The big debate finally happened between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. This was Trump’s second presidential debate this year.
You could say that this debate went better than the last one for the Democrats, but maybe the debate with Biden in June is exactly how they wanted it to go down. Biden demonstrated to the world that he has dementia or some kind of severe cognitive issue. This led the way for a replacement who might have a chance to beat Trump.
While Trump did make fun of Biden a few times, he missed the opportunity to ask Harris how long she has known that Biden has dementia. He also missed the opportunity to ask who exactly is running the country right now, because it obviously isn’t Biden.
The “Moderators”
The debate was hosted by ABC. The two so-called moderators of the debate were anything but moderators. They were prepared to “fact check” Trump and did so frequently.
Trump made a point about some Democrats even supporting abortion after birth (infanticide). He referred to the former governor of West Virginia, but I believe it was the former governor of Virginia (not West). But this isn’t what they fact checked him on. One of the “moderators” said that there are no state laws on the books allowing for abortion after birth. But this wasn’t Trump’s point. His point was that there are some who advocate it, and most Democrats won’t state whether they support a ban on late-term abortions.
I was surprised that Trump did not go after the media at all. It was obviously his plan all along. It might have been a good plan so that he didn’t come across as combative. Still, it reaches a point of absurdity when the two “moderators” are obviously trying to argue with Trump on behalf of Harris.
I don’t think it would have been in poor taste for Trump to say to the “moderators” something like, “Would you like to come up here on stage and join Ms. Harris at the podium so that you can debate by her side?”
Even though the “moderators” were heavily biased, I don’t think it hurt Trump much, if at all. If anything, it was so blatant that it just showed they were on her side. Anyone who liked what they said were already against Trump anyway.
Cultural Issues
The cultural issues play into Kamala Harris’s hands, or at least they seemingly should. When it came to abortion, I actually think Trump won that piece. He didn’t really answer the question about whether he would sign a national ban on abortion, but he did rightly say that it would never happen.
Maybe this is my bias, but Trump got this issue almost completely correct. He said that he and the Supreme Court finally overturned Roe v. Wade. He said it tore our country apart for over 50 years, and now the issue is back with the states where it belongs. I only wish Trump were so in favor of states’ rights when it comes to other issues.
Predictably, Harris brought up Trump’s remarks on Charlottesville. They keep going with this lie that Trump referred to white supremacists as “very fine people”. There were people in Charlottesville that day who aren’t leftists and aren’t white supremacists, but they want to pretend otherwise.
Harris also started fake crying talking about January 6th and how it was the biggest threat to our democracy since the Civil War. She laid it on a bit too thick on that one. She tried to be so dramatic about it, but I just don’t think most people care about January 6th other than those who want to say that Trump supported an insurrection.
Of course, there are those of us who care about January 6th because of the weaponization of the “Justice” Department against those who don’t support the establishment. Trump rightly pointed out that nobody died at the Capitol except for his supporters. And despite what Harris said at the convention, it wasn’t an armed mob at the Capitol. The only armed mob was the Capitol police who killed at least two people.
Trump was asked about saying that Kamala Harris used to not say that she was black. He said she can call herself whatever she wants and that he doesn’t care. I actually thought this was a decent response. When it was Harris’s turn, she was salivating. She was just eating the whole thing up. She probably wishes the whole debate could have been on personal attacks and cultural issues, along with Trump talking about the election results from 2020.
Economic Issues
The debate started off with the economy. Harris never answered the question on whether Americans are better off today than they were 4 years ago. I thought she could have had a better answer prepared. She probably should have at least acknowledged that many Americans are suffering with the high cost of living.
Trump was mostly a disaster on this, as he talked about imposing more tariffs. He also talked about immigration ruining our country. This was a theme of his for the night. I think it is a bit of an over-exaggeration to blame our economic woes on illegal immigration. It might be one factor, but government spending and regulation are the big culprits, along with the Federal Reserve.
Trump said that Harris was adopting many of his policies and that he was tempted to send her a Make America Great Again hat.
Harris said that she favored tax cuts for the middle class, including an expansion of the child tax credit. Where has she been for the last 3 and a half years? Why doesn’t she tell Biden to do it right now? Trump pointed this out at a later time, but I thought he could have pointed this out even more.
In fact, I thought Trump should have hammered home more points on the economy. That is the number one issue for most people. They are struggling to pay for high insurance costs and high food prices at the grocery store. Trump did not focus on this enough, even though his solutions aren’t really the right ones for the most part.
Foreign Policy
There wasn’t a lot of talk about foreign policy, but it did come up. Harris tried to play both sides of the fence with Israel and Gaza. The glaring contradiction, which Trump won’t point out, is that the Biden administration keeps funding Israel and sending weapons there that are used to bomb Gaza and kill innocent people. How can Harris be against the loss of innocent life in Gaza when she and Biden are funding it and continue to do so?
Of course, Trump is also bad on the issue of Israel. He says he will work out a peace negotiation, but he doesn’t say how. He ridiculously claims that the October 7th attacks in Israel never would have happened if he had been president at the time.
When Trump makes the claim that Putin wouldn’t have invaded Ukraine if he was president, this might be closer to the truth. But it isn’t because Trump is feared and respected as he says. It is because there is a possibility that Trump would not have ignored Putin’s concerns about Ukraine joining NATO and the U.S. putting missiles on the Russian border.
Both candidates are bad on foreign policy, but Trump seems to be less bad. When asked whether he wants Ukraine to win, Trump correctly said that he wants people to stop dying. I don’t know what a victory means for Ukraine if a quarter of the population ends up dead. With a victory like that, I think I would rather “lose” and live under Russian rule.
On Ukraine, Trump is definitely better than Harris, but we can never know for sure what he will do in office.
Conclusion
I doubt that many minds were changed from the debate. It wasn’t a complete disaster for either side, and neither side did great.
The debate wouldn’t cause a person to switch from one candidate to the other. Maybe that is the case for a tiny fraction of one percent. It matters for those who may or may not vote for the preferred candidate.
I am a libertarian who would never support Harris. I disagree with Trump on many issues, but I see the possibility of at least a few good things happening if he is president. I would consider voting for Trump for defensive purposes, but I may vote third party or write in a name. The debate did not bring me any closer to a decision.
There is a small but still substantial percentage of people who supported Kennedy. Kennedy has effectively endorsed Trump. Now the Kennedy supporters are grappling with whether to vote for Trump as the lesser of two evils. I’m not sure that Trump said anything in the debate to reach out and get some of these people.
I give the slight edge to Trump in the general election, but a lot can still happen. No matter what happens, I maintain that it will not be good in the short run.
If Harris wins, then we get an authoritarian president with more war and more spending. If Trump wins, we will get more spending and still some war but possibly not as much. But we also get the reaction and hysteria if Trump wins. Will we get another virus? Will we get riots in the streets again?
The election will be interesting, but times won’t be fun in America no matter what, at least in the short term.