To say that Kamala Harris nailed it in Tuesday evening’s debate is an understatement. She knocked it out of the park. She mixed civility with firmness. She made Trump look and sound just like the blubbering fool he’s.
This was Harris’s first presidential debate. It was Trump’s eighth – together with his debates with Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020. However Trump was worse than he has ever been. All he did was assault. His solely weapon was concern. His solely means have been lies.
Trump claimed that the American financial system beneath him was higher than the financial system beneath Biden and Harris, and that beneath Harris the financial system can be ruined. In truth, beneath Trump, America misplaced virtually 3m jobs. And Trump’s unforgivable failure to comprise Covid in addition to different superior nations required large authorities expenditures that fueled inflation.
Biden and Harris, in contrast, have presided over an explosion of job development whereas inflation has been tamed.
On the difficulty of abortion, Trump claimed Democrats need to kill infants after they’re born. When questioned about January 6, he charged that Biden and Harris have been chargeable for the investigations and indictments that focused him.
Harris, in contrast, answered the questions requested of her – clearly, cogently, powerfully. And she or he drew sharp contrasts with Trump.
However it wasn’t a lot Trump’s shambolic responses that gave Harris the massive win. It was her method, in sharp distinction to his.
She set the tone by strolling over to Trump firstly of the controversy to shake his hand and introduce herself. He appeared flummoxed.
All through the following 90 minutes, she stayed in management. She was the grownup within the room. She smiled at his brazen lies, after which scolded him about them. She was accountable for her info and arguments and refused to stoop to Trump’s belligerence or develop into rattled by it.
Trump interrupted, though his mic was purported to be muted – which is how he managed to get 9 extra minutes of speak than Harris. No matter how a lot time he had, he stuffed it with shouts, harangues and repeatedly bogus claims.
Harris’s most vital problem was to introduce herself to the American public as powerful and competent. She did that beautifully.
She additionally understood that the one technique to take care of Trump’s assaults was to hit him again more durable. In doing so, she confirmed a mix of ferocity and self-discipline.
Regardless of a month of favorable protection, 28% of voters within the current New York Occasions/Siena School ballot mentioned they nonetheless wanted to study extra about Harris, in contrast with solely 9% who mentioned they wanted to know extra about Trump.
On Tuesday evening they noticed a frontrunner.
Her second problem was to separate herself from Biden whereas additionally taking applicable credit score for the Biden-Harris administration’s achievements. An amazing majority of voters say they need the following president to deliver “main change”.
Harris did that. She confirmed herself because the agent of change. She spoke of her plans for serving to small enterprise and households. She talked about how she would get up for a lady’s reproductive freedom. She was powerful on overseas coverage and defined the significance of Nato. She was clear and forceful about strengthening American democracy and the rule of legislation.
Harris spoke of a “new starting” for America. What does this new starting include? She didn’t have to speak about her youth, gender or ethnicity, as a result of these attributes have been apparent. It was her optimistic vitality – in distinction to Trump’s overwhelming negativism – that drove residence the purpose.
The “new starting” is a brand new technology of management.
Trump tried to color Harris because the candidate of the established order. He didn’t come shut, not simply because he’s an ageing, cantankerous white man. He failed as a result of he got here off as a multitude of a human being.
When she mentioned Individuals have been prepared to show the web page on the politics of the previous and attempt collectively for a greater future, she didn’t must do greater than make the slightest gesture towards the ageing, raging fount of grievance standing on the opposite facet of the stage.
Her third problem was to goad Trump into exposing his out-of-control self. On this she additionally succeeded.
She rattled Trump to the purpose the place he couldn’t comprise his nastiness. He known as her a “Marxist”, and accused her father of being one, too. “She’s been so unhealthy,” he sneered. He claimed Joe Biden “hates her”. He charged that Harris “hates Israel”, and he or she additionally “hates the Arab inhabitants”. He known as her “the worst vice-president within the historical past of the nation”.
On and on Trump went, into the darkish depths of his private malignancy – accusing her and Biden of all the pieces Trump himself has executed (similar to take cash from overseas governments) and all the pieces he goals to do (similar to deliver down American democracy).
Harris’s closing assertion didn’t even point out Trump. She didn’t need to. By then the selection was clear – both Trump’s bottomless negativism, pessimism, lies and anger, or Harris’s affirmative view of America and its infinite prospects.
Trump’s closing assertion (he gained the coin toss to shut final) was even darker. We’d develop into a failed nation if she have been elected president, he predicted. We already are on the way in which to turning into one, he mentioned.
Harris gained arms down, however what issues most is whether or not the few voters who earlier than the controversy have been unsure about learn how to vote now determine to help Harris over Trump. Most pundits thought Hillary Clinton had gained her three debates with Trump.
With election day simply eight weeks away and early voting starting inside days, what Individuals inform each other about tonight’s debate will probably be determinative.
Not less than one voter named Taylor Swift selected the idea of tonight’s debate to go together with Harris. In an Instagram put up to her greater than 283 million followers, Swift mentioned: “I’m voting for @kamalaharris as a result of she fights for the rights and causes I consider want a warrior to champion them. I believe she is a steady-handed, gifted chief and I consider we will accomplish a lot extra on this nation if we’re led by calm and never chaos.”
Swift signed her put up “Childless Cat Woman” and included a photograph of herself holding her cat, Benjamin Button, who has appeared on the duvet of Time journal together with her.
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Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public coverage on the College of California Berkeley and the writer of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Widespread Good. His latest e book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Repair It, is out now. He’s a Guardian US columnist. His publication is at robertreich.substack.com
