Congrats Partisans. You Know Your Candidate Won. But…
Congratulations. Your preferred candidate so obviously won the debate no one in their right mind can claim otherwise. It’s just not up for debate. Congratulations to you all.
But I’ll tell you exactly what I think.
The moderators were 100% biased, as I predicted. They put Trump on a stage to, more often than not, ridicule him.
They never wanted to fact check Kamala Harris. They repeatedly fact checked Donald Trump. Republicans should treat ABC News like it is a Democrat donor organization. If they wanted to be fair, the moderators could have fact checked Kamala Harris on her statements about Charlottesville, VA. That attack has been thoroughly debunked. Trump is right. But the moderators chose not to.
However, Donald Trump took all the moderators’ bait and all of Kamala Harris’s bait.
He chose to relitigate 2020.
He chose to defend those who moved into the Capitol. Ashley Babbit, for the record, was trying to smash her way through a window to let a mob get through a door as, literally, members of Congress were fleeing down the hallway on the other side of the door. The police officer was justified in using force.
He chose to claim his “lost by a whisker” line from the other day was actually sarcasm, allowing the media to reopen it all up.
He chose to take on rally crowd sizes at the expense of time on immigration.
He regurgitated the lies about household pets being eaten in Springfield, OH. They’re eating the geese, not the dogs and cats. The liars on the right got Trump to regurgitate their lie. He could have focused on the actual problems in Springfield, but ran with the lie from the idiots on social media. That, by the way, was the lead from CNN as soon as the debate ended — that Trump went with the thoroughly debunked “they’re eating the pets” line.
Again, they’re eating the wild geese, not the pets.
Twice, David Muir tried to get Trump to talk about Afghanistan — a strong issue for Trump. And, both times, Trump decided to talk about Vladimir Putin instead.
Harris was calm and forceful and lied through her teeth and ABC News was, of course, going to let her get away with it.
ABC News’s basic questions were, “Mr. Trump, why do you suck?” And “Madam Vice President, why does your opponent suck?” The moderators asked more questions about abortion than the economy.
But you don’t win by whining about the refs.
Trump took Kamala Harris’s bait. Over and over and over again.
Trump took the moderators’ bait. Over and over and over again.
It was not a good performance. I don’t care what the diehard partisans say who refuse to believe he can do no wrong. He performed poorly.
Low information voters are the last to make up their minds. They heard ABC News fact check Trump, not Harris. We can cry that it is not fair, and it was not fair, but it happened.
By the way, do you know why it was a poor performance in which he couldn’t help but take the bait?
Because Trump has put Twitter edgelords around himself and, like Kamala Harris in 2019, Trump is more interested in winning the fight on Twitter than the fight for the country. He brought Laura Loomer with him to the debate. He’s feeding on social media insanity, down to praising for Viktor Orban as if any normie in America really cares. He’s distracted by the edgelords’ stories of eaten pets, which is not true.
For you Democrats, however, Trump can, nonetheless, win this thing still because of the economy and immigration. But he is his own worst enemy and just can’t help himself.
If you’re complaining about the refs, you’re absolutely losing. But I do think the GOP really should focus loudly on ABC News’s very biased debate with no fact checks of Harris. That might actually seed in low information voters that the debate moderators were unfair. Notwithstanding that, Trump got the most talking time and his performance while his lips were moving, regardless of the fact checks, is what did him in.
Advantage Harris. In a country as polarized as we are, Trump fans can take solace that it is not much of an advantage in a deeply divided nation.
There are fifty-five days to go and early voting starts in Pennsylvania next week.
America, we’re screwed.
Thank you, Erick, for delivering a timely assessment. I'm still waiting for other conservative sites to send out an email. (Townhall did have a running blog, which was all over the place.) I've said since he got into politics that Trump is incapable of truly winning a debate. He's too lazy, self-important and self-satisfied to do the work of preparation necessary.
Sorry to bring up what could have been and what should have been: Ron DeSantis. Kamala and ABC News would have been left in shreds on the floor, and America would have had a chance for a bright future.
I watched ten minutes and was completely disgusted by ABC. Pissed off at Harris lying. And pissed off at Trump being and idiot talking about nothing. It was awful. On the only positive side, Harris sounded like the complete moron she is for the ten minutes I watched. Unfortunately. So did Trump. Good God. This should have been a lay up.