Notes on Tonight's Debate
As we now enter the gladiator's fundament ...
The worst debate I ever witnessed was the John Edwards-Dick Cheney debate of 2004. Gigantic was its suckitude; even greater were the stakes. That debate’s one moment of interesting was when Edwards tried, unsuccessfully, to make Cheney’s position on gays public record by referencing his daughter, Liz. Cheney didn’t bite. And Edwards, who was ultimately revealed to be a slimy DC operator, completely missed an opportunity at calling out Cheney on his vote against freeing Nelson Mandela, which would have been by far a more effective cut. Bush-Cheney went on to win that election and untold buckets of blood and treasure continued to be spilled in the Middle East and Central Asian landscapes. But what a difference two decades can make — former Vice President Dick Cheney is now going to vote for current Vice President Kamala Harris. Does anyone even remember water torture?
By contrast, tonight’s debate in Philadelphia will be far more important regarding the future of our democracy. Trump is running to bend America towards a Christian nationalist agenda. The Heritage Foundation, which has produced policy plans for Republican Presidential candidates since Reagan’s 1980 campaign, tells us in so many words (900, to be exact). Trump 2.0 — a far more disciplined monster — would turn the Justice Department against his enemies in a manner more closely resembling his authoritarian man-crushes than our evolving country. It would eliminate Head Start. It would loosen the Labor Department’s child labor restrictions on teenagers. And it would would put a lifetime cap on Medicaid benefits, to name a few of Project 2025’s policy prescriptions. Trump, an accomplished liar, denies that he will do anything of the sort (Heaven forfend!).
Ancillary to that, Trump is also running to become the oldest person ever to serve in the Oval Office. This is strategically important to the Harris campaign because it had been the key rationale in his campaign against President Biden, who he so lovingly referred to as “sleepy Joe.” Sleepy Joe has left the building, leaving the race to Kamala Harris, who has done three very smart things in rapid succession to right the sideways campaign that was Biden’s against Trump: She raised $81 million in the first 24 hours of her campaign; She secured the nomination in the first 48 hours and chose Waltz as her running mate, all but securing the rust belt firewall. These three moves proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that her willpower and grassroots support were enough to pick up where the Biden campaign left off.
I think the Harris strategy will be to try to get under Trump’s skin and break him open like breadfruit. It is very easy to manipulate Trump, just ask Xi Xinping about "the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake you have ever seen." Donald’s never worked on himself, never denied himself a pleasure (see: chocolate cake) or wrath and so, at 78 years old, he is a living, breathing embodiment of testosteronal ooze and weaponized masculinity. A man without qualities. And while it is not improbable that a man like Trump could actually has an explosive, historic meltdown episode on live TV (“I AM NOT PUTIN’S BITCH!”), his campaign has probably been prepping him in methods of non-pramanyanic breath control. But we cannot fail to note that the campaign staff that is advising him on ways of not losing his shit on national television are some of the same waterheads that verbally abused and physically shoved an Arlington National Cemetery official. So there’s that …
There is also the fact that Trump will be perturbed at the outset. His equilibrium will initially be off at his podium. As someone who has observed Trump at close range in the New York media scene as well as on the national political stage for over 20 years, I know a bit about the man. He hates black people and he hates women. Being on equal footing with an African-American woman trained as a prosecutor will be off-putting for him to say the least. Formerly of New York, which is now a majority minority city, Trump has steered clear of ever having to deal with African-Americans on an equal basis.
This debate is, in many ways, a peak karma moment for Donald J. Trump. In the last four years, Trump has never had so much adversarial interaction with so many African-American women prosecutors. And by “adversarial interaction” I really mean legal liability. For anyone else this would be a poignant lesson from the Universe, a clarion call to change one’s ways and bend like the arc of history towards Justice, but for Trump it has been an opportunity, alas, for racist dog whistling. His interactions with women accusers of sexual abuse become moments for him to attack their looks, in the fashion of a 1950s ad executive. So as he hates women and so as he hates African-Americans, he will automatically be uncomfortable sharing a stage so intimate and yet so public with the Vice President, which gives her first blood advantage.
There is no question that Trump has lost some English on his fastball in his years in the wilderness, out of the arena. Was it because of long COVID or was it because of the disappointment of being a one-termer out of the gladiatorial fundament, aimless in Mar-a-Lago? Whatever the case, Trump, a graduate of Wharton, has never been — how does one put it kindly? — a philosophe. Still, he was an effective, if sleazy, marketer of himself in the go-go 80s, where I first observed him in his natural habitat, New York City. Nowadays, however, Trump’s once effective marketing rodomontade has devolved into what can only be properly construed as rhetorical surrealism, of this variety:
Will Trump be disciplined tonight? It is hard to tell. As I have written before, Trump was quite disciplined in July — when he was winning, it is important to note. It is easy for Trump to remain on campaign message when he was mercilessly slaughtering Joe Biden (Nancy Pelosi had been working the phones behind the scenes to get Biden off the ticket). On July 16th, on the eve of the Republican Convention, I noted:
The old, thumotically-excessive Trump would have been throwing haymakers into the summer wind, braggadocios in pivotal swing states about how he laid the President low with his wicked right cross and hideous vigor. Instead, Trump had been relatively silent, almost humble, but relentlessly on-message, allowing the Democrats ample wiggle room to implode. We are in witnessing, dear reader, the softening of Trump.
