This image of Kamala Harris during last night’s debate, looking bemused while Trump ran through a disjointed firestorm of lies that became ever more outlandish, encapsulates the “debate.” She kept looking at him like, “Oh, you poor pathetic old man. Don’t worry; it will all be over soon.”
Oh, what a beautiful mornin’,
Oh, what a beautiful day
I got a beautiful feelin’
Ev’rything’s goin’ freedom’s way
Here in central Mississippi this morning, it was overcast with intermittent showers from the farthest out bands of Hurricane Francine, which will pass directly over us tomorrow, but it was a beautiful morning for America, freedom, and democracy. The malignant narcissist-sexual abuser-ignoramus wannabe dictator who deals with hurricanes by changing their course with his Sharpie and tossing rolls of paper towels to people whose homes have been destroyed by a storm, the man who has put our nation through a nightmare for nine years, the man who churns out absurd lies by the dozen … was pummeled and humiliated last night by the next president of the United States.
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In retrospect, it was over from the start, when the Vice President confidently walked over to a mean woman-hating man who had no intention of shaking hands with a woman … as an equal (!) and forcing him to do so. Trump looked like the bratty little boy he has always been, fearful that a girl might have cooties.
Her first extended response was a bit below perfection, but after that she was in complete command … you know, like Trump imagines he is.
Kamala Harris had her way with the repulsive misogynist/racist for the rest of the night. It was almost too easy. She dangled one baited hook after another in front of him, knowing he could not resist biting down on them: crowd size, abortion, Project 2025, tariffs, “Donald Trump was fired by 81 million people,” “got handed $400 million on a silver platter and then filed bankruptcy six times,” “perhaps we do not have in the candidate to my right the temperament or the ability to not be confused about fact.” “And world leaders are laughing at Donald Trump. I have talked with military leaders, some of whom worked with you. And they say you're a disgrace.”
She called him—to his face—a disgrace, which of course, he is.
And, fool that he is, Trump actually “went there” with the latest insane internet hoax:
“In Springfield, they're eating the dogs. The people that came in. They're eating the cats. They're eating—they're eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what's happening in our country. And it’s a shame.”
Vice President Harris reacting to Trump’s “They’re eating the cats”
When ABC moderator David Muir told Trump that the town manager of Springfield, Ohio, had confirmed that there were no reports of any such thing, Trump dove deeper:
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, I've seen people on television
DAVID MUIR: Let me just say here this ...
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: The people on television say my dog was taken and used for food. So maybe he said that and maybe that's a good thing to say for a city manager.
DAVID MUIR: I'm not taking this from television. I'm taking it from the city manager.
FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: But the people on television say their dog was eaten by the people that went there.
DAVID MUIR: Again, the Springfield city manager says there's no evidence of that.
It was a perfect demonstration in real time before tens of millions of American citizens of the way Trump and the people in his cult consume disinformation: “I've seen people on television” and I’m so gullible that I believe such stuff with no attempt to determine whether it’s true.
Harris showed that this self-imagined emperor has no clue.
The debate was the 1927 Yankees vs. the 1962 Mets (or the 2024 Chicago White Sox). It was Alabama or another top SEC football team vs. some Division III team. It was the 1992 USA Olympic men’s basketball Dream Team vs. just about any opponent.
Trying to think of any presidential or vice-presidential debate performance anywhere near as bad as Trump’s last night (it was far worse than Biden’s in June), all I could think of was Admiral James Stockdale, H. Ross Perot’s running mate in 1992, looking like a deer in headlights and saying, "“Who am I? Why am I here?” Even Dan Quayle and Sarah Palin were not quite down to where Trump was last night.
Donald Trump basically agrees with the view of women Diz expressed in The Stepford Wives, “I like to watch women doing little domestic chores,” so perhaps the former occupant of the White House can take some solace when we describe what Kamala Harris did last night as “She wiped the floor with him” or “She hung him out to dry.”
And then, shortly after Kamala’s total wipeout of the pathetic old fascist, came the Taylor Swift endorsement. That could be worth a few million votes in itself.
Quite a night!
To turn from altering the lyrics of Gordon MacRae to doing the same with those of Bob Gaudio and the Four Seasons:
Oh, what a night
Mid-September in twenty-four
What a very special time for us
As I remember, what a nightOh, what a night, you know he didn’t even know anything
But he was never gonna be the same
What a woman, what a nightOh, he, he got a funny feelin’ when she walked over to him
And my, as he couldn’t recall, his campaign ended much too soonOh what a night, hypnotizin’ mesmerizing us
She was ev’rything we dreamed she would be
He should surrender, what a night
That sound you heard last night was the American people exhaling after nine years of dealing with an unhinged man.
As the soon-to-be Madame President said, “It’s time to turn the page.”
Is it really over?
Barring some really major unforeseen development, it’s over. A landslide for America’s Party, the Freedom Party, the Democracy Party (Democrats plus all others who believe in American ideals) is now a distinct possibility.
More on that in my next essay.