By J Robert Smith
- Sept. 11, 2024
- 3-min read
Look, no spin here. Donald Trump had a better debate against Biden. On Tuesday night, he looked tired and grumpy. Harris successfully baited Trump, who spent too much time on defense. Yes, the ABC News moderates were biased as hell. It was Harris and ABC News versus Trump. But did anyone expect otherwise?
Trump missed some golden opportunities to frame the election as a referendum on Biden-Harris. Truth is, Trump let Harris frame the contest as a referendum on him – for only a bit, if Trump and his team use the post-debate to dissect Harris’ lies and reposition this race as an up-or-down vote on nearly four miserable years of the Biden-Harris regime.
Kamala Harris? She came off as a bitch: lecturing, scolding, taunting. That won’t play well among a segment of independent voters who don’t want a nasty grade school teacher to be president. Male voters – younger males, in particular – will find Harris’ “Badass Momma” routine off-putting. It’ll be interesting to see how Harris’ performance registers among black men, who may be as turned off by woman wagging a finger in Trump’s face as are other male cohorts. Trump shut up Harris twice for interrupting, which was very good.
However canned Harris’ answers were, she didn’t come across as a ditz. That’s going to allay concerns among some independents about Harris’ competency to serve as president. She isn’t competent, but that’s the Trump campaign’s challenge in the coming days: peel back Harris’ facade.
The big takeaway is that much will happen in the coming days to shape the outcome of this election. The debate is just one battle. Trump has to do what he hasn’t done strongly enough so far: make the focus on Biden-Harris – on hurting working and middle income Americans with higher prices on everything. On choking off domestic energy production, which is the economy’s lifeblood. On deliberately collapsing the border. On crime. On using the law to not only persecute Trump, but many others.
And finally… finally… this election is about ballots. Trump must beat the margin of theft this November. If you don’t expect Democrats to “creatively” ballot in jurisdictions they control in swing states, you didn’t live through the 2020 presidential race. In my estimation, beating the cheat means defeating Harris in battleground states (or the right combination of swing states) by more than 3%. 5% might be what Trump needs to win. Getting pro-Trump voters casting ballots is imperative.
However unevenly Trump did in the debate, it’s only a round in this fight. Cliché as this is, the presidential contest will serve as an historic pivot. Either we move to recapture our liberties or we continue to march toward some form of tyranny. Transforming America comes down to tyrannizing America.
Trump’s election is terribly critical in ending the march of would-be tyrants and rebuilding a free republic. Let’s keep our eyes on the ball.
