ABOVE AND BELOW THE SURFACE OF THE TRUMP v. HARRIS DEBATE
Keith Boag
The New York Times gamely reported this weekend that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s debate coaches are urging him to ditch the “mean, bully Trump” on Tuesday night and bring out his “happy Trump” instead. Makes you wonder why no one ever thought of that before.
Probably because no one seriously believes there is a closeted “happy Trump” somewhere waiting to come out Tuesday night, or ever. And because Trump doesn’t follow instructions anyway.
The former president summed up his own strategy for the debate with Vice President Kamala Harris in an interview with FOX News host Sean Hannity on Thursday, to whom he offered this insight borrowed from the heavyweight champion Mike Tyson: “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.”
Let’s give Trump the benefit of the doubt and assume that he did NOT mean that he would literally punch the Vice President in the face. Even a figurative punch in the face is still a poor image to conjure for a presidential candidate who is losing among women by 13 points. Women have been more reliable voters than men since about 1980, so if Trump’s task is to narrow the gender gap, he's got his work cut out for him.
Indeed, one of the main subtexts for every moment of Tuesday night’s debate will be, “Does this help Trump with the ladies?”—as you might imagine him putting it.
Trump’s baggage with women is a backbreaking burden he can’t unload.
Start with abortion: he’s still bragging about his Supreme Court appointees overturning a women’s right to choose and mansplaining how that’s what they always wanted anyway, because no one knows more about everything than he does.
Then, there’s all that stuff about civil liability and multi-million dollar defamation penalties awarded to the woman who proved to a jury that Trump had sexually assaulted her in the dressing room of a fancy New York department store in the 1990s.
It’s not surprising that the history of Trump’s misogyny goes back decades or that it’s coloured by gobsmacking vulgarity such as when he told Howard Stern’s huge radio audience that his former wife…oh, never mind. Look it up, if you must.
To bring this back to the debate, we also have the disturbing memory of Hillary Clinton on stage with Trump in 2016 as he crept up quietly behind her, looming like a stalker, blatantly trying to physically intimidate her.
As a prosecutor in an earlier life, there are high expectations for Harris. She is a stand-in for all the women who hope to see in this election a form of justice for themselves against behaviour like Trump’s — against fat, old, lazy men who demean, abuse and assault women and make them feel forever unsafe. The prosecutor versus the felon. It’s a heavy burden.
Some prefer to call it the “boys versus girls” election, which is maybe a touch too light for the moment. Toxic masculinity is part of Trump’s brand and his VP pick, J.D. Vance, appears to be an unapologetically unreconstructed, 19th century, male chauvinist with an extra large chip on his shoulder.
Last week former Republican House Representative and anti-Trump convert Liz Cheney called the two Republican candidates “misogynist pigs” and announced she would be voting for Harris and so would her dad, former Vice President Dick Cheney.
As you know, the man Harris picked for the bottom of her ticket is, by contrast, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, who taught high school social studies and lists managing the school’s lunch room as a formative life experience.
Trump has called Harris a person of low intelligence and “dumb". He’s suggested she’s not really Black. She responded “If you’ve got something to say, say it to my face.” Now that he has that chance, we’ll see if he’s a brave enough fool to try it on national TV.
So, that’s the subtext.
On the surface, Tuesday’s debate will be about one thing: Defining Harris.
Trump’s aim will be to make her complicit in what he sees as the Biden administration’s failed economic, border and foreign policies, which, failed or not, she is.
Harris has the bigger challenge of defining herself as “not Joe Biden”, without saying so and without betraying the things that define the Biden administration. After she stumbled badly in her 2019 campaign, he picked her up, which ultimately brought her to this moment. She is deeply indebted to him for that, but politically, it only makes it a trickier thing to manage.
In the last debate Trump had the tremendous benefit of the President’s shocking performance. Biden appeared to have aged beyond his four years in the Oval Office. Largely overlooked in the panic about Biden was how bad Trump's own performance was–stuffed with lies, non-sequiturs and inconsistencies. He’s aged too and there should be no distraction from that on Tuesday night.
But if Harris wins in November, it’s that June debate between Biden and Trump that will be remembered; remembered as one of the greatest bank shots in American political history—a face-off that both men lost, and that unexpectedly sent the first woman, a Black woman, ricocheting into the presidency of the United States. Quite a time to be alive, no?
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Keith Boag - The US presidential ticket is set: Trump + Vance versus Harris + Waltz. And to cover that election, we're bringing our readers and listeners a brilliant journalistic mind and political correspondent legend, Keith Boag! Keith was with the CBC for more than 30 years, including as Chief Political Correspondent. His career included work for many years in Washington, D.C., and as Ottawa Bureau Chief. Keith covered seven federal elections in Canada, ten party leadership campaigns, as well as several US elections. Keith will regularly offer his written analysis via "QUOTES" at Air Quotes Media.
The views and opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Air Quotes Media. Read more opinion contributions via QUOTES from Air Quotes Media.