Kamala Harris was asked a very simple question to start off the debate this Tuesday night: Do you think that Americans are better off than they were four years ago? Her response was a long and irrelevant monologue that began with, “So, I was raised as a middle-class kid.”
What is the point of these debates? It’s certainly not so that our candidates can debate each other maturely and actually answer the questions posed to them. Is it so that they can rattle off their lifeless, uninformative prepared lines?
Is it so that we can hear Donald Trump claim that millions of people from foreign insane asylums are pouring into our country and taking our jobs? If you can wiggle your way out of a straight jacket in Venezuela, walk halfway up the continent while fending off a horde of angry (but imagined) Keebler elves, and then take my job, you deserve it. A person of such will and determination cannot be denied.
Predictably, the debate wasn’t about each candidate making an honest case about why they deserve our votes. It was more about who could make the other look worse with lies, exaggerations, and cheap, immature tricks. We got the same old Trump we’ve gotten in every debate – semi-improvising outrageous claims about baby killing and apocalyptic predictions with respect to the possibility of his opponent being elected.
Harris adopted the strategy of ignoring questions and instead baiting Trump into using too much of his time to defend himself. This was paired with a performative execution that appeared to be scripted down to the smallest facial expressions and mannerisms – in other words, an entirely manufactured persona. Her attempt at seeming disgusted at Trump’s stance on abortion came off as disingenuous whether or not she truly feels that way.
Contrary to what many commentators have said, the reason Harris edged Trump in the debate was not because the moderators only fact-checked Trump. To be fair to the moderators, Trump’s lies were much more extreme and shameless. It certainly didn’t hurt, but it was clear that Trump’s approach of spouting whatever absurd nonsense came to mind became too predictable and Harris prepared specifically for it.
“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs,” Trump proclaimed with the scowl of a true pet-lover. I commend him for having the composure to say that without at least smirking. Harris laughed at him for saying it, which is the appropriate response.
Later on, Harris was asked about why she had changed her stance on so many policy issues. While she didn’t answer the question, her jab about Trump being gifted $400 million by his father and his multiple bankruptcies did prompt Trump to go into an exhausting rant that only made him look worse.
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Trump retorted, “Well first of all, I wasn’t given $400 million dollars, I wish I was […] but I was given a fraction of that and I built it into many many billions of dollars […] defund the police! She has been against that forever. She gave all that stuff up very wrongly, very horribly […] now she wants to do transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison […] fossil fuel will be dead, we’ll go back to windmills and we’ll go back to solar […] by the way I’m a big fan of solar.”
He went on and on, meanwhile Harris smirked, laughed, and looked at him like he was unstable – all part of the performance. Trump even had to pause in the middle of it to say to Harris, “Wait a minute, I’m talking now. If you don’t mind, please.” Harris responded with the condescending grin you would give to your buddy’s sassy child.
Going by the rules used in school yard screaming matches across the country, Harris clearly won the debate, if only because the gathered crowd had already heard the recycled lies Trump used in his last diss battle with Biden and because Harris resorted to a tactic called “let the maniac say maniac things and then laugh and point at him.”
If we’re going by grown up adult rules, neither won anything and we should all be praying that there isn’t another one of these.
Rafael Perez is a columnist for the Southern California News Group. You can reach him at rafaelperezocregister@gmail.com.