Yes, Trump got crushed in the debate, but it wasn’t the moderators’ fault
Former President Donald Trump, who regularly calls people stupid and weak, embodied those traits Tuesday evening in front of 67 million people.
Vice President Kamala Harris toyed with Trump for 90 minutes, intermittently dodging questions she did not want to answer, and joyfully watched as the Republican nominee melted down and radiated a Chernobyl-size explosion of incoherence.
This is really not open to debate as anyone with a triple-digit IQ and not part of a cult could see. Who are you going to believe: spin room performance artists or your own eyes?
I am not sure who Trump reminds me of more: a more insidious version of Chauncey Gardner, the man-child who gets all his impressions of life from television, or Otto West, the intermittently calm but easily triggered weapons expert who detonates whenever anyone calls him stupid.
I don’t know the impact of the debate, nor does anyone else yet. But unless you are delusional, you know Harris played Trump perfectly, although baiting the most easily unhinged narcissist on the planet may not be that impressive.
What has been mostly lost because of Trump’s slow-motion implosion is that Harris did not answer the first question she was asked (“When it comes to the economy, do you believe Americans are better off than they were four years ago?”), would not say if she supported any limits on a woman’s right to choose and elided or misstated facts on immigration and other subjects.
You can say the moderators, ABC’s David Muir and Linsey Davis, should have pressed her harder — or at all — and that is valid. (More on their job as moderators in a bit.) But any candidate with any self-control and self-restraint would have shaken off her barbs about his rallies and his policies and homed in on the openings she gave him and confronted her. To not do so was … stupid and weak.
But Trump simply is not capable of swimming past the bait. His solipsism is breathtaking and omnipresent, so he is responsive to either obsequiousness (why yes, trust Laura Loomer and Matt Gaetz to help you) or the slightest of needles (your rallies are boring).
I have a different view of these debates and of the moderators’ roles and responsibilities than some, but they come from experience. I have moderated dozens of debates in Nevada races, up and down the ticket, and I had my 15 minutes of fame (actually it was five) on one presidential debate in 2016.
First, let me say that muting mics in a debate between two people vying to be the next leader of the free world is so embarrassing. It should never have been on the table. I also don’t think there should be time limits and that the moderators should decide when a subject has been vetted.
More importantly, it is absolutely part of the interlocutor’s role to fact-check during a debate. A moderator should not just be there to ask questions and then sit back, wait and then ask the next question. A robot could do that.
The moderator should guide the discussion, let the candidates go back and forth and if someone says something patently false, call it out. This requires intense preparation, and it is not easy. You will miss stuff.
But, of course, the candidates should be prepared to fact-check each other. Harris challenged Trump numerous times about his falsehoods and record. But when she exaggerated or misled — Muir and Davis should have been on this — Trump was more interested in apocryphal man-eats-dogs-and-cats stories.
If you are a smart and strong candidate, the moderators shouldn’t matter. You go directly at the opponent, force him or her to answer.
Yes, I plead to having sympathy for Muir and Davis, and I think people miss that they asked questions that needed to be asked and even pointed out Harris’ flip-flops, even though she was not properly called on them, I thought.
But. But. But.
I will keep repeating this, and I still believe it is the most salient issue as we approach November. These two things are not the same: Trump’s stream of lies and bizarre ramblings vs. Harris’ evasiveness on abortion or immigration or anything else. One shows unfitness for office; the other shows a politician being … a politician.
Proportionality from the media is important during and after debates. In fact, post-debate is when the impact will be known, and maybe not for some time. The coverage, the viral snippets, the lasting impressions. We should all be cautious about declaring who won and who lost; it only matters what the voters think, mostly those in seven battleground states, including Nevada.
The debate impact may be ephemeral or nonexistent with so much baked in already. But it’s not surprising that Harris is channeling Ernie Banks. She knows she won, and so does anyone who can look at this dispassionately, even if there are fewer and fewer of those people left.
The only counsel I will dispense — and to myself, too, every day — is to ignore Twitter as any kind of bellwether. (I still call X by its first name.) Elon Musk has turned the site into his Trump-boosting plaything, where he shows irresponsibility with an important megaphone. His constant tweeting of nonsense and amplifying other garbage tends to drown out the bleats of Democrats and progressives who expect the media to parrot their positions and never criticize Harris.
Ignore the screeching, ignore the trolls, ignore the chaos. If you don’t, you will be as stupid and weak as Trump was Tuesday evening.
Jon Ralston is the CEO/Editor of The Indy.
