Whatever Your Politics, America Lost the Debate | Opinion

The fact that Vice President Kamala Harris “won” last night’s presidential debate over an enraged, incoherent, deceitful former President Donald Trump isn’t really in question. Expert analysts, betting markets, and voters polled immediately afterwards all agreed that it wasn’t even close.
The real question is, why should both parties—and even Americans who feel unattached to either party—be equally furious about it this morning? Because they clearly should.
A quick recap: for 20 minutes Trump managed—by his standards—to stick to a strategic game plan. He repeatedly talked about inflation and relentlessly pivoted to immigration: the two issues where voters give him the biggest advantage. Holding aside that he outrageously made up facts, the moderators started on his turf and he managed to keep it there.
Then Kamala ambushed him with a cup of coffee. At 9:29 she hit him where it hurts—in the rallies— calling out Trump’s weird harangues about Hannibal Lecter and windmills and then, the unkindest cut of all, shivving him with the observation that people leave his rallies early out of “exhaustion and boredom.” Never has a skin tone gone from orange to red so quickly.
From there it was all downhill for the former president. He immediately derailed into a long, weird rant about immigrants eating pets, based on an obviously false, thirdhand Facebook rumor (the father’s-cousin’s-former roommate sourcing sounds like something out of “Spaceballs”). By 9:36 he was bizarrely attacking federal law enforcement. By 9:43 he was trying to defend his multi-million-dollar inheritance in a ramble that redefines “word salad.” At 9:56 he delivered a verbal love letter to Hungarian dictator Victor Orban. Along the way he got baited into an extended shout-fest about his multiple indictments and conviction on felony charges. Apparently he doesn’t believe in Ronald Reagan’s dictum “when you’re explaining, you’re losing.”
Trump’s misery almost ended at the closing statements, where Harris successfully framed the election as “turning the page” between past (Trump) and future (Harris), while Trump fell into one final trap by doing exactly what prosecutor Harris had charged him with all night—demeaning the country—and calling America a “failing nation.” Almost, but not quite, because of how the world’s most popular entertainer—Taylor Swift—trolled J.D. Vance in the course of strongly endorsing Harris, and right at debate’s end when search traffic would be highest.
So, why should everyone by mad about all this?
Well Republicans should be livid…at Trump. Not because of their performative online ire at the moderators. That’s a red herring: David Muir and Linsey Davis hit Harris hard on her weakest point—the economy—right out of the gate and then pressed her all night on flip-flopping, the Afghanistan withdrawal, and the Biden administration’s border policy. As for the contention that they only fact-checked Trump and not Harris, um, yeah, that’s what happens when one person is continuously and outrageously lying and the other person isn’t (at a rate of 33 lies to 1).
The real target of Republicans anger and shame should be their own nominee. They should be asking themselves “why are we still in this horrible mess with a lunatic leading our party?” There are legitimate policy issues to query Kamala Harris about (and again, the moderators did). A functioning Republican candidate could have laid out a clear contrast.
But look back at the time-stamp list above of Trump’s strange digressions. Each one came at a moment when the moderators had cornered Harris with a tough question on an issue where she is vulnerable—immigration, crime, and her alleged flip-flopping on assault weapons and the border. She simply baited Trump into opening an escape hatch for her, and he did by turning the focus back to his own noxious self. This is why Republican party leaders are telling reporters on background that they hope Trump will lose so they can finally be rid of him.
And why should Democrats be angry after such a clear victory? Because no matter how much Harris crushed Trump, it is unlikely to matter. And that is because the entire presidential debate setup is not what it seems to be.
Presidential debates rarely make much of a difference in election outcomes. That’s clear from a mountain of studies. Or you could ask former Presidents John Kerry and Hilary Clinton, since Kerry beat George W. Bush in their debates, and Clinton’s debate performances supposedly “left the Trump campaign in ruins.”
And the reason debates almost never matter is that they are not intended to matter. They are not designed as a vehicle for helping voters make informed choices. They are built to be combat-sports-esque reality TV entertainment. ABC’s Jonathan Karl even Freudian-slipped it out in the pre-debate show: “Following the debate, we’ll toss it to our post-game show.”
What game Jonathan?
The entire setup creates a deranged equivalency. Trump is an adjudicated rapist, convicted felon, increasingly incoherent serial liar, and insurrectionist with unhinged, price-exploding economic ideas. Half of his own former Cabinet officials, especially senior military leaders, are begging Americans to keep him far away from the Oval Office and the nuclear codes.
Harris also has flaws, including some current and former policy positions that are too far left for many Americans’ tastes, and a tendency to sound a little too canned when she speaks.
The whole media ecosystem around debates is set up to make those two sets of things seem equivalent.
No surprise then that CNN’s panel of undecided swing voters complained of having learned nothing after a debate, since it tends to sanitize the incredibly abnormal and toxic. How can they when media discussion focuses on inane questions about who performed better in the perverse, dark art of debating: who pivoted, who zinged, who had a better resting face? Who cares? What exactly does any of that have to do with being a good president or improving our lives as Americans?
And that’s why all of us lost in the debate. Somehow a choice that should be stark—and so obvious—is likely to become even more obscure.
Matt Robison is a writer, podcast host, and former congressional staffer.
The views in this article are the writer’s own.