The Great Debate and The Path Forward

Kamala Harris won the debate but she did so in a way that exposed the weakness of Trump and the vulnerability of his base. Being a woman helped.

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Kamala Harris delivered one of the greatest debate performances in recent memory. She rose to meet the moment, and we all witnessed the debate we’ve deserved for the past eight years.

She embarrassed Donald Trump. She emasculated him. A Black woman exposed Trump as an aging, feeble old man in mental decline. That’s important because the only two politicians that have brought Trump to humiliating defeat by standing him down in person have been women - Kamala Harris and Nancy Pelosi. There’s no question Trump assisted in the effort by being undisciplined, but more importantly his deep insecurities are most exposed when being faced down by strong women.

Women, of course, have known this all along but for men who just tuned in there was a big tell. It’s the tell of being dominated and its one every man knows because you’ve either seen it or shown it.

He couldn’t look at her. From a combination of anger and fear he was unable to connect with his eyes because she had commanded the dominant position on stage. A weak feckless bully was exposed. He knew it. By looking at her he would have to face that humiliation on a national stage and he couldn’t muster the fortitude to do it.

Harris accomplished everything she set out to do and more. At times, she was energetic, passionate, capable, competent, and appropriately aggressive and defensive. Her performance gave undecided voters or those who didn’t know enough about her the permission to pull the lever for her in the ballot box - she clearly met all of the 5 key criteria I laid out in a pre-debate post here to declare herself a winner and set her on a trajectory to victory.

Accomplishing all of this was no easy feat.

Harris did it. Masterfully.

How masterfully? According to the CNN Flash Poll, 63% believed Harris won, compared to 37% for Trump. To put that in perspective, those were the exact same numbers, reversed, after the devastating June debate between Biden and Trump, which sparked calls for Biden to leave the race.

Let me say that again. The post debate performances showed the exact same result. Biden’s performance was so devastating he was pushed out of the race by his own party. Republicans however are left with their own smoldering ash heap as they turn into the final stretch of the race.

I knew there was serious bed wetting going on in Republican circles when a prominent GOP consultant texted me out of nowhere in the middle of the debate “I think you guys are underestimating how bad she is coming across visually” he wrote.

“You’re guy is getting destroyed”, I responded.

“It’s not as bad as you think. A lot of these clips can be used for Trump in ads”

I could smell the desperation through the phone.

Photo by Rubaitul Azad on Unsplash

Nevertheless the response from both partisan bases after a crushing debate says a lot about where the race is at no matter how decisive the victory and humiliating the loss. Democratic leadership immediately bolted for the doors and jumped ship on their own sitting President, setting in motion a historic run of events that brought us to this debate. Republicans, for their part, have grown accustomed to being embarrassed by their drunk uncle at the dinner table and simply choose to collectively ignore it.

But can they continue to ignore it and win? Collective denial certainly is powerful when millions of people are committed to it. And as we’ve seen in the past, through convicted felonies, armed insurrection, blackmailing foreign leaders, paying off a porn star, being convicted of sexual assault and lying about election results the Republican base has learned that surviving means learning to compartmentalize. In the same way many children of alcoholics adopt compartmentalizing as a coping mechanism, Republicans have normalized amongst themselves the racist, senile rantings of their drunk relative at the Thanksgiving table. If they all pretend they don’t see it maybe no one else will either.

As they see it, even if Republicans are left holding on to this fake reality it’s better than letting go and flailing into the unknown. The GOP would rather hold onto its dysfunctional mess than have nothing at all. Republican voters, in deep conscious or subconscious denial of who is leading them, will never turn on their family patriarch. They can’t because they know everything is lost at the moment they do.

Even an intervention by the Cheney’s proved ineffective.

But after eight years of national disbelief and despondence, Harris’ debate performance demonstrated that a new shrewd awareness of Trump’s deep flaws and how to attack them has developed among Democratic strategists.

Women are a central part of this strategy. In fact, THE central part of the strategy.

She began by disarming him with a handshake, reversing the physical intimidation tactic he had used on Hillary Clinton. She set the frame by stating, “You’re going to hear a lot of lies tonight.” She goaded him by using the words “old and dated” half a dozen times. A woman was dismantling the false veneer of his strength.

However, the wheels came off for Trump when Harris attacked his rallies. Apparently, that was the line for him. After declaring that he has "the biggest rallies, the most incredible rallies in the history of politics", his benighted response? One of the most outlandish and frankly.... weirdest MAGA conspiracies, maybe of all time, "they're eating the pets". To be clear, the purpose of this attack on Black and Brown people has one goal: dehumanization. 

As Voltaire said, “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”

Harris has charted her path to victory. It’s a combination of reasonableness, confidence, and certainty. America is increasingly comfortable with seeing those as female virtues - we’re not completely there but we’ve progressed a lot just since 2016.

We’re unlikely to see much movement in the polls beyond a point or two, but it’s hard to imagine the small handful of undecideds moving in any direction other than Harris’.

Trump walks away branded as the man who put abortion rights under attack, fueled rising extremism, and is seen as an ‘old, tired’ man with ideas to match. He couldn’t say Ukraine should win the war and doubled down on The Big Lie about his losing the election. Somehow he views himself as a leader on….fertilization.

Harris fought Trump to a draw on border security and deftly made the case that she has a plan for an opportunity economy. While short on specifics and lacking a strong response to why she and Biden hadn’t implemented these plans during her tenure as Vice President, Harris still earned a passing grade on the issue of the economy.

According to CNN’s Flash Poll, Harris increased her standing among Independents by a stunning 17%.

To be sure, partisans were completely unmoved. The race remains remarkably close, and it will continue to be so. But she scored more points on enthusiasm and got a big break among Independents.

There’s still a long way to go in this race, but if last night was any indication Harris has a clear roadmap. The path to victory is there.

We’ve found that being a woman is an advantage.

Last night, she took the first big step in moving her campaign and the country in a new direction.