The Morning After

 
For months, I’ve been saying to friends who’ve called me up with news about polls – as well as writing here – that no polls really matter until after the presidential debate.  Last night was why.
 
I’ll have some thoughts on specifics, but they’ll be random for what stands out.  But it’s the larger, general view that I think is most at issue.  And it’s a view, as admittedly biased as I am, that I often tried to watch from the perspective of an undecided voter.  So, I tried to balance the two perspectives together.
 
And that larger view is that throughout the evening, Kamala Harris presented her ideas of what she wants to do.  Whether or not one agreed with those positions, let alone would be able to accomplish them, is a separate matter.  But she generally let voters know where she stands on them.
 
And when letting voters know, she spoke directly to them, at times turning away to address Trump to his face when challenging him, occasionally looking almost bemused by the bewildering things he was saying.
 
By contrast, Trump scowled all night.  In fact, 30 seconds into the debate, I noted that if he was that dour this early, he was in for a rough evening.  Further, I don’t think he looked at her once.  Perhaps worse, when he spoke it was generally to the moderators, not viewers.  And he spent the night criticizing – not just Kamala Harris,  but pretty much everyone.  And that included top people in his own administration who had left, as well as Kamala Harris’s father.  Now, of course, some watching might like his criticisms, but they were solely about the past and had next to nothing to do with plans for the future (at one point, even admitting that he didn't have a plan) and attracting new voters.
 
Further, being Trump, he was unfocused and jumped all over the place.  When asked about how he’d try to end the Israel-Gaza War, he not only didn’t offer any suggestion, but talked mostly about Ukraine.  When asked if he wanted Ukraine to win its war, he didn’t answer.  When asked if he regretted anything about any of his actions on January 6, not only didn’t answer, but talked about immigrants crossing the border illegally.
 
Important, too, Trump and MAGOP operatives went into this debate lowering expectations for Kamala Harris.  Saying that she was “dumb” and “stupid”.  And that she wouldn’t be able to talk without a script, that she would collapse on the debate stage.  So, his base was anticipating that.  Even during the debate, huge Trump supporter Elon Musk tweeted that she was beating expectations.  (But not my expectations, certainly, nor those of probably most Democrats, just those of MAGOPs only who had bought into the flim-flam they were presented, contrary to the reality of Kamala Harris being a former U.S. Senator, Attorney General, District Attorney and career prosecutor who had been doing debates and interviews for 20 years.)  And so that foolish positioning by Trump and his allies profoundly backfired.  How much did it backfire?  In what is a very close general race with voters divided, a CNN poll reported that viewers said VP Harris won the debate, 63% to 37%.  (To add perspective to this, poll analyst Nate Silver wrote that when someone wins a presidential debate, it's usually on average by 18 points.  So, winning by 26 points is especially significant.)
 
By the way, I don’t necessarily think Kamala Harris was “great” in all that she said, but (more importantly) she was “great” in triggering Trump and baiting him to respond as horribly as he did.  To be clear, I think she was very good in many of her responses, and great in some of them, but there were places I’d have loved to have heard her go further or ask moderators if she could respond, and so she let some important points pass.  But I got the sense that her strategy was what I was hoping for, and she pulled that off impeccably – to get enough of her policy points across and also trigger Trump throughout the night, to get him to show himself horribly.  And in most ways, that latter was the most important thing.  And she was excellent at that.
 
I was pleased (and not surprised) to see that she hit many of the anticipated trigger points throughout the night.  Especially the most simple, basic ones. And notably the most basic one of all:  at the very beginning, coming on stage and just being who she is, a Black woman, as visceral a trigger as there is for Trump. She walked directly over to him (clearly uncomfortable, refusing to meet her in the middle, almost trying to avoid her) and firmly shook his hand, pointedly introducing herself with her name, “Kamala Harris,” pronounced correctly.  When it came to telling Trump he was wrong, she handled it smartly -- making it more generic, pointing out a few times that he wouldn’t be telling the truth all night.  And choosing specific moments to be brutal in explaining why he was wrong, a figure of ridicule.  I was glad, too, to see that she did indeed laugh at him several times, something he's said he "really, really, really hates."  And although she didn’t call him just “Donald,” like she does on the stump, she usually made it “Donald Trump,” never once “President Trump” which he dearly loves and prefers.
 
Overall, I thought the moderators were excellent. I know that many MAGOPs were upset with them correcting Trump, but in fairness (and very importantly), they did not do it as traditional “fact checks” (where you correct what was said and then move to the other person for a response).  Rather, they would provide Trump with a follow-up question to give him a chance to respond to what was inaccurate.  And the reason they did that with Trump and not VP Harris was not bias, but because…well, he was the one saying things that were untrue.  Also, in doing so, the moderators were giving Trump much more time to talk, something most candidates prefer.  In fact, MSNBC noted that he got many more questions than her 23 and five more minutes.  In part, too, Trump often asked for a chance to respond, while she didn’t.
 
