CHRISTIAN WHITON: The Big Trump-Harris Debate Informed Little, Changed Less

Former President Donald Trump debated two newsreaders from ABC News along with  incumbent Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday night. Amid methodically lowered expectations ahead of the debate and softball questions, Harris did a serviceable job of masking her radical views and responsibility for the disasters that the Biden-Harris administration has created. Trump also held his own in what was largely a painful debate for all involved, especially the viewing audience.

First the optics, which drive most of how people perceive any TV performance. The split screen and muted microphones did no favors to Harris. When she spoke, Trump mostly stood steadily and faced the moderators. When Trump spoke, she grimaced, gawked at him, frowned, bounced around, and blinked wildly (a sign of stress). She looked like an activist prosecuting attorney skilled at slinging talking points, not a president. The angry Donald Trump whom Democrats hoped would return from his first unfortunate debate with Joe Biden in 2020 was absent.

Second, on substance, there wasn’t much. Harris offered three dud proposals for people who want to buy homes or start businesses, each of which were oddly absent from the past four years of the administration she helps lead and her preceding career in the Senate. Otherwise, she graced the audience with bromides like: “I was raised as a middle-class kid.” “My passion is small business.” “Let’s chart a path for the future and not go back to the past.” “Let’s turn the page and move forward.” And: “Can we please just have discourse about how we are going to invest in the dream of the American people.”

These were weaved with Harris’s now familiar aggrieved black woman act and schoolmarm persona that are just as off-putting to a large subset of voters as Trump’s casual imprecisions and insults are to another.

The real debaters of the night were ABC’s newsreaders: David Muir and Linsey Davis. If an alien from another planet had come to America and watched the debate, he would have assumed the issues voters care most about are federal regulation of abortion, the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot, the contested 2020 presidential election, the racial identity of one’s opponent and climate change. These were the issues that the ABC presenters thought warranted much attention. Surely, it is a coincidence that these are also the topics on which the Harris campaign would like to dwell instead of the looming economic, fiscal and national security fiascos created by the Biden-Harris administration’s policies and decisions. The presenters successfully interrupted Trump when he tried to pivot to issues about which Americans actually care.

This sad reality shows why the corporate media is in irretrievable decline. According to Gallup, a grand total of 4% of voters think abortion is the top issue in the election. Climate change and the environment score lower at 2%.

The economy is the most important issue, topping the list for 41% of voters, and immigration comes in second. These two issues are big losers for the Democrats. Therefore, addressing them is a matter of little importance to our media in contrast to defeating Trump at all costs.

Trump landed solid blows on inflation, national security and the toll that illegal immigration is taking on America — destroying “the fabric of our nation.” His wish to end wars is more popular with voters than Harris’s desire to continue them — especially the globalist project in Ukraine.

Like Muir, ABC presenter Davis jumped into the debate several times, asserting that post-birth abortion was not legal in any state — a misleading attempt to rebut Trump’s factual statement that the former Democrat governor of Virginia had advocated a right for post-birth abortion. Overall, Trump did pretty well on the abortion issue — supposedly the most perilous for Republicans.

But as with other issues on which Trump overstated his case, one wonders why he can’t give simple and accurate statements such as: “Democrats refuse to condemn late-term and partial-birth abortion or taxpayer-funded abortion. Like most Americans, I oppose them. My opponent does not. But the issue now rests with the states.”

Trump also failed to explain plainly how he will restore economic growth. That should be easy: by again cutting government regulations and preserving the lower tax levels he established instead of the automatic tax hike that will occur under a Harris presidency.

As a friend noted to me after the debate: “It’s amazing that two people can talk for 90 minutes and say so little.” This statement nailed the reality of the matter and leads to these conclusions:

• No one won. Because Harris did not giggle uncontrollably or meander incoherently, she will be declared the winner by a media that wants her elected.

• Harris obviously did a tremendous amount of preparation. She may be silly but she is not stupid or lazy. Trump was as prepared as he was when he faced Biden in June.

• The dynamic of the race has not changed. The minor Harris surge after weeks of favorable press following her installation as nominee stalled before the debate and is unlikely to resume. The race is tied.

• America’s media is revolting and Americans should have a say in how their media is constructed and operated. Something must give.

Ultimately, the question after the debate remains whether voters in swing states, especially Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, care more about inflation and the broader economy, illegal immigration and national weakness on the world stage, or abortion, January 6, and flowery language that says nothing.

The race remains one between two visions: that of the Three Fat Years of economic growth and security that Trump delivered before the pandemic and his ouster from office, or that of America becoming more like the decaying California from which Harris harkens.

Christian Whiton was a senior advisor in the Trump and George W. Bush administrations. This article was first published on Capitalist Notes on Substack.

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