Even so devoted a bootlicker as Senator Lindsey Graham declared the debate a “disaster” for the ex-president.
Donald Trump is so feral and narcissistic, so unrestrained and so outside the norm of American politics, that he’s difficult to debate. It’s disorienting. Very few people have been able to stand up to him without being pulled into the muck. In the past, even when he lost debates on points, he dominated his opponents.
But on a Tuesday night in Philadelphia, Kamala Harris cracked the code.
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Trump was always broken. Harris just drew attention to it in the right way.
no but she really hacked him like a cyberpunk runner.
the issue of immigration is her worst and his best polling issue. so when she was answering that question she added this part about crowds leaving his rallies early. the moderator moved past that and almost helped him by refocusing the question on immigration but he just couldn’t let it go. he not only focused on the crowd remark, but also went immediately unhinged, screaming about people eating cats.
it’s like a fucking cheat code. look at his reaction to her saying people have early. it’s like the sound the game makes to let you know the cheat code is activated.
Right? Such an obvious trap and he jumped into it, head first. Fascinating to see
To attack a narcissist, you need to attack the cracks in the reality they paint for themselves.
It just so happens that as someone who has been an enthusiastic and professional grade debater for 40+ years, Harris also knew exactly how to do this without getting his mud on herself, and she knew to do it just as he was hoping to hit his stride.
It was great to watch. So many politicians from so many walks of life have been completely humiliated by Trump’s ridiculous persona. He’s so inflammatory, so full of lies, and so narcissistic professional politicians have been reduced to flinging his poo back at him. Instead Harris made him wallow in it.
I’m just pleased to see that they finally recognized how to debate Trump. He’s a fat fart of a narcissist who debates with a cloud of grievance and endless lies. He isn’t a regular candidate; he is simply a bully. And like all bullies, deep down he needs to make other people feel small because that’s the only way he can not feel small himself.
The mistake that so many others have made is that they treat Trump like any other ordinary candidate. Instead, it seems like team Harris actually sat down with a few psychologists, got to the core of Trump’s fragile psyche, and figured out how to break him. If he wasn’t such a cruel villain himself bent on ruining the lives of countless others, I would actually think such a trick is unfair and cruel. But sometimes you have to do what’s wrong in order to do what’s right. Trump is so consumed with his own ego that he is literally willing to order the extrajudicial imprisonment and summary execution of people who offend his ego. He is a dangerous man that cannot be allowed near any real power. And if taking advantage of his mental deficiencies is unfair play, so be it. I am willing to break the mind of a signal malignant narcissist if it means saving the Republic. I have no more sympathy for his mental illness than I do for those of countless dictators through history. The worst tyrants of the 20th century may have had some legitimate psychological illnesses that made them act the way they do, but that does not excuse their actions. Mentally deficient or not, they need to be taken down by any means necessary.
Hell, the only reason I don’t endorse violence to keep these people out of power is that it’s counter-productive to create martyrs. These people need to be shown as the fools they truly are. Only then can the spell be disrupted. If Trump’s attempted assassin had succeeded, a dozen baby Trumps would have quickly risen up following the same playbook. Trump instead needs to be defeated not with violence, but with total abject humiliation and defeat at the ballot box. He needs to die not as a martyr at the height of his power, but from old age, as a sad, tired old man, repeatedly defeated and ranting at the clouds, repeating facebook rumors, til his dying breath. THAT is how you defeat Trumpism. You have to break his psyche so fundamentally that he never recovers. He needs to be defeated resoundingly and made such a fool that no one will ever attempt his playbook again, or at least until his humiliation has passed from living memory. Ideally he will end up dying in prison. But regardless he needs to live to til the end of his natural life, making a greater fool of himself with every word he speaks, from now until the end, digging his pit of shame ever deeper. THAT is how you defeat a demagogue like Trump. You don’t out-logic him. You don’t kill him. You break him. You shatter what his left of his ego and mind. Leave him a blubbering fool trapped in the remnants of his own shattered ego. That is how you deal with Trump. You have no mercy, and you break him.
Holy crap she got me too!
I didn’t realize she pulled out that bait on the immigration issue! That was calculated as fuck!
her campaign is so fucking competent, it’s refreshing. she had the taylor swift ace up her sleeve and planned to play it that day no matter what
Yea, I feel like I didn’t see anything new from him. Kamala just lead him around like a dog on a leash, and exposed it better than anyone else has.
I don’t even think the immigrants would eat that dog
She applied the McGinnis technique.
One thing I’ve come to believe is that the extended media reaction to a debate affects public opinion more than the debate itself. The media don’t quite dictate viewers’ judgments, but they shape and solidify them. And what this string of posts is making clear is that on the day after Donald Trump is still losing the debate. He’s probably going to try to stage some dramatic bullshit to derail this media train.
Very astute observation. I think the only thing I disagree with is that I personally think the media do to a large extent directly dictate viewers judgements. Which makes the rest of your points even more salient.
He’s going to eat a live dog to prove how hawrable it is.
You projected puppy crunching noises and fur-muffled trump gagging noises into my brain, and it was so vivid I felt it would be a shame not to share that imagery with you. <.<
Absolutely. If the media outlets had decided that Trump won, then Trump won. Almost no one actually watched the debate. They only looked at “highlights” curated for them.
I mean, overnight numbers suggest it’s a second most watched TV event since Superbowl, but you’re not wrong in that people don’t necessarily pay attention or process it. Highlights are the part people grab onto and boy do we have a lot of good ones.
Do you have a link to the numbers, please? I’m curious if the international numbers are reported separately.