That extra time for Trump was not necessarily a bad thing for Harris.  After all, one of her strengths in the debate was letting Trump dig his own holes, and she may have figured it was better to let his rants stand as the final word remembered.  The downside is that she didn't give many follow-up responses to his criticisms, and so some important points went unaddressed.  But since some of those corrections were made by the moderators in their follow-up questions to Trump, and since I suspect she was just fine letting Trump look bad on his own, it wasn’t a problem.  It just left a few things without a response to that, in a perfect world, I wish had been answered.
 
Which finally gets us to the specific moments of the evening.  And among the most galvanizing were  –
 
I think Trump's refusal to still admit that he lost the election (a question I've been long hoping would be asked) was deeply troubling for him.  And he made it worse by denying that just days before he actually, finally acknowledged barely losing -- and at first feigned ignorance of what he'd said and then switched to say he was supposedly just being sarcastic.  To the credit of the moderator, he said he'd watched the video and it didn’t look like sarcasm.  And then VP Harris took it to a higher level by saying Trump was not only confused by the issue of the election results, but how troubling it was he couldn’t seem to process that.
 
When it came to health care, it was devastating for Trump when he said -- after having been in office for four years and almost another four years since -- that he still had no health care plan to replace Obamacare, but only had a “concept of plans.”  Despite, when in office, repeatedly saying he had a big, beautiful health care plan coming in two weeks.
 
And it was ghastly when Trump not only brought up the “immigrants were stealing and eating pet dogs,” and then kept arguing the point after the moderator corrected him.  It made him look borderline loony.  As did Kamala Harris's expression of near-disbelief.

(Coming in second place for his most-unhinged statement of the evening, and admittedly that covers a lot of ground, was when Trump said that "Joe Biden hates you.")
 
I also think that for all her triggers and baits during the evening, her best was when she listed all the people high in his administration who didn't support him and thought he was a danger to national security, and when she said, as well – turning to his face to say it – that “military leaders have told me you’re a disgrace.”  And that “World leaders are laughing at you.”  Getting laughed at being something, as I noted, that Trump has said out loud at his rally that he “really, really, really hates.”  And he then made it worse by pointing out in his defense that Viktor Orban – Viktor Orban!  The authoritarian despot -- says he was great.  The only person Trump brought up.
 
As for other random thoughts --
 
Not surprisingly, her response on abortion was withering.  She didn’t refute Trump ludicrously saying that “all Democrats have wanted to send Roe to the states for 52 years” -- though on the upside, I’m sure that all people who didn’t want that (which is a majority of Americans) actually know that they don’t want that.  I also was sorry that she didn’t follow-up on Trump refusing to say he would veto an national abortion ban bill if was elected – but it was likely clear that he had refused to say so.  And I wish, too, that VP Harris had refuted Trump saying he was a leading champion for IVF.  Though given her undermining his position on abortion, and her look of ridicule when he said it, responding to his claim about IVF wasn't as necessary as it might have been otherwise.
 
I was glad she explained that Trump’s tariff plan was disastrous, and that many economic experts were saying so, although she didn’t get into it nearly as much as I thought the subject deserved.
 
Trump not only never answered about ending Gaza-Israel War, but veered off into talking about Ukraine.  I wish she called him out on it, though she didn’t get a chance to respond.
 
But also very troubling for Trump was that he wouldn’t say he wanted Ukraine to win.  And worse for him, VP Harris made an extremely important comment about how if Russia defeated Ukraine, it would be their first step to going into Poland, a critical issue in the highly- important swing state of Pennsylvania with 800,000 Polish-Americans.
 
I was also very glad that VP Harris brought up the deal for the U.S. to leave Afghanistan was set up between Trump and the leaders of the Taliban terrorist group, who he invited to Camp David, a deal that included releasing 5,000 Taliban prisoners.  And, by the way, Trump made up the name of the Taliban co-founder he dealt with!  (Something unfortunately not noted during the debate.)
 
Which only leaves the candidates’ final statements.  Kamala Harris used hers for giving the vision she had if elected.  Trump spent his time looking back and repeatedly asking if she wanted to do such great things, why didn’t she already do it?  (Never mind that she was vice president, and also that immediate problems -- like recovering from a pandemic -- often take precedence for resolving first, which is why Administrations want a second term.  Never mind, too, that many things didn’t get done because Republicans blocked them.  And that the whole concept of growth is building on what you have with expanded plans.)  More to the point, however -- there wasn’t a word from Trump about what he wants for the future.
 
But then, that was something Kamala Harris brilliantly dealt with when she invited people to attend a Trump rally.  Saying that you’ll hear him talk about Hannibal Lecter.  And windmills giving you cancer.  But the one thing you won’t hear him talk about is…you.

Last night did not remotely end the race.  It’s still extremely close.  But when 63% of viewers saying Kamala Harris won the debate, to just 37% for Trump, if that shifts votes only two percent…it is significant.  Because that also adds to momentum and is something that can be expanded on. 

And further, after having been ridiculed and raked over the coals, laughed at, and called a disgrace to his face by Kamala Harris (sorry, I mean, a Black woman...), I suspect we may see an even angrier, more unhinged -- yes, that's possible -- Trump, especially since dementia is degenerative.
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The one thing I don't believe we'll see anymore is Trump and MAGOPs saying that Kamala Harris is "stupid" and "dumb."  Though, if we do -- and this being Trump, who knows? -- it will be really "stupid" and even more "dumb."