able to prepare ahead of time, despite knowing exactly what she would say, that is a seriously impressive skill of legerdemain to pull off.  To bamboozle your opponent totally even when he knows everything that is coming. 

It is a skill at a level akin to the great baseball pitcher Satchel Paige, who would sometimes tell the batter exactly what he was going to throw him, and then tell all the players on his team behind him in the field to sit down, because they wouldn't be needed -- and finally, he'd face the batter again and strike him out on three pitches.

It turns out that, according to so many MAGOP supporters, that was what Kamala Harris did to Trump.

And after striking out Trump on three pitches...so many of the other MAGOP supporters stumbled around, caught off guard by what they just saw, knowing it isn't supposed to be able to happen, until they realized they were just blinded by reality and cried out in joy -- "We won!!"  Explaining to everyone that when the other side does things you don't approve of, like embarrass and crush you on the facts because they were prepared and very smart, it doesn't count.

Self-delusion is a poor standard to live by.

But then, being told to ignore reality and then creating your own comforting, alternative facts are really the only way to actually get through life in MAGOP World.