Kamala Harris objectively destroyed a rambling, interrupting, and agitated Donald Trump in the first meeting of the two Presidential contenders. That reality hasn’t stopped the flood of excuses from his surrogates and followers. You’ve got to love the frankly hysterical, reality-detached narrative being spun by MAGA world around the debate moderated by ABC’s David Muir and Linsey Davis. I say “MAGA” and not “Republicans” because, as we know, there are millions of Republicans who have decided that whatever tax cut they might hope to get from Trump that is guaranteed to explode the deficit again is not worth having an aspiring fascist dictator and documented, admitted sexual predator in the White House ever again. Every day, more and more traditional conservatives and moderate Republicans are jumping on board the Save the Constitution and Democracy train to support the Harris-Walz campaign.
The level of delusion so many will stoop to defend Trump speaks to just how deep his “poor me” – “it’s everyone else’s fault” – “I’m not responsible for my own terrible performance”-victim-psychosis has become entrenched amongst his base.
From the whining garbage I’ve collected thus far on social media and other weird corners of the internet, the narrative goes something like this:
The overarching complaint is that it was somehow unfair to Trump. Again, it’s the “poor me” syndrome. The moderators and Harris ganged up on him to make it three-on-one, the story goes. Some even contend she was given the questions ahead of time, which is total bologna.
Then there is the crazy suggestion that she had an earpiece and was being fed the answers by someone smarter than her. Kamala Harris, who we’ve seen effectively grill and debate people dozens of times before, is an intellectual lightweight, they believe. Kamala Harris – a graduate of Howard University and the University of California Law School, a high-profile prosecutor, the democratically-elected Attorney General of the largest state in the country, the democratically-elected Senator from California, and now sitting Vice-President for the last three and a half years with on-the-job training and a front row seat to high-stakes-international meetings and top-secret briefings – it makes sense that she is not intelligent or qualified enough to be President. This is beyond absurd, but in their right-wing thought bubble, they’ve convinced themselves that Harris is not sharp enough despite all the evidence to the contrary. Have they heard the gibberish and bananas statements coming out of the GOP standard-bearer over the last ten years that speak to his mental deficiency? It’s a laughable assertion to question Kamala’s.
Within their reality distortion fields, there is no way she could have been prepared enough to answer the questions that well. What? Are people serious? Harris thoroughly prepared for the debate for weeks, as most candidates would. Everyone knew the possible topics the moderators would be pulling questions from. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that there was a good chance that abortion rights, border security, inflation, the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, the Jan. 6th riots, and Trump refusing to accept the results of the 2020 election would all be fair game for the debate.
Reality just doesn’t jive with all of the whining excuses you’re hearing in defense of “poor, poor” Trump. It’s important to point out some important details about last Tuesday’s debate between the two candidates that dispel this myth it was unfair. Let’s start with the fact that Trump got almost forty-three minutes of speaking time while Harris had thirty-seven minutes. So he had 15% more time to share his vision for America and sadly spent most of it lying about border and crime statistics, dissembling about “concepts of a plan,” and going off on a bizarre tangent about the legal, hard-working Haitian immigrants of Springfield, OH stealing and eating people’s pets. That last manufactured gimmick story by Trump and odd-boy Vance has caused real damage and disruption to that community in the form of threats and school closings.
It must be pointed out how many times Trump interrupted the moderators, and they just let him ramble on. There were multiple times when Trump had already given his response to a question, and then Harris got her turn. But then Trump interrupted the moderators and got the last word. I can’t tell you how many times I said out loud in my living room, “Are they going to cut him off? Cut him off. It’s not his turn anymore!” This almost invariably would be followed by a polite “Thank you, Mr. President” from David Muir. Undoubtedly, tens of millions of us found it maddeningly frustrating to watch him get away with it. Typical for Trump, he was in full bully mode.
Finally, supporters complaining about the fact-checking of Trump also need to remember that if a candidate isn’t making demonstrably false statements – like Trump does and gets away with regularly – then there isn’t a need to fact-check. They had every right to correct the record on the baseless claims Trump was making about the election he lost and an epidemic of pet-eating in Springfield, Ohio.
I would be remiss if I didn’t highlight my favorite part of the night, and it came from the Vice President: “Donald Trump was fired by 81 million people, so let’s be clear about that.” Mic drop. Truer words have never been spoken. It’s like a photo I saw recently of a yard sign that said, “Sometimes you have to flush twice.” We already fired you, Donald, for poor job performance. Why would we hire you again? I don’t think we will.