Originally published at: Commanding debate performance hands Kamala Harris the club - Boing Boing
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Last night’s thread: 09/10/24 Debate play by play thread - #260 by OhHai
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That’s how you fight a bully and a grifter. And she did it in a forum that was pre-disposed to treating them as equally qualified for office.
After she hit her stride and started pushing his buttons, even the moderators seemed inspired to call the hatemongering thug out on a few of his lies.
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The fact that they came prepared to call him out on the Springfield-Haitians-eating-pets thing struck me. I wonder if the “In no state is it legal to kill newborns” line was also teed up.
I was worried that the post-debate analysts would be all aflutter over her facial expressions. Remember them making a mountain out of Al Gore sighing once? But it seems like the mainstream opinion has already (rightly) crystalized on her having beaten him handily.
I hope she comes to the next debate with a line prepared “Look at me, Donald, and tell me [whatever]”. If he does look, if he doesn’t look, he loses.
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The Beltway inside-baseball club couldn’t say anything about the amusing and deliberate facial expressions and body language because ABC had to focus the cameras on both candidates when either’s mic was muted. If they criticised a candidate reacting silently and effectively under the rules of the debate, they’d effectively be saying that the game they pre-approved is flawed and they won’t do that.
The best they can do is praise Biff’s glowers and attempts to be heard when muted as equally good. I’m sure some right-wing pundits will try.
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Now’s the time for Harris to unilaterally schedule another debate, and call him out for being too scared to attend.
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Was that one of the rules of the debate, like muting the mics and putting Harris on the right? (I didn’t read anything about that.)
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I’m not sure, but either way ABC had to do it to “make for good TV”*. The pundits may disagree on a lot of issues, but they’re united in their insistence on politics primarily being about spectacle and drama and personalities (with policy and issues a lesser priority). That’s how we got a reality TV star as a candidate in the first place.
Speaking of which, her line about the American electorate firing Il Douche was especially good.
[* a phrase that regularly leads to all kinds of evil]
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Fortunately, the NYT is here to tell us that undecided voters are concerned by Harris’s failure to provide adequate policy specifics, unlike, say, Mr. I Have a Concept of a Plan, whose somewhat nebulous positions apparently won their unhesitating approval.
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Watching the dotard flail was the whipped cream topping on my schadenfreude cake.
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At first I was really annoyed that no one was pushing back when Trump returned to his gross misrepresentations of how tariffs, NATO, etc. worked, (I’d really love for someone to publicly say, “Wow, you still don’t understand how this works!?”) but then he started outright lying and rejecting her facts and replacing them with information he clearly had just pulled from his backside. At that point I realized there was no point in pointing out his lies and lack of understandings as he’d just further lie about it. But that also means there’s no point in even having a debate - with no common set of facts, it’s totally pointless because no actual debate is possible.
I just wonder how this went over with people so ignorant of reality that they’re still on the fence. Could they tell Trump was just making things up? Did they notice that he completely failed to answer a single question? Were they aware that he failed to articulate even the vaguest outlines of a policy while attacking her for insufficient detail on hers?
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One of the recurring themes of the debate was that Trump kept bringing up things “he saw on TV,” like executing babies after birth or immigrants eating dogs and cats. Makes me wonder if his advisors and debate prep team ever tried editing themselves into his Fox News/NewsMax/OAN television feed in an attempt to get through to him.
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There are several times when I wish she had quipped a one sentence response about XYZ being untrue, or “that’s not how XYZ works”, like in the case of the tariffs. Or even simple, “That’s a lie. ABC is what is actually happening.” Or ask the open ended question about why Pence isn’t Trump’s running mate this year. (maybe she did that and I missed it).
But - arm chair quarterbacking aside - this debate was 100x better than the last one. I could actually watch it (and did for some (most?) of it). He looked like a seething, bitter old man repeating his same rhetoric and coming up with new hits like people eating cats. If you aren’t on Twitter, you have to be sitting there going, “What the fuck is he even talking about?” I really can’t imagine if you aren’t already one of the MAGA faithful that his performance would sway you, but I dunno.
They did manage to fact check in real time a handful of things, which I guess is all we can hope for. But they also let him ramble on 9 minutes more than Harris. Maybe that will end up being a good thing. Give him enough rope, so to speak.
Harris sounded like a typical, but stable politician. If you yearn for some normality in US politics, she is a the clear choice.
It’s a bit ironic that the party demonizing the press is also using it as a defense for why you should believe the crazy shit he says. “It’s all fake news, except the part about illegal aliens eating cats.”
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One of the exchanges that stood out to me was when she brought up “very fine people on both sides” from Charlottesville. He responded by saying that story had been debunked, and then listed a long line of crazy right wing talking heads who had “investigated” it and seemed like all of us who heard him say it live should just forget that. And when Laura Loomer is one of your “dependable references,” you may have fucked up.
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“Well, that settles it, I’m totally voting for her.”
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I heard one pundit this morning who said it was “inexplicable” how von Clownstick kept taking Harris’ bait. I sincerely wonder how one can be considered a political expert with so little knowledge of his narcissistic and adolescent character. It was a real “are you familiar with this guy?” moment.
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