Will Kamala Harris See ‘Happy Trump’ At Debate Or Will We Get 6 More Weeks Of Racism?
Not a tough call.
Vice President Kamala Harris and convicted felon Donald Trump face off tonight for their first debate. Naturally, the media is treating this as a normal political encounter between an accomplished woman and an adjudicated rapist. From the Associated Press: Harris and Trump are getting ready for Tuesday’s debate in sharply different ways (yeah, Harris is actually acquainting herself with “facts”). From The New York Times: Inside the Trump-Harris Debate Prep: Method Acting, Insults, Tough Questions (the headline glosses over how Trump is the one who hurls insults and lies at his opponents). From The Independent: Trump attempts to land early blows ahead of Tuesday’s encounter in Philadelphia with Kamala Harris (the subhed doesn’t clarify whether these “early blows” are merely figurative).
The Today show had two back-to-back segments Monday morning: “Trump Challenges Sex Abuse Verdict” followed by “VP Harris Preps For Crucial Debate.” This is somehow reality.
The media has framed this debate as do or die for Harris, who must demonstrate a flawless command of the issues while her opponent flings rhetorical (we hope) feces at her that she’ll have to dodge backwards and in high heels. Pundits will grade her performance in a vacuum, as if she were debating a normal Republican candidate like Nikki Haley, Mike Pence, or just anyone who can string together a coherent thought on policy. It doesn’t matter if it’s fair. Those are the stakes.
Harris isn’t one for whining, so she’s buckled down and prepared for a pivotal moment in her campaign. According to the Times, Harris has spent five days holed up in a Pittsburgh hotel (the best way to see Pittsburgh) “doing highly choreographed debate practice sessions ahead of Tuesday night’s clash. There’s a stage and replica TV lighting and an adviser in full Lee Strasberg method-acting mode, not just playing Donald J. Trump but inhabiting him, wearing a boxy suit and a long tie.”
Method actor Robert De Niro famously gained 60 pounds to play Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull. Wearing an ill-fitting suit and an overcompensating tie to play Trump isn’t really the “full Lee Strasberg.” It’s a basic sketch comedy bit. (This apparently got lost in translation at Britain’s right-wing Telegraph, which suggested that Lee Strasberg himself was playing Trump. Strasberg’s been dead for 42 years but is still more mentally sound than Trump.)
The Times polishes up Trump’s half-assed approach to the debate:
The former president’s preparations are more improv. They are pointedly called not “debate prep” but “policy time,” meant to refresh him on his record. Nobody is playing Harris; sometimes his aides sit at a long table opposite him and bat questions back and forth, or other times he pulls up a chair closer to them.
ABC News reports that Trump’s debate prep dream team is MAGA House Rep. Matt Gaetz and MAGA All Along Tulsi Gabbard. Gaetz is briefing Trump on “policy” and helping him respond to any questions about what ABC News euphemistically terms his “legal troubles.” Trump’s aides are apparently concerned that Trump might act like “raving madman” Donald Trump rather than “barely holding it together” Donald Trump.
Does ‘Happy Trump’ even exist?
The Times notes that while Trump “respected [Hillary] Clinton as ‘smart’ and a hard worker, Trump plainly believes that Harris is unintelligent, advisers and allies say.” That’s because Trump’s a racist but don’t expect the Times to connect the dots that are actually just one large flaming cross. The Times doesn’t point out that underestimating your opponent is a good way to get your ass handed to you. It’s as if they don’t see his seething contempt for Harris as a potential problem.
“In private, he uses misogynistic language to describe her and gossips about her past romantic relationships, including with Willie Brown, the former mayor of San Francisco.”
If the Times can confirm that the former president uses “misogynistic language to describe” the current vice president, they should specify what that language is rather than seemingly protecting Trump from his own grossness.
Hilariously, Trump’s advisers “have urged him to be ‘happy Trump’ in the debate rather than ‘mean, bully Trump,’ as one close ally put it, while pressing a policy-based case against Harris.” Anyone remotely familiar with Trump’s particular psychosis understands that “mean, bully Trump” is “happy Trump.” His only joy is sadistic in origin. Trump has no policies, just what Hillary Clinton correctly described as “a series of bizarre rants, personal feuds and outright lies.”
