PREACHING TO THEIR CHOIRS
Seeing the Debate Through the Other Sides' Eyes
Up at 4:30 a.m. in England to watch the debate. Like a kid on Christmas morning. The excitement. Tried to avoid too much twitter instant analysis because I wanted to form my own opinion.
Kamala Harris won decisively but it’s not me she had to convince. Trump on the other hand was preaching to his choir and really doesn’t care about convincing others to vote for him.
Did the Donald’s greatest hits medley from his album “Americarnage”, a set of tunes sung out daily across America on right-wing and conspiracy theory talk radio, internet channels and on “news” networks, keep his team in line?
Probably. My experience watching the Biden debate in the company of MAGA types in Alamogordo NM (I wrote about it here) tells me that there is no persuasion possible among his loyalists. This loyalty has been there from the start. I called these supporters the Unswayables and I made a half-hour doc for BBC Radio 4 about them in October 2016. It was the week after the infamous Access Hollywood tape had come out and he had stalked Hillary Clinton around the debate stage. Didn’t make much difference to his supporters then and I doubt his being hammered by a skilled former prosecutor will make a difference to them now.
The question is, how many voters are really undecided? Do polling companies weight their findings to account for “ashamed” respondents — people who think the pollster will disapprove of them for preferring Trump? This shame factor is a real phenomenon.
It is hard to understand the broad impact of a debate like this or other forms of political speech when you disagree strongly with a person’s point of view. I learned this in Northern Ireland where for decades outsiders saw Rev. Ian Paisley, hardcore Unionist, Christian preacher of hate, as a dangerous clown. I mean, who shouts, “The Pope is the Anti-Christ” during a visit from the Pope to the European Parliament in the mid-1990s? Yet Paisley ended up as First MInister of Northern Ireland because enough people saw him as a tough leader, and also wanted to stick it to the other side.
More than once while talking to a Paisley supporter during the years leading up to the Good Friday Agreement, I would hear some fairly hair-raising opinions about Catholics (who were all assumed to be Sinn Fein/IRA supporters) and if I asked about polls showing Prostestants overwhelmingly wanted peace, I would be told, “Oh we just tell pollsters what they want to hear. Don’t believe the polls.”
I know that Trump doesn’t represent a majority of Americans, but those who see him as tough really want to stick it to everyone else, just like the ultra-Protestants in Northern Ireland. I wonder how many among the “undecideds” in the key swing states really aren’t Trump supporters but just too ashamed to admit it.
During last night’s debate, Kamala Harris used the split screen visual format to her advantage in a way Joe Biden didn’t. Effectively rebutting Trump’s repeated lies with expressions of incredulity, shakes of the head, mouthing words to cue the audience that what was being said was a lie. Trump’s face on the other hand was about something else and it took me til midway through the debate to figure it out. He was replicating, unintentionally I’m sure, some of the “Character Heads” series of the 18th century German-Austrian sculptor, Franz Xaver Messerschmidt. The heads were created at a time when Messerschmidt was suffering from mental illness including hallucinations. Here’s a selection of them with the titles they were given around 10 years after Messerschmidt’s death in 1783.
Trump’s performance last night makes me wonder if Herr Messerschmidt had a time machine and visited the 21st century briefly and saw the Donald in action.
Well, that last one is in there for a laugh … I really don’t want to speculate on his bowel habits.
So now what? A sprint to the finish. I still think the long-term trends favor the Democrats and that’s what you should focus on, not this or that pundit’s judgment on who won last night’s debate.
The factors I look at: Trump lost the popular vote to Clinton by more than two million in 2016. Women responded to this setback by leading a strong fightback in the mid-terms and then propelling the Biden-Harris ticket to a more than 7 million vote margin of victory. The Democrats did less badly in the 2022 mid-terms than the polls predicted and since SCOTUS Dobbs’ decision effectively overturned Roe v Wade, almost every vote where women’s bodily autonomy is on the ballot the Dems have won.
Last night Kamala Harris made sure that viewers remember that issue is on the ballot in the upcoming election. I think that will be decisive.
this is excellent Michael - I don’t have the nerve left even to watch these things, Deb watches the show while I cower in my office - the Paisley is a good point, and the M. heads perfect - saw them in NY some years back, and I think you’re right on - keep at it!
Massive ebb & flow of right and left was stalled last night. At 1/2 hour in it began to slow (cat/dog) indigestion. At 1 hour in the tide was running out and away from Donald.
Even with his favorable treatment by David DeMuir.
By the end, with his crazy spin room appearance, you could see his emptiness. Especially compared to Kamala’s showtime post-debate ebullience.
More Trump voters (male) are now sleeping alone! The FOXNEWS power is holding less and less loyalty and the NRG in the Harris/Walz campaign is nuclear.
Her insistence on being the Underdog will play out as brilliant over the next month as the evident fatigue in Trump himself will continue to take its full toll.
Besides the Swifty power to register a huge block of the young and the ballistic response here by pet lovers.
The tide has turned. Here’s the image that overwhelmed Facebook and Instagram last night!
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