Who won the debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump? Did Kamala win? Or did Trump win? Or did they both win?
Kamala did win to the extent that most people think of it as the Harris-Trump debate rather than the Trump-Harris debate, as she controlled the perceptions of the debate from the moment she walked across the stage, surprising Trump by shaking his hand. For once it was not all about Trump. After she said everyone should watch one of Trump’s rallies and notice how many people leave early out of exhaustion and boredom, Trump lit up, claiming she had to pay people to attend her rallies packed with excitement, and that Haitian immigrants are eating all the DAWGS in Springfield.
In an Unfinished Love Story, former JFK and LBJ staff members Richard Goodwin and his wife Doris reminisced about the Kennedy-Nixon debates.
Who won the Nixon-Kennedy debates, the first time Presidential candidates debated live, publicly, on television? Those who listened on the radio concluded that Nixon won the debates. But those watching on television thought that the well-rested, confident, youthful, debonair Kennedy clearly won the debate, upstaging the experienced Vice-President Nixon.
John F Kennedy, Cuba, Russia, and Civil Rights, Book Review of An Unfinished Love Story
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/john-f-kennedy-cuba-russia-and-civil-rights-review-of-an-unfinished-love-story/
https://youtu.be/krkJki2vQ2o
Like JFK so many years before, Kamala Harris and her staff were aware of how critically important this debate was. They were prepared.
Was Joe Biden prepared for his debate? We suspect he was too busy with his Presidential tasks to adequately prepare, although he could have been overprepared. But everyone knows that he lost the debate. Biden has been struggling against his stutter all his life, with great success, which means that public speaking has always been challenging to him, and he could never equal Obama’s performance, nor Kamala’s recent debate victory.
All of us lose executive functioning as we age, all of us are slower to think on our feet as we grow older, including both Biden and Trump.
Trump-Biden Debate, Compared to Kennedy-Nixon 1960 TV Debates
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/trump-biden-debate-compared-to-kennedy-nixon-1960-tv-debates/
https://youtu.be/_YvIst9oxXo
Many pundits claimed that Trump had not prepared for these debates. But in a way, Trump had been preparing for the debate for the past decade. Trump does not care about his legacy, Trump does not care about policy, Trump does not care about governing, all Trump looks forward to are his beloved rallies, where he continually practices his lines, searching for the zingers the crowds love. As John Bolton observed, Trump only cares about his ratings and his upcoming reelection campaign.
Doris Kearns recalls her reactions in rewatching the JFK-Nixon debate on YouTube: “After the candidates were announced, I immediately noticed Kennedy’s dark suit, sharply defined against the gray background” of the black and white recording, “in contrast with Nixon’s indistinct gray suit.” Kennedy’s composed posture contrasted with Nixon’s fidgetiness.
“It’s not fair!” blurted Doris, when rewatching the debate on YouTube. “It is a debate, not a beauty contest.”
“What has fair got to do with it?” Dick retorted.
Unlike Nixon, Kennedy knew that on television he needed to speak to the camera, directly to the people, rather than responding to Nixon or the moderator. Doris noticed: “Watching the two men side by side, the contention that Vice President Nixon was the more seasoned and mature candidate, possessed of greater authority and capacity to lead, had vanished before the first debate was over.”[1]
Kamala Harris also did a better job than Trump in talking to the camera, to the people watching television. She was effective when she looked at Trump as he continually lied, laughing at the whoppers. She acted like a commander-in-chief when she manhandled the scowling Trump. In contrast, Trump never looked at her, especially when she reminded him he was a convicted felon and sex offender.
There was a split screen in the Harris-Trump debate, and Kamala’s remarkable facial expressions showed her command of the stage. Did she practice these expressions as part of her preparation? Or has she been practicing them for much of her life as a former prosecutor?
Trump’s signature red tie and dark blue suit always looks good on television, in contrast with Joe Biden’s skinny, wan appearance clad in a dark blue suit and dark blue tie made him look more like an undertaker. But Kamala Harris’ smart suit was just perfect on television, so Trump did not have an advantage there.
There is no debate that Kamala Harris won the debate.
But liberal pundits are bashing Trump when he claimed that he also won the debate. These pundits are wrong, because Trump did also win the debate. He said what he wanted to say, he shouted what he wanted us to hear, and he repeated what got him elected in 2016.
Why does his hard-core base love Trump? He threw away the dog whistle, he says out loud thoughts they have been ashamed of for decades, and Trump has taught them that they should be proud of these shameful thoughts, that we should not be ashamed of shameful thoughts. So, in his own world, Trump did win this debate, he said exactly what he wanted to say. He wants to bring out the worst in us, and he wants to successfully seed chaos.
Compare what he said when he announced his candidacy when going down the escalator in Trump Tower in 2015 to his infamous quote in the Presidential Debate:
Trump, 2015: “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best … They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with them. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”[2]
Trump, 2024: “In Springfield, (the Haitians) are eating the DAWGS. 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.”[3]
What is the difference? Trump’s only path to victory in 2024 is to continue stirring up the hate and prejudice that won him the election in 2016.
Is Trump radicalizing more independent voters, dragging them into his base? Trump’s question: When did Kamala Harris turn black? may have been more calculating than it seemed. Do not forget there are many older voters who will vote for an old boring white guy who will never vote for a younger black woman, whether she could pass for white or not. Hopefully they will be outnumbered by black and liberal voters who will be excited to vote in numbers never seen before.
