Post-Debate Post-Mortem

To be honest, I wasn't looking forward to the Kamala Harris-Donald Trump presidential debate.  I was certain that Trump would own the stage with his talent for self-promotion and his innate media savvy and that Harris would come off as being too prosecutorial for her own good.  When I heard that Linsey Davis, not Rachel Scott, was to be David Muir's co-moderator for the ABC News-sponsored debate, I was certain that ABC News had gotten the wrong black woman to moderate the debate, because it had been Scott who had shown an ability to make Republicans squirm - not just Trump but GOP members of Congress, one of whom had told her to shut up when she asked about Speaker Mike Johnson's role in the January 6 insurrection in a press conference.  

Well, I needn't have worried. From the moment Harris entered Trump's space and forced him to shake her hand, Harris owned the stage and owned Trump. She was able to meticulously pick apart each of Trump's arguments for his re-election - which were mostly cast as arguments against Harris - and bait him into defending issues of vital unimportance like the sizes of the crowds at his rallies.  She particularly humanized the abortion issue by mentioning women bleeding out in parking lots.  Her expressions of disbelief with the things he was saying - inevitable, given his ludicrous statements - added to her domination of the debate.  And not only did she get help from Linsey Davis in calling out Trump's lies, she also got help from David Muir, especially on immigration.  That was supposed to be Harris's weakness but she turned it into a strength at Trump's expense when she spoke in clear, concise language that any moron - like a MAGA Republican or Trump himself - could understand in describing how Trump killed an immigration bill that would have hurt him politically had it become law.  In doing so, she baited an unsuspecting Trump into repeating the since-discredited story that Haitian immigrants in Ohio were eating pets.  (Apparently, Haitians are the new Koreans.)

Geez, it was like watching a sing-off between Sly Stone and Kid Rock.

Kamala Harris looked presidential.  Trump looked the dotty old fool he'd always made Joe Biden out to be . . . and worse. 

So now we can put aside our contingency plans to move to Canada in the event of a Trump victory, eight?  Kamala's got this right?  El wrongo!  The debate changed few if any minds.  Trump still has a whopping 46 percent of the cote locked in, because MAGA morons are determined to ignore Trump's flaws no matter how nakedly he exposes him.  Forget shooting someone on Fifth Avenue - Trump could have masterminded the 9/11 terrorist attacks and not lost any supporters.  He did mastermind (such as he did) the 1/6 terrorist attack on the U.S. Capitol and didn't lose any supporters - that's why Republicans continue to worship him like the false idol he is!

To those who still think Harris can't lose, look at this.

This is an overhead banner over someone's yard promoting Trump's presidential candidacy with a flag flown at half-mast, presumably to mourn the fact that a Democratic administration is in charge of the country.  Was this picture taken in Springfield, Ohio?  Lewisburg, Pennsylvania?  Racine, Wisconsin?  Warren, Michigan?  No, this wasn't taken in any of the swing states.  It was taken in heavily Democratic New Jersey, in heavily Democratic Essex County - in Caldwell, the birthplace of Grover Cleveland, the first (and hopefully, even after November, only) U.S. President elected to two nonconsecutive terms. (I'm the one who took the picture.)  While there are Harris supporters in Caldwell and other towns in northwestern Essex County, New Jersey, there are plenty of Trump supporters - most likely the same white folks whose families came from Newark and still blame people who look like Harris for that city's decline and who moved out to get away from said people who look like Harris.  And they never let you forget it.  Their pro-Trump lawn sign displays generally overwhelm Harris lawn signs.  One household in my neighborhood has a giant Trump sign on the lawn with a light focused on it so people can see it at nighttime.  Trump supporters in this part of New Jersey are not only proud of their support for their orange idol, they're smug about it.  And such people exist not just in the swing states but in all fifty of the states in the Union.

Kamala Harris insists, despite all of the numbers and momentum in her favor, that she's still the underdog.  The picture above is why.