No Minds Were Changed

A quick take on a disasterous debate. ABC should never host another debate ever again; Harris lied and grated; and Trump was defensive, angry, and devoid of a strategy.

The closing statements have yet to be made as I provide a brief response to a disappointing and forgettable debate between our two presidential candidates.

Oh, sure, both sides will spin that their candidate won. Harris folks will claim victory with a big boost from their clapping seals in the legacy media for exceeding rather low expectations. She was prepared. That’s fair, she was, and she did. She was aggressive and never descended into the word salads she’s infamous for, even as she failed to answer the opening question (are we better off?).

She also came across as smarmy, arrogant, and grating, even unattractive with her antics on camera when Trump was speaking. Kamala Harris is not someone I would ever want to have beer with, or even be seen in the same room with, to put it mildly.

Trump never bothered, obviously, to prepare for the debate beyond his voluminous recent media interviews. Devoid of, or failing to implement a strategy, he was defensive from the start, totally taking a loss - an incomplete pass, at best - on what should have been a touchdown first question - are we better off now than we were 4 years ago? He appealed to no one more than his current followers. He also was unattractive to persuadable voters. The happy warrior we saw in the June debate with Joe Biden disappeared.

Donald Trump found a way to blow the answer to the best opening question he could have hoped for. Mon Dieu.

I wouldn’t want to have a beer with him, either, or even a Diet Coke, since he doesn’t drink alcohol. He did nothing to make me want to vote for him, even though I will.

This debate will harden loyalties and change few minds. It leaves us many of us wishing that we had different candidates. I was checking my watch at 9:30 p.m. EDT, and could hear people changing their channels after the first 30 minutes, if not sooner. It was that bad.

ABC’s moderators, in the meantime, made the fatal mistake of fact-checking Donald Trump but failing to do so with Harris’s voluminous lies, from abortion “bans” to her position on fracking and even spewing the widely-debunked “Charlottesville Hoax.” Not once. David Muir and Linsey Davis join Candy Crowley in the presidential debate Hall of Shame. ABC should never be allowed to host a presidential debate ever again. Muir and Davis failed to drill down on issues real people are about. They clearly were all about helping and protecting Harris. The fix was in.

There was way too much attention on abortion and January 6, 2021, and not near enough on the economic and crime challenges facing average Americans. I can’t imagine voters in Peoria, Tulsa, Spokane, or Fort Collins being impressed, inspired, or even informed about what they saw or heard tonight. David Muir and Linsey Davis certainly weren’t thinking of them. I don’t watch ABC, and certainly won’t start now. But I will be canceling my Disney plus account (Disney owns ABC) and will never visit a Disney property ever again.

I know, it’s usually bad form to complain about the refs in sports. It masks the bad performance of your team. I get that. And there’s no doubt that Democratic activists consider tonight to be a big win for their side.

No matter which side you’re on, I’ve never been more depressed about this election. Nobody won this debate, but ABC clearly lost more than anyone. Along with the rest of us. I’ve never hated the media more than now.

Do yourself a favor and watch the Kennedy-Nixon debates from 1960, or most any debates before 2012. They were substantive and informative, and mostly well moderated. How far we’ve descended.