Did she? I listened to the debate and she sounded mid for most of it. She spent more time attacking Trump than she did answering the questions she was asked.
Sure, she fared better than her predecessor, but “not shitting her pants” is a low bar. Trump was definitely worse than her, but again, if the bar is “don’t act butthurt when your opponent says your rallies are boring”, then congrats, I guess.
Reading comments from both sides, it seems that the left sees her not being geriatric as a win; and the right thinks that Trump was unjustly treated (targeted questions, live fact-checking, etc…), which is absurd considering that (a) they also asked Harris difficult questions (fracking and Israel, for example, which she did have a hard time answering), and (b) he was given free reign to talk out of order more times than I can count.
I think Harris “won” because Trump sucked. He sidestepped questions regarding an abortion ban (“I haven’t talked with JD about it” fucking lol) and Ukraine (“Do you want Ukraine to win the war?” “I want the war stopped” TWICE in a row, followed by “I know Putin really well” and a rant about the awesomeness of Victor Orban); he repeatedly told lies (post-birth abortion and pets-eating immigrants being the highlight) which were promptly caught by the live fact-checker, and even showed weakness and undecisiveness (“do you have a plan?” “I have concepts of a plan”).
But those are blunders that Trump committed, not something that Harris should take credit for. Nothing I heard screamed of “masterclass” debate, and I doubt that it will give her an edge in the upcoming elections or sway electors one way or the other. After all, the people who lived under four years of Trump’s presidency and watched January 6th unfold live, and still call themselves “undecided” are pretty much lying to themselves at this point.
For fuck’s sake, y’all should stop this “enlightened centrist” bullshit whenever someone is slightly critical of the leftist candidate.
Trump sucks. It’s incredible that he’s even allowed to be a candidate for presidency after the shit he’s done. He’s dangerous for the US and dangerous for the democracy of the entire world. If there’s some justice left in the US system, he will lose the elections and he will pay for his crimes.
Not liking Harris’ speech doesn’t make me an “enlightened centrist”. It just means that I don’t think her words were strong enough, or bold enough, to win her new voters, which should be the point of the presidential debate. I think she won because Trump’s ineptitude will bleed him some voters, but I’m not willing to credit that to Harris’ speech skills.
I’m not sure what debate you watched, because her performance was not only good in comparison to Biden or Trump, on an absolute scale I’d probably still give it at least a B+. Your comment came off as just shitting all over Harris and trying to bring her down to Trump’s level. Because that vibe was so strong, I didn’t even read the whole comment. Which is on you, not me.
She spent more time attacking Trump than she did answering the questions she was asked.
But those are blunders that Trump committed, not something that Harris should take credit for.
I don’t think it’s generous to conclude that many of those blunders can in fact be credited to Harris deliberately striking his ego.
I hate to agree but I don’t think you’re wrong, and accept the down votes in advance. She did some things well though, the trolling on rallies was actually her sneakiest trick to rattle him. I think she could’ve performed better but maybe she learned some lessons for a second debate.
Overall I think there was a double standard on mic control, whenever he wanted to talk they let him. He even got to speak during fact checks, what the fuck is that? On the flip side, they didn’t unmute her on rebuttals and he made a point to tell her to shut up if she spoke over him.
