Thinkfest: Debate Thoughts

Some thoughts on the debate you probably haven't read anywhere else

I usually take at least a day to write about my thoughts on a major news event because I try to offer up takes that you haven’t already heard or read somewhere. I assume my readers don’t actually get their news from me (I really hope they don’t), but rather look to me to provide sometimes whimsical, sometimes serious, but always unique and insightful analysis of important issues of our time.

I had a lot of thoughts about the debate, and about 99% of those thoughts have already been thought of and covered by corporate and independent media alike. I’ll summarize my already worn out takes here:

Kamala Harris won the debate, by a lot. She prepared well. She was advised well. She got under Trump’s skin, obviously on purpose. She used her prosecutorial skills to do this. She used her political skills to emphasize the right points in the right way. Trump was a raving maniac most of the time. Trump took Harris’ bait at pretty much every turn, and thus looked foolish most of the time. ABC moderators were fair, offered more real-time fact-checking, which hurt Trump more than Harris.

Okay, got those out of the way.

Below are what I think are more unique takes and thoughts that you may not have heard anywhere else. I can’t promise that all of them will be 100% original, but I may expound on them in different ways than most pundits have.

1. Kamala Harris is much better at this presidenting thing that we ever imagined.

There are very few people out there that truly recognized Kamala Harris’ talent and abilities to perform at such a high level in such a hot spotlight. For most people, such as myself, Harris was known once she became a Senator and proved talented and capable as a tough and skillful questioner of Trump cabinet members. But with her convention speech and then this debate, she has truly come into her own, and has surprised me to the extreme.

2. This is the latest example of corporate media failing us

So the question is “why the hell did we not realize how talented she was”? I am a political junkie, a so-called high-information voter. But I had no idea she was this good. In fact, I recall reading several articles over the last few years that were highly critical of Harris’ abilities and temperament. There were what were essentially gossip columns about people being “disappointed” in her, or “questioning” her ability to rise to the challenge that could await her as the VP and potential heir to the presidency; about how tough she is on her staff, which caused high turnover rates for her team.

The bottom line is this: these stories were all bullshit. It’s hard to make this connection during the slow drip of stories over three and a half years. But looking back at them in this new light, it’s obvious that the media was painting a picture of Harris that either didn’t exist, or was at least a highly distorted version of what was actually a success story in the making. For example, perhaps she is tough on her staff and this prompted several people to leave. Is this bad? Not necessarily. It depends on your point of view.

But either way, the end result is that one of the most talented political voices in our lifetimes was stifled and potentially overlooked, largely because the media did not recognize it, and seemingly outright opposed it.

3. Trump surprisingly showed up for this debate

I mean this in a literal and figurative way. First, I was a bit surprised that he physically showed up to do this debate, although less surprised than at the first debate. Trump spewing craziness publicly in front of tens of millions of people is not really a good thing for him and he’s not smart, so debating is not really a good thing for him.

That said—and I know this may not be the most popular or welcome take—but he looks his best at these debates. I have to admit that I’m amazed that the debate version of Trump exists at all. If you see him speak in almost any other setting—organized or impromptu press conferences, rallies, etc.—he doesn’t seem like he would be capable of clearly putting together sentences in a sustained forceful way for over an hour. But the best he ever looks is at these debates. He just comes off much sharper at them than any other time. This is not to say he did well against Harris, or even Biden (it was more that Biden did existentially poorly). It’s just that he did well relative to how he usually does on a day-to-day basis.

Political scientists, historians, and psychiatrists will likely study this for years to come, but it is weird that he can be the lazy, slurring, psychopath that he is on the campaign trail and at his ever-expanding legal itinerary and then somehow turn into what appears to be an alert, coherent politician. Even in his most unhinged rants….he’s doing them fairly effectively. Is it drugs? There is reason to think so.

But the reality, drugs or not, and as much as we may not want to admit it, is that he is a genuine political talent. He’s a despicable person, but he has the talent and ability to do things that others can’t. This is why he managed to warp reality and mesmerized almost half the country for a decade, within a technologically, informationally, and media rich environment. In this way, his talent is more comparable to Hitler. But it is a high level of talent nonetheless, and therefore, he can’t ever be taken too lightly or underestimated.

4. The ABC moderations did well, but I’m okay with no real-time fact-checking during the debate

I made this point in my analysis of the Biden debate, but I liked the CNN version of moderation, which involved almost radio silence from the moderators in between the questions. The reason for this is that the debaters can and should function as the fact-checkers. The moderators should enforce the rules and ask the questions. Anything more than that can and will be perceived as being potentially biased at best and discrediting at worst.

So, it should come as no surprise that the fact that the ABC moderators did explicit fact-checks of a few of Trump’s statements caused a fury on the right, and immediately gave them the excuses they needed to discount the absolute beating that Trump took from Harris.

I do think that the moderators did very well, they were stoic in appearance and even-tempered and asserted their questions and fact-checking in a solid and serious manner. I also think that if you’re going to do fact-checking, then do it for the most egregious falsehoods that are uttered, which I think they did. They saved them for the after-birth abortion and dog- and cat-eating assertions that Trump made, which I thought was appropriate. But I also think that Harris could have just as easily and effectively taken down Trump on these ridiculous claims, and likely to better effect than if they are done by the presumably unbiased moderators.

5. I still love the muted mic effect

I also made this point in my writing of the Biden debate, and another article I wrote specifically explaining further why I think a muted mic hurts Trump.

The conventional wisdom is that if you unmute the mics then Trump will be caught interrupting and saying nasty things, which will make him look bad. It’s better to display to the public an unfiltered Trump over a filtered Trump, one might say. He is more harmed by making more people aware of his statements and behavior.

I agree with this on principle in general, but I think that Trump is in his comfort zone when he’s interrupting and causing chaos. He creates an ugly demoralizing atmosphere by doing this, which works in his favor, as it causes more disgust with the political process, which can turn a portion of the electorate. I, myself, have dreaded watching both debates so far, so much as to consider not watching them at all. If I had known that both of them would appear more professional and respectable, I wouldn’t have feared watching them.

Therefore, in a debate setting, I think it’s best to force him to follow rules and timeframes. This throws him off his game. Which is understandable since his lives the other 99.99999% of his life getting every little thing he wants exactly when he wants it.

6. This debate will not move the polls that much, but could affect the election to some degree

I think it’s unlikely that this debate performance will be a game-changer in the polls. Maybe Harris gets a one- or two-point bump here and there. But if you’re familiar with my writings at all, you might know that I don’t take the polls very seriously, so this isn’t something I’m worried about. I think Harris will win the election handily regardless of what the polls are saying.

But the unfortunate reality is that this debate mostly served as a litmus test for Harris among Democrats. It was a way to validate her candidacy after the traumatic Biden debate and post-debate fiasco.

She did this and more, and probably energized Democrats a bit more than they have been. This renewed energy, plus perhaps some undecided voters deciding to come into Harris’ camp after seeing how capable she is, will probably add more voters for Harris in the election.

But the polls won’t pick up on these relatively small numbers. Both sides are mostly dug in already and were just looking to the debate for morale purposes, and the overall polls will likely stay about the same.

Feel free to comment to let me know your thoughts about the debate or about my takes.