And so it was. Until it wasn’t. On Sunday, July 21, Biden stepped down and since then the dogwhistling has been ferocious — suburban moms be damned!
Trump will almost surely paint Harris as a Communist, as Marco Rubio did to Val Demmings. This is how Republicans deal with well-funded African-American women with strong criminal justice portfolios. Dog-whistles and “Othering.” The Harris campaign should be prepared to get a heaping of “Socialist” accusations tonight which will be amplified thereafter by talk radio and greasy SuperPAC ads that allow plausible deniability. There is a dim possibility that Trump will not only be disciplined tonight, but will tailor his message to suburban women, laying off the dog-whistling, but don’t hold your breath. “All he wants to do is appeal to his base,” is how Trump’s own sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, once said with a deep familial understanding of the man’s brutish psychology. And that means, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, a tripling down on the “bros.” In Trump’s last two campaigns for President his strategic aim has largely been to increase his percentages among men to infinity. Why should this one be any different? Especially after Hulk Hogan ripped off his shirt at the RNC.
Ultimately, Harris has to introduce herself to the American public in a way more substantial than she did at the Convention. Otherwise, Trump’s othering of her as a fire-breathing, card-carrying feminazi Communist will gain traction among the undecideds, who are going to determine this election. Will Harris do this by strategically getting under Trump’s skin? Will she do this by tying Trump to Project 2025, which has written policy prescriptions for every Republican nominee/POTUS-elect since 1980? Will she do this by getting specific on policy, allowing Trump the opportunity to present himself as the “No” candidate, his natural default setting? Will she do this by being the non-ivy, anti billionaire and anti-superyacht candidate? Will she, in doing that, then paint Trump as the friend of the ultra-rich and the super-creepy tech bros? So many strategic possibilities, many of which not mentioned here.
— And only a few hours until one of the most important debates in the life of this American democracy.
“As we settle into the second phase of this candidacy and old hands regain control in preparation for the presidential debate on September 10, the question is whether the cautious, moderating forces that have long guided Democratic electoral politics will tamp down the people’s power that was unleashed this summer and jeopardize Harris’s chances of victory. And also whether those in charge in the Democratic Party and in the Washington press corps even understand where that power comes from: a true women-led movement, built over decades and given new life in the aftermath of Hillary Clinton’s defeat in 2016, working in service of a female presidential candidate running on a set of policies around housing, care work, abortion, health care, and labor that this candidate understands to be inherently, but not exclusively, ‘women’s issues.’ It is a movement galvanized by a devastating setback for women’s rights — for civil rights — that seeks to rectify that wrong and usher in a new era of American politics. ‘It feels like finally our political culture is catching up to the extent to which women are shaping politics and shaping our democracy,’ said Ai-jen Poo, senior adviser for Care in Action, a domestic-workers organization. ‘Women are owning and organizing to protect democracy in a totally different way.’” (Rebecca Traister/The Cut)
“The man accused of dousing in petrol and setting alight Olympic runner Rebecca Cheptegei has died from burns sustained during the fatal attack on the Ugandan athlete, a hospital official said on Tuesday. Cheptegei, 33, who competed in the marathon at the Paris Olympics, suffered burns to more than 75% of her body in the Sept. 1 attack and died four days later. Her former boyfriend, Dickson Ndiema Marangach, died at 6.30 p.m. (11.30 a.m. ET) on Monday, said Philip Kirwa, chief executive officer of the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Eldoret in western Kenya where Marangach was being treated and where Cheptegei also died. ‘He developed respiratory failure as a result of the severe airway burns and sepsis that led to his eventual death,’ Kirwa said in a statement. Kirwa said Marangach had suffered over 41% burns following his assault on Cheptegei, which local media reported to have happened after she returned home from church with her children.” (CNN via Reuters)
"The Justice Department is taking a long look at Nvidia, the semiconductor designer that has dominated the market for high-end AI computer chips used to train large language models (LLMs), with a reported 80 percent market share. Last week, the DOJ Antitrust Division issued subpoenas to companies creating these models, over allegations that Nvidia encourages exclusive use of its chips, while punishing those who purchase from others. Nvidia’s acquisition of AI management software company Run:ai is also under scrutiny, with concerns that the company is trying to make using its technology inescapable. Antitrust enforcers’ goal is to prevent the second wave of Big Tech’s evolution from proceeding the way the initial platform phase did. Nvidia has said that sales of its chips have soared only because of superior quality. But a new and intriguing private antitrust lawsuit from a startup called Xockets suggests the presence of a buyers’ cartel, made up of not just Nvidia but all the major AI model producers and chipmakers. This cabal, according to the lawsuit, is walling off the market for AI, and appropriating whatever innovations happen outside the wall.” (David Dayen/TAP)