Do not forget that half the country lives in the news bubble dominated by right-wingnut media, including Fox News, Newsmax, Breitbart, Steve Bannon’s podcast, and Alex Jones, that lie with abandon.
The past was not so long ago. If you care about our democracy, you must vote, democracy must be guarded and cherished, democracy is not inevitable. We are living through the last throes of the Civil War, the struggle for civil rights, and democracy must win. Black voters must turn out in record numbers. Black voters need to be reminded that their ancestors risked their lives, their jobs, their livelihoods, their homes, and their churches when they registered to vote and voted during Reconstruction and the early Civil Rights era.
We must not forget that the nation permitted the South to re-enslave the former slaves in the Jim Crow system when they threatened to restart the Civil War in the 1876 Presidential Election, or how Martin Luther King compared black sufferings to the Holocaust in his Letter From a Birmingham Jail, or how whites threatened the lives of black children to stop the desegregation of schools, or how over ten thousand blacks were lynched without any shred of due process during the Jim Crow years.
1876 Contested Presidential Election: Precedent for January 6th Fake Elector Scheme?
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/1876-contested-presidential-election-precedent-for-january-6th-elector-scheme/
https://youtu.be/Ny0iyVYatB4
Hannah Arendt Questions Whether School Desegregation Was Wise: Little Rock and Civil Rights
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/hannah-arendt-questions-whether-school-desegregation-was-wise-little-rock-and-civil-rights/
https://youtu.be/nsqngH2gbNc
NAACP Attorneys Thurgood Marshall and Charles Houston Challenge Jim Crow in the Courts
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/naacp-attorneys-thurgood-marshall-and-charles-houston-challenge-jim-crow-in-the-courts/
https://youtu.be/fBSNQXDziDU
Ida B Wells, Journalist, Brave Woman, and Anti-Lynching Activist
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/ida-b-wells-journalist-brave-woman-and-anti-lynching-crusader/
https://youtu.be/sLDHs0AigvY
We must not forget what our Founding Fathers said about the need to nourish democracy in the early years of our Republic.
When Benjamin Franklin was asked soon after the Constitutional Convention whether we have a republic or a monarchy, he answered: “A republic, if you can keep it.”[4]
Thomas Jefferson reminded us that “the government you elect is the government you deserve.”[5]
Our commentary on the content of the Biden-Trump debate remains relevant. If this had been a high school debate, he would have won handily for his superior logic and content. But as the Kearns have shared, presidential debates are not about content, they are about apparent substance, they are about perception.
Trump-Biden Debate, Compared to Kennedy-Nixon 1960 TV Debates
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/trump-biden-debate-compared-to-kennedy-nixon-1960-tv-debates/
https://youtu.be/_YvIst9oxXo
We also compare the Kearns’ experiences when LBJ announced he would not accept the Democratic nomination to run for reelection in 1968 with Biden’s decision to step down as the Democratic candidate, clearing the way for Kamala Harris to become the party standard bearer.
Comparing Joe Biden and Lyndon Johnson Withdrawing From Presidential Races in 2024 and 1968
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/comparing-presidents-biden-and-lyndon-johnson-not-running-for-reelection-in-2024-and-1968/
https://youtu.be/WkGXJEEBMpc
DISCUSSING THE SOURCES
Doris Kearns Goodwin shares how her husband, Richard Goodwin, JFK’s speechwriter, remembered the Kennedy-Nixon debates. We discuss this source more thoroughly in our reflections on the JFK and LBJ presidencies. We have many other reflections based on Doris Kearns Goodwin’s An Unfinished Love Story on the momentous decade of the Sixties that defined her and her husband’s careers. This was just a delightful book to read, as was her biography of LBJ, and I would also recommend all of Doris Kearns Goodwin’s history books, we have reviewed several of them.
John F Kennedy, Cuba, Russia, and Civil Rights, Book Review of An Unfinished Love Story
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/john-f-kennedy-cuba-russia-and-civil-rights-review-of-an-unfinished-love-story/
https://youtu.be/krkJki2vQ2o
Lyndon Johnson, Enacting the Great Society and Vietnam, Review of an Unfinished Love Story
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/lyndon-johnson-enacting-the-great-society-and-vietnam-review-of-an-unfinished-love-story/
https://youtu.be/MgVEipHdvfM
Cuban Missile Crisis, Forty Year Reunion, Compared to War in Ukraine
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/cuban-missile-crisis-forty-year-reunion-compared-to-war-in-ukraine/
https://youtu.be/gOQMH9-v4bE
Saving Ancient Egyptian Monuments From Aswan Dam’s Rising Waters, from Unfinished Love Story
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/jackie-kennedy-and-richard-goodwin-save-ancient-egyptian-monuments-from-aswan-dams-rising-waters/
https://youtu.be/FywSKdDmk88
[1] Doris Kearns Goodwin, An Unfinished Love Story (New York: Signet Book, 1976), Chapter 3, Aboard the Caroline, pp. 63-67.
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_views_of_Donald_Trump
[3] https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/harris-trump-presidential-debate-transcript/story?id=113560542
[4] https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/constitutionalconvention-september17.htm
[5] https://www.carrollcountycomet.com/articles/is-this-the-government-we-deserve/
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