When I was on the high school wrestling team, I was the heaviest person on junior varsity and wrestled the opposing high school’s heaviest player. The problem is that once you get to a high enough weight class, there is no ceiling for “heavyweights.” And since you could wrestle at least two weight classes above or below you in tournaments, I ended up wrestling guys at least forty pounds heavier than me.
When you are a 5’7″ sophomore matched with a 6’2″ bowser, you really only have one strategy. You can’t beat him with strength or skill, so your only option is to be just strong enough to tire him out for at least two rounds. And then, when he is heaving for air and delirious with exhaustion, you have the chance to hook his left arm and neck to throw him across the mat.
Last night, Harris baited Trump’s vanity and threw him across the mat.
It was a bad night for number 45, especially since this was a consequential presidential debate. Donald Trump’s only objective of the night was to define an unknown vice president and her policies. And he had every advantage in doing so because Kamala Harris is the sitting vice president of an unpopular administration. In his arsenal, Trump has decades of footage displaying Harris’s shifting policy stances on issues as she climbed the political totem pole — how she once supported eliminating private health insurance or banning fracking.
However, Harris pivoted from any attempts to define her campaign and reminded everyone of the worst of Trump.
Because Trump, in fact, did what he does worse: lean into his vanity and forget the policy. I’m not even talking about his bizarre mention of immigrants eating pets in Ohio, which even if that was true, will not do anything to swing voters.
I’m talking about how he looked flustered and exhausted as he slumped over the podium. The reason why he beat Joe Biden in their debate is because he allowed Biden to decompose on stage without interrupting him. With muted mikes and controlled jabs from Harris, Trump became Biden and floundered like a breathless fish. He never focused on one issue at the time and devolved into a nonsensical babble on pressing issues.
For her part, I have been mostly unimpressed with Harris’s debate and speaking skills in the past. However, last night she demonstrated her effectiveness as a tactician. She knew where to press on the flesh and provoke Trump like a little sister to a disgruntled older brother. She jabbed him on his crowd sizes, and Trump instinctively reaffirmed his insecurities. She seemed mostly calm and pushed down any irate reactions to Trump while mentioning his criminal conviction.
To be fair, Harris did sound like a Pinterest board with recycled and prepared sound bites. There is no doubt that she was prepared well by her team because they knew this was her first real introduction to the American people. And to be also clear, I don’t think she is a notable orator by any means, but next to Chewbacca screaming at the moon, she sounded like Winston Churchill.
One of the worst parts of the debate for Trump was when he aired out his ridiculous grievances and conspiracy theories on the 2020 election once again to the great consternation of everyone. He’s clinging on to a lost election that nobody cares about. Do mothers in Michigan or steel workers in Pennsylvania really care about the 2020 election? There is no doubt that Trump lost to Biden in 2020, and obsessing over it will do nothing to move the needle for independent voters worried about their groceries.
This is the great absurdity of the debate. If Trump invoked a shred of discipline and focus on each issue, he could have tied the sitting vice president to the sitting president, which shouldn’t be a hard task. When asked about January 6th, Trump could have said “It was a terrible and regrettable riot that was inconsistent with my plea to protest peacefully at the capitol.” I know it’s hard to imagine him saying that, but he could have brought the attention back to the issues if he just had some semblance of control.
He could have focused on how the current inflationary cycle may be a preface to a hard-hitting recession next year. He could have noted that Harris played a huge role in covering up Biden’s obvious mental decline. In the final second of the debate, he finally mentioned that Harris had every opportunity to pass her proposals with a unified Democratic Congress and did not. But at that point, Americans may have already tuned out from such a dismal and self-destructive performance.
The Republicans can direct their ire at the bias of the moderators, which is merited. Moderators selectively fact-checked in real time Trump more than Harris. But Republicans can’t just blame everyone except their candidate who dropped the ball in the most important moment of the election so far.
Trump’s greatest opponent is himself, and that’s because he misses opportunities like a blind archer pointing the bow in the opposite direction of the target. The Democrats are rightfully celebrating that fatal flaw today.
Now, this presidential debate is likely the most consequential in modern history. And if you obsess over the RCP betting markets going into the debate, Trump had a five-point lead over Harris. As the debate progressed, that lead diminished, and today, Trump is trailing Harris by 3.8 points.
This could be seen as a purely reactionary switch to a terrible debate performance by Trump. And we should also keep in mind that the election is seven weeks away, which is a century in American politics. I don’t think this debate will wreck Trump’s campaign beyond repair, but if anything is proven by last night, it’s that Trump will never stop getting in his own way.
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