Opinion: The Debate Exposed Something About Trump That Most Of Us Already Knew

I don’t believe at this point that there are any undecided voters left. There are only two groups: the righteous and the racists, and that’s it. You either believe in democracy or are in favor of a dictatorship.

So the debate Tuesday not only seemed like a waste of time, but also a setup and a series of pitfalls for Democratic president hopeful Kamala Harris. Mostly because her opponent, former President Donald Trump, uses debates as a performance, only outdone by a WWE wrestler’s ring walk. He is boisterous, and flamboyant, and harsh — and he likes it that way. Trump-involved debates usually include illustrious lies, historical reconstructions (also lies), mythical figures (more lies), and elementary-school name calling. Don’t get me wrong, all of this happened Tuesday, but there were three differences that effectively made this debate less pomp and more circumstance, and completely exposed Trump for the drunk-off-power manchild that he has always been.

First, each person’s mic would be cut off when the other participant is talking. This was interesting because the Harris campaign initially pushed to have the mics live during the debate. But it was Trump’s camp that claimed he had agreed on muted mics with President Joe Biden before Biden dropped out of the race. Sure, both candidates did their fair share of talking into turned-off mics, but it caused less disruption and grandstanding than seen in previous debates.

Second, moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis were fact-checking Trump in real time, which didn’t stop his lies but added context to them. My favorite moment was when Trump went on a tirade about immigrants eating house pets.

Muir then noted : “ I just want to clarify here, you bring up Springfield, Ohio. And ABC News did reach out to the city manager there. He told us there have been no credible reports of specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community.” In response, the former president said, “people on television say their dog was eaten by the people that went there.” It was truly mind-boggling.

Which leads me to the third and most important point of the night: T here was no audience. No crowd. No applause, or groans, or gasps. The proverbial curtain rose and Trump had no one to play to, no one to play off of. No way to know whether his jokes were landing, or if he was hitting his marks.

Without the sound of collective laughter, Trump’s claims of zombie people eating dogs became surreal. In that moment Trump wasn’t just a fear-mongering old man; he was an old man who lost his place in his monologue and was just ad-libbing himself into embarrassment.

Harris didn’t just destroy Trump in this format. She dominated the entire debate from the very beginning. For all of Trump’s noted misogyny and tough talk about politics, Harris punked him in the opening seconds of the showdown before the actual debate even began. As Trump turtle-walked his way to the podium, it looked as if he planned on avoiding the vice president during the opening handshake. A spritely and spirited Harris walked past her podium right up to the president and basically dared him not to shake her hand. He caved. It was a power play that set the tone for the entire night.

Actually, the debate wasn’t as eventful as I hoped it would be. And that’s mainly because Trump wasn’t simply outmatched — without the court, he was just a jester.

The proverbial curtain rose and Trump had no one to play to, no one to play off of. No way to know whether his jokes were landing, or if he was hitting his marks.

The 34-count felon was being asked to stand on factual policy and actual plans that he has for governing the country. Not only could he not deliver, at times he also looked like he was losing it.

At one point it seemed as if all the talking points had gotten jumbled in his mind, and the confirmed thousandaire blabbed that Harris was attempting to run some kind of illegal prison transition workshop.

“Now she wants to do transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison,” he said. The line was so bizarre that it quickly went viral on social media.

Harris was right to note early on in the debate that we would hear all sorts of lies from the man who has really crafted lying into an art form that should be studied. But Trump doesn’t just lie, he reaches into the depths of fears held by many Americans. So it isn’t just that immigrants are flooding the country, it’s that migrants are coming from “mental hospitals” and “insane asylums” to kill and eat your house pets ― which is a racist dog whistle and horribly nasty lie about Haitian migrants who have come to take up residence in Springfield, Ohio.

But it wasn’t courtless jestering from Trump. He did have one zinger in which he told Kamala Harris, “I’m speaking. Do you remember that?” It was a play off the vice president’s viral moment in which she reined in former Vice President Mike Pence’s attempts to cut her off during the 2020 debate.

But who are we kidding, this was easily Harris’ night. She toyed with the president from the onset. She baited him into outbursts and factually incorrect and barely coherent responses. She poked and prodded until she got under the former president’s orange-tinted skin.

This was a masterful display by a former prosecutor who took every moment to remind the public that one of them actually did the work of putting bad guys in prison while the other is looking to cozy up to them. This could’ve gone horribly wrong for Harris, who was visibly nervous at the onset. But once she found her stride, it wasn’t even close.

If Trump did anything on Tuesday, it was convince undecided voters that Harris is the right pick for president. And that’s the rub. There aren’t any voters who are on the fence in this election. (At least I don’t believe there are.) If you were a racist before this debate started then Trump hit enough dog whistles to get you running to the polls to pull the lever for decaf Hitler. And if you were righteous at the start of the debate, then you left even more empowered.

But did any of this move the needle? Will any of this matter when it comes time to vote? Who knows. But do know one thing: If the zombie people who are eating house pets are allowed to vote, I’m going to be livid.