(Me and at least three other households I know watched it in Canada. My friend in VA did not, and hadn’t even heard about Fido til I mentioned it this afternoon.)
I would have but I’m getting conflicting numbers and supposedly the overnights aren’t as accurate. You’ve got the numbers from Neilson which were 67 million, that’s the latest guess.
And that usually excludes streaming, but I think it’s US (maybe Canada). Higher than the first debate, but oddly lower than 2020 (maybe cause of lockdown?). I think it’s missing a very sizable chunk from international and streaming, though. If I had to guess, it’s likely double. Hell, even Taylor Swift caught it streaming.
Thanks for the link!
I understand my very presence on lemmy makes me less representative of the mean but I was hooked from start to finish.
Wouldn’t be surprised if he replaced Vance with RFK Jr now as that would kill discussion of the debate.
He arguably can’t.
He and vance are on the ballot. So is RFK, funny enough. Which is why RFK is trying to get off the ballot in swing states. The reason Biden could tag Kamala in is that the DNC had not actually chosen a candidate yet.
My suspicion is that an exception would be made rather than run into the mess of leaving republicans unelectable in states. But it would still be a giant shitshow and not in a good way.
This may be a cynical take, but it would still be Trump on the top of the ticket, and the media would be immediately distracted from his debate failure. He would most likely come out ahead in the end.
That motherfucker been broke.
He’s been broke for a long time. The only thing he actually owns is debt, which he will never, ever pay.
🌎👨🚀🔫👨🚀
He should resign. Clearly he isn’t capable.
Resign from what, life? I’m on board that’s just an odd phrasing
Would not object. It’s been a good run, Donald.
Hes never had a good run
Shhh. You don’t have to lie. Not to him. At this point, I don’t think anyone’ll have to even tug on his reins; he’ll walk to the back shed on his own. Pick up the shells after. Don’t litter.
On that stage we saw the two things most capable of utterly destroying Trump: A prosecutor, and Trump.
Did nobody notice the moment when he tried to silence her and added, ‘sound familiar’ to make some sexist remark about telling women to shut up? “I’m talking now, sound familiar?”
She said “I’m speaking” to shut up pence in the 2020 debate. That’s what he was referring to. Still he’s a dick.
Also she wasn’t even really interrupting him. If you watch the clip, she was muted and he was easily heard over her. It wasn’t as if she was really steamrolling.
You can tell it got under his skin in 2020, and this was just a pathetic way to “get back” at her for being a woman who asserted herself in a debate.
It’s genuinely so amusing how badly that little dig backfired on him. I’ve seen other people also not realizing he was trying to riff on “I’m speaking”. The thing he failed to realize is that essentially any professional women that were watching have likely heard that kind of shit from an older man at some point in their career, and it makes him look like (more of) a complete asshole.
He got the line wrong so even most who would recognize it didn’t and the “sound familiar?” didn’t make any sense.
She should have mentioned his tiny little hands after shaking them - dude has such a LDE vibe, I bet he’d have lost his shit.
She’s more mature than to stoop down to his level and ridicule someone’s appearance or anything like that. The handshake was enough to get to him and plant that seed, a complete and total power move.
The moment I saw that handshake I was like “oh. Power move”. I think he even said “have fun” lol
She said her name to him, which was a nice move. He never said her name, or looked at her the entire time. That is actually weird, it’s like he knows if he does, he will freak
I just saw a seasoned prosecutor taking control of the well. That’s what they do. Her facial expressions? That’s also prosecutor in action.
Loved it all but of course I’m biased…
“We go high” is what got us into this mess. Remember Hilary? Democrats need to get off the idealistic high horse already and do what works.
You can absolutely play their game without getting mud on you.
Edit: Basically there are a ton of stupid people and if they can’t be convinced then they should be used
Wish I could read the article.
Here’s a few you can try in the future. You can take a paywalled link and append the address to the following sites:
archive.is/
archive.ph/
12ft.io/
removepaywall.com/Just take the website link from the taskbar and paste it directly after. This works the vast majority of the time.
Some might complain about getting around paywalls, but I don’t mind. The web was built to be free. If you want to have your info and stories completely behind a login, fine. Make your page require a log in to even see stories. Make that worth it to people, and you can build an audience. But don’t have your pages and stories accessible to draw people in, only to slap them with a paywall. That strategy always felt like a slimy bait-and-switch to me. I remember back in the 90s when Congress had a serious debate over whether for-profit commercial activity should even be allowed online at all. And it’s been downhill from there. Put your content on the open web or not. Pick a lane. Want a walled garden? Build a walled garden and don’t let people see inside without paying. But don’t lure people into your garden and then slap them with a pay booth once they’re starting to enjoy the flowers. If it’s even possible for people to use a paywall removal site, it proves you’re trying to pull a bait-and-switch on readers.
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men Couldn’t put Humpty together again.
Trump is Humpty Dumpty.
*Trumpty Dumpty
He’s been found liable for sexual assault.
Humpty Trumpty.
I mean, calling him Dump is also apt.
Humpty Dumpty Trumpty
Even so devoted a bootlicker as Senator Lindsey Graham declared the debate a “disaster” for the ex-president.
Lindsey Slam!
What did they expect Kamala Harris used to be a prosecutor?
He thought he could take her because everyone around him always tells him what a good smart special big boy he is and they let him win at everything. As we all saw, his temper tantrums when he loses are something special.
According to his base he won the debate. But I think a lot of moderates and independents are going to think he looked like an idiot after that debate.
Yea, his base will follow him to McDonalds and back, no question. They love their Hamberdeler.
New “aight I’ma head out meme” just dropped
Archive link.
It was super effective. I am surprised he didn’t faint
