Commentary
Trump stumbles into Harris's trap, but the election is (somehow) still uncertain
Given the circumstances, Kamala Harris passed the test with flying colors. The Harris campaign even posted the entire nearly two-hour-long video unedited as an election ad on social media the next day.
It is highly unlikely at this point that the U.S. presidential elections could be decided by positions laid out in a debate. If anything, this campaign, solidly anchored in post-truth, only brings confirmation that there is no dialectical solution to Trumpism (just as there was no such solution in the courts). Almost half the country doesn’t consider his coup attempt disqualifying, nor his serial lying (now amplified by the new “Disinformation Minister,” Elon Musk).
Thus, it might be the case that in the game of chasing the vanishingly small group of “undecideds,” who might be crucial in tipping the scales, superficial-level perceptions could turn out to be the important ones – if not to change anyone’s opinion, then at least to motivate turnout, which could prove decisive (especially in the handful of swing states where the game will be played).
Against the background of the two candidates that the polls keep showing as seemingly inescapably neck-and-neck, one of the remaining potential variables could have been a catastrophic debate performance by Kamala Harris, which would have exposed her as incompetent or incapable of handling the man who had, after all, managed to defeat a seasoned politician like Hillary Clinton.
Her primary goal in the debate, watched in prime time by 70 million Americans, was to introduce herself to the disengaged masses who, after the sudden passing of the torch from Biden to her, had really only seen the new nominee at the Democratic Convention, a highly choreographed and controlled media event.
The debate (to which the candidates could not bring any notes or have any contact with their staff) was, in short, the necessary test of political readiness, without a script or a safety net. Harris came to it with a reputation as a sharp questioner from her years as a prosecutor; however, she also had on her record the less-than-stellar performances in the half-dozen debates she took part in at the time of her failed 2019 presidential bid. In short, between the two candidates, she clearly had more to lose.
Given the circumstances, one can say that she passed the test with flying colors. It was an undeniable success, to the point that the Harris campaign posted the entire nearly two-hour-long video unedited as an election ad on social media the next day. According to the polls, 63 percent of debate watchers thought she was the winner versus only 37 percent for Trump: a striking result given the level of polarization mentioned above. Even Fox and other right-wing TV channels at least acknowledged that Trump had run into difficulty, although they generally blamed it on the perfidy of the “radical left” and the bias of ABC’s supposedly treacherous moderators.
The truth is that from the moment Harris came out on stage with a surprise move, going to shake Trump’s hand (“Kamala Harris. Let’s have a good debate.”) Trump remained off balance and defensive. It was soon clear that she had a well-prepared and expertly executed plan: provoke her opponent and let him paint himself into a corner. Harris did this repeatedly (mentioning his small crowds at rallies, world leaders laughing at him, the world's dictators manipulating him). And Trump took the bait every time, launching into furious rants in which the usual staples at his rallies (supposedly legal “post-birth abortions,” schoolchildren indoctrinated into being transgender, and even the latest bizarre meme accusing Haitian immigrants of eating cats) all made an appearance, doing just what Harris wanted: giving off the image of a naked, incoherent would-be emperor. At one point, the fake news started to merge together by the sheer logic of free association (“mandatory sex change operations for illegal immigrants in detention!”).
Against this backdrop, even Trump's points that had the greatest “winning” potential (that is, if one ignores his own militarized and mercenary hyper-capitalism), such as Biden's disastrous decision-making in the wars in Palestine and Ukraine, landed weak and ineffective.
The archetypal format of the presidential debate was set by the first contest between Kennedy and Nixon in 1960. After that first debate of the television era, many pundits gave the victory to Nixon, who had been more comprehensive on the details of his program. But in the days that followed, it became clear that the young and tanned senator from Massachusetts had won over the viewing audience with his telegenic and relaxed demeanor, while Nixon had been tense and sweating under the studio spotlights.
Since then, the prevailing view has been that you can see who really won a debate by watching it with the sound off. In this realm of performance, Harris clearly prevailed, displaying an ability to embody, with her posture, expressions and tone of voice, the sardonic outrage and incredulous exasperation that her supporters experience – a visceral and basic human reaction when exposed to national-populist drivel.
It might be a bridge too far to expect her performance to win over the unpersuadable followers of her opponent, or even just the undecided; but at the very least, she demonstrated her competence and “fitness for office” to the latter and the country at large. Most importantly, at least in the space of one debate, she made the image of Trump losing real and tangible.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/trump-inciampa-nella-trappola-di-harris-ma-la-vittoria-e-incerta on 2024-09-12