Will it Make A Difference?

I'm Not Sure

The tell: That excessively blond anchor on Fox started, immediately after the debate, by slagging ABC, saying the moderators were much tougher on Trump. Brett Baier held his fire—he gets paid lots for doing that—and tossed to Brit Hume, the repository of experience and journalistic integrity at Fox: He said Kamala Harris won, bigly. He was quick to point out the Harris hadn’t been pinned down on various Foxy issues like defunding the police or offering sex change operations to migrants, but she won. (Soon after, the repulsive Hannity started slagging ABC as well. The party line, quickly cemented.)

Well, yes. The moderators were tough on Trump. Because he lied spectacularly and repeatedly and comprehensively. And they gave him, time and again, a chance to respond when Harris eviscerated him. Which he didn’t do very effectively. He was angry, and then more angry, and then incomprehensibly angry. She smiled, mostly in derision; he frowned. And pushed his ridiculous idea that this country—our country—is going down the drain.

Trump dealt in millions and billions and gazillions…all those millions of illegals streaming across the border who are no longer coming, all that crime which doesn’t exist, all those billions of dollars of US equipment left behind in Afghanistan, all those trillions wasted on wind farms, which are ugly…and solar farms, which spread out for miles and produce very little—although, don’t get him wrong, he favors solar. Sort of. No facts. No details. Nada.

Trump was terrible. No question about it. He was also ineffective. He never laid a glove on her. He was phenomenally incompetent, never pushing Harris on losing Democratic issues like racial preferences or—despite one near-incomprehensible attempt—sex change operations.

But Harris, at least to me, was still not quite there. She was really good, in control, unruffled. There wasn’t a moment, not one, when she was back-footed by her incompetent opponent. But she also didn’t do two things: She never confronted Trump about his ridiculous pessimism about America. She never said, Donald, why are you so down on our glorious country? Why are you always grinding America small? Anyplace else you’d rather live? And she never asked anything of us…she never said we can be better still if more of us put country first, never called for more service and sacrifice. She never said the basic truth—we’re pretty great, but greatness needs rigor to be sustained. This is the very easiest message of uplift that a candidate can provide. Just ask John F. Kennedy. She didn’t inspire.

But ok, it was only a debate and she couldn’t do everything—but did she do enough? I’m not sure. Trump didn’t go bug-eyed, hyper-ventilating, grand mal berserk. He never quite lost it. And I do wonder, in a country where nearly 50% of our fellow citizens consider this pathetic sociopath a plausible leader, how many minds were changed by this debate. It would be very depressing, but not implausible, if the needle doesn’t move all that much.

There is some hope, though: Trump knows. He knows he lost. That’s why he haunted the spin room after the debate.

And that will make him crazy. He will pursue more Haitians-eating-cats stories. He may even find a Haitian who barbecued a kitty somewhere. But he is spiraling toward idiocy. He still doesn’t know how to go after Harris. The old playbook ain’t working. His incessant scowl is not a pretty picture, it’s not what Americans—even, perhaps, some of his supporters—want to see from our leaders.

And, by the way, he was just being “sarcastic” when he admitted he lost the 2020 election? What a loser. But will his suckers see it?