The Republican nominee’s temperament was exactly the scenario that his advisers were reportedly worried about.
Former President Donald Trump’s volume slowly but surely ratcheted up over the first hour of the debate on Tuesday. He started off relatively calm, but as Vice President Kamala Harris needled him on his rallies, his standing in the world, and his legal troubles, he eventually blew up.
There was no sign of him calming down as the debate hit the home stretch and, as a result, his answers began falling apart, drifting into the same disjointed, incoherent ranting that Harris invited people to watch at his rallies.
He knew her strategy going in, because every media outlet talked about it and everyone in Darneld’s circle would have prepped him on it, but it still worked.
This dude has been a layup this whole time, but everyone has fucked it up, until Kamala & Walz came along. I think everyone else expected too much of him and his base, and assumed that simply enumerating his flaws was enough.
Kamala took a much more “show, don’t tell” approach, plucking his strings like a harpist in a mediaeval softcore porno, then standing back and letting the man embody and demonstrate his flaws unabated, laughing at him as he plays out the 3 lines of uncommented JavaScript that govern his emotional life. She could have late-term abortioned a Haitian cat right there on stage and it wouldn’t have made Dundald seem any saner by comparison.
Of course, a debate doesn’t mean all that much at the end of the day. The Dendald Tramp contingent of voters probably don’t have a lot of fence-sitter types who might be moved by it. You’re either all in with that “first image of a black hole” lookin’ motherfucker, or you’re mentally well. But still, history will keep this debate fat and watered for the rest of recorded history. It will be shown to up-and-coming politicians being trained for the stage. It will be a permanent thorn in Drumald’s side and he will ruminate on it for the rest whatever remains of his pointless life. And it will hopefully be listed in the textbooks as one of the key turning points in the electoral win of the first female United States president.
I didn’t watch it.
But my close personal friend who did watch it said she needled him but he largely didn’t pull a trump.
We’ve seen this a few times in trump’s . . . whatever we call the time period in which all things are awful because of him - anyway, once at his first SotU speech and another for some big important reason or other - he makes a concerted effort not to be himself and just read the teleprompter. Like he intentionally skipped his adderall and shotgunning a diet coke.
Apparently that was the case last night.
So now I’m wondering - does the article say that because my friend missed the signs that trump was ranting incomprehensibly as usual? Or is it MSNBC’s tack that they’re out front with a liberal take in order to drive the narrative that way?
I don’t know. I leave it as an exercise to the reader to question whether or not they watched it in real time versus saw clips and articles - and whether or not that difference has any weight with whatever voters are either undecided or are contemplating not voting trump.
Exactly.
I’m all for Kamala, I absolutely don’t want another Trump admin or even Republican admin of any sort, but there’s a whole lot of copium and hope huffing going on right now. She did ok, but he definitely didn’t get mad and didn’t go too far off the rails… The most absurd thing he said was about people eating pets, the rest was typical Trump stuff. I listened to it, not physically “watched” so I didn’t see if his facial expressions betrayed him, but he didn’t sound mad at all.