This is what Trump sounds like when he tries to discuss policy. I understand if you don’t watch the below clip in full. It can make your brain melt.
Aside from his general incoherence, Trump comes across distinctly “low energy” when he discusses policy, because he’s clearly more interested in yelling at clouds.
Fox & Friends co-host Lawrence Jones fully embraced rape culture rhetoric when he argued on Monday that Trump shouldn’t let Harris provoke him into racist, sexist behavior.
“Kamala Harris is going to try to do is get him into this race war, right?” Jones said. “To be vicious, to attack her as a woman. Don’t put voters in that position where they have to choose between their economic situation and feeling sympathetic or personal.”
Jones is Black, and there’s an unfortunate pattern where POC Republicans insist that it’s Democrats who are obsessed with race and gender. (Monday, elected Republicans, including JD Vance and Ted Cruz, spread the racist lie that Haitian immigrants were eating puppies and kittens.)
Nikki Haley, who is now officially less respectable than Dick Cheney, offered similar, pointless advice to Trump and Vance: Stop running your He-Man Woman Haters Club and focus on how you’ll lower the marginal tax rate for billionaires.
“Donald Trump and JD Vance need to change the way they speak about women,” she told Fox’s Brian Kilmeade. “You don’t need to call Kamala ‘dumb.’ She didn’t get this far just by accident.” I don’t think Haley is dumb, either, but she’s certainly playing dumb if she pretends she’s not aware of the MAGA smears regarding how Harris advanced in her career.
Haley continued, “She’s here. That’s what it is. She’s a prosecutor. You don’t need to go and talk about intelligence and looks and anything else. Just focus on the policies. When you call even a Democrat woman ‘dumb,’ Republican women get their backs up, too. The bottom line is we win on policies. Stick to the policies. Leave all the other stuff. That’s how he can win.”
If policies were actually how Republicans win anything, GOP voters would’ve nominated Haley and not the incoherent racist phlegm method-acting as a presidential candidate.
The good news for Republicans is that even if “mean, bully Trump” shows up at tonight’s debate — and he will! — the media and pundit class will only hold Harris up to any actual standards. She’ll have to cross the impossible gauntlet, but she’s a Black woman in America. She’s been there before.
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I’m struck by the NYT’s outdated and elitist language, such as “full Lee Strasberg method-acting mode.” How many media consumers these days have any clue who Lee Strasberg was, or care, let alone get the allusion the Times is trying to make? This phrase must be stored away in the NYT’s special file of handy, stale relics from the 1960s, along with Maureen Dowd, David Brooks, and their ludicrous tireworn “both-sides!” malarkey.
And as you point out, “If the Times can confirm that the former president uses ‘misogynistic language’ to describe the current vice president, they should specify what that language is rather than seemingly protecting Trump from his own grossness.” Again, it’s as though the NYT considers itself above using the coarse language of the modern era. In the vacuum of this bargain, though, what they leave to the reader’s imagination isn’t just due to their stubborn clinging to mockably lofty tone; it’s suppression of the message. At this point, you kind of have to wonder if it’s clueless or intentional.
And then, from Fox, we’re treated to classic abuser framing: “‘Kamala Harris is going to try to do is get him into this race war, right?’ Jones said. ‘To be vicious, to attack her as a woman. Don’t put voters in that position where they have to choose between their economic situation and feeling sympathetic or personal.’” See what you made him do, Kamala, you witchy Black woman? Using your Blackness and female-ness to drag this poor man into such ugliness! You need to be put in your place, like “Dr.” Ronnie Jackson said yesterday, for making him be mean to you. I could go on and on but I won’t because life is too short. Great stuff, Stephen, thank you.
The Atlantic had a very interesting take on Trump and his "Kamala is dumb" comments; he has the hots for her (he does). He can't denigrate her looks so he has to denigrate her intellect.. He's had a thing for her since 2019 and went on about her Time magazine cover too, before the narcissist part reminded him that HE'S the fairest of them all.
I liken it to the Seinfeld bit where his brain and his penis are arguing with each other. I THINK the penis won.