Kamala Harris wins debate by knockout, but her fight is far from over – DNyuz

If Tuesday night’s presidential debate had been a boxing match, it probably would have been stopped by the referees the moment Kamala Harris took the stage and had to practically chase a bewildered Donald Trump into a corner so she could shake his hand.

Or maybe it should have ended when Trump looked different very early in his career than he did when he looked tired and unhappy and suddenly went crazy and railed against the threat posed by roving immigrants who had come to America to eat our pets.

Maybe it was Harris’s deft attempt to address the fact that Trump’s rallies were poorly attended, his supporters typically streaming out before they even showed up. Or maybe it was her absolutely devastating, exceptionally eloquent points about women’s reproductive rights, about Trump’s long history of racism, or about January 6.

It was clear that Harris had won by a knockout on all the judges’ scorecards when, moments after the debate ended, American influencer Taylor Swift announced her support for the vice president and her running mate Tim Walz, accompanied by a photo of Swift apparently holding one of the cats that had not yet been eaten by visitors from another country.

Harris won the debate in every way imaginable. She won on substance, backing up every answer with hard facts. She won on punches, delivering devastating blows to Trump while he couldn’t even hit her. She defended herself expertly, calling out his lies and disparaging him over and over again with scathing references to his character.

If there was one aspect of the lively, energetic debate that really stood out, it was that Harris took the high road throughout, addressing the needs, concerns and hopes of the listening audience, but she did so while occasionally delivering a well-timed punch that called out the crimes and character flaws that had inflamed and upset him. Though certainly smaller in stature, it was clear from beginning to end of the debate that Trump was out of her league and punched well above his intellectual weight.

The debate also made clear that, for all the accomplishments of Joe Biden’s distinguished career, the gentle decision to step aside and let his vice president run against Trump was the right one. In this debate, Trump was the energetic, retired contestant. Harris made a compelling case that she was the voice of a new generation, with a clear vision for America’s future that Trump simply couldn’t keep up with. (Nothing illustrated this better than his response, when asked what he planned to do to replace Obamacare: he said he only had “drafts of a plan.”)

In a normal world, the fall campaign would have effectively ended with Trump’s drubbing in Philadelphia. But this is not — as the rumors of puppy-eating gangs in our midst reveal — a normal world.

Harris will undoubtedly benefit from her extraordinary performance. (Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC rightly called it the best presidential debate performance we’ve ever seen. I’ve thought about it a lot and I can’t think of anything that even compares to it in terms of effectiveness, efficiency, and eloquence from beginning to end.) She should. It’s another extraordinary moment in her campaign, one in which she faced a make-or-break moment and not only rose to the occasion but far exceeded expectations.

But don’t expect her lead to grow in the polls in the coming days. It will probably grow, but only modestly. Part of that is, of course, because many polls are seriously flawed. But it’s also a consequence of the fact that we live in a country where the members of our two political parties get their information from completely different sources.

If you watched the debate or listened to any reasonable analysis, it was clear to you that Trump failed and Harris won. But if you listened to the MAGA broadcasters or followed MAGA voices on social media, you got a different story. Trump’s campaign released a statement declaring victory in the debate a half hour before it ended. GOP commentators screamed that the ABC moderators for the debate were being deeply dishonest because they actually fact-check the former president periodically. I saw comments on Twitter saying that Harris shouldn’t be calling Trump names or making fun of him… because it was undignified. (Of course, Trump was talking about illegal aliens eating Fido, but let’s just leave that aside for now.)

There is a term some media outlets use to describe citizens susceptible to MAGA spin or Trump lies (and he lied at a tremendous rate during the debate — ranging from claims that Russia would never have invaded Ukraine if he had been in office, when in fact Russia invaded Ukraine two years before he took office and attacked them for every minute he was president — to the truly spectacular lie that everyone, “Democrats and Republicans,” wanted Roe v. Wade overturned, which must have come as a huge shock to the two-thirds of the audience who actually opposed that action.) They are called “uninformed voters.”

But even if you read just a few bits of Trump’s debacle on Tuesday, I think you’d still have to say that he should not be president under any circumstances. That’s why I think Trump’s real base isn’t the low-information voters. It’s the uninformed voters. These are people who just don’t want to hear about the world as it is. They just want to hold on to the prejudices and misconceptions that got them here in life. Or they don’t really care about facts. They know that Trump will implement whatever tax cut or culture war initiative they support, and so they’re for him, whether he’s incompetent, criminal, a threat or not.

Unfortunately, if we look at current polling, a significant portion of Americans fall into this category of uninformed voters. They are the ones Trump once said they would vote for even if he murdered someone on Fifth Avenue, and who then proved it by continuing to support him after two impeachments, an insurrection, 34 felony convictions, being convicted of rape, stealing state secrets, and being deemed by historians to be the worst president in history. And they are the reason that no matter how brilliant Harris’ performance was — and it was extraordinary — and no matter how embarrassing Trump’s faceplant was — and it was lame — he will retain the support of 45 percent of the electorate no matter what.

“While voters who don’t trust information may be out of reach, there are millions of others who will ultimately be convinced by facts and by the clearly superior character and vision of Vice President Harris.”

—David Rothkopf

Which means that while Tuesday was a major milestone in this election campaign, Harris and Walz, to win, will have to continue to deliver such performances over the next 55 days or so. Day in, day out. Particularly in swing states. Particularly among those whose minds may have been opened a little by the vice president’s effective arguments in Philadelphia.

They should do this with the same combination of hard-hitting, fact-based arguments and canny commentary on Trump’s flaws and dangers. They could even use some video clips from this week’s debate to make their points. There are some doozies, after all. (Guess his Roe v. Wade bragging rights and his rehashing of the Big Lie and his defense of the January 6 insurrectionists.)

If Harris and Walz do that, the no-information voters may be out of reach, but there are millions more who will eventually be convinced by facts and by Vice President Harris’s clearly superior character and vision. And if they pursue those undecided voters as relentlessly and effectively as Harris pursued her opponent on the debate stage, the Democrats will ultimately achieve the even bigger, lasting victory they seek on Election Night.

The post Kamala Harris Wins Debate with Knockout, But Her Fight Is Far From Over appeared first on The Daily Beast.