Politics

/

ArcaMax

Mary McNamara: How Kamala Harris de-normalized Trump in less than 2 hours

Mary McNamara, Los Angeles Times on

Published in Op Eds

In Tuesday night's presidential debate, Vice President Kamala Harris may or may not have increased her chances of becoming the 47th president. But she did what so many have tried, and failed, to do.

She de-normalized Donald Trump.

For years, various politicians and pundits have yelled themselves hoarse over the danger of normalizing Trump's chicanery, casual mendacity, outrageous divisiveness and outright criminal behavior. For years, the media have attempted to contextualize a candidate/president/insurrectionist/candidate who often dismisses the most time-honored rules of American politics (including the peaceful transfer of power) and continues to feed his not-inconsiderable number of supporters a diet of self-aggrandizement and grievance.

Not surprisingly, outrage itself has become normalized too. For President Biden and now Democratic nominee Harris, every word, action and expression is analyzed with granular intensity. Meanwhile, Trump's familiar litany of untruths and increasingly nonsensical speeches is regularly glossed as "Trump being Trump."

MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell recently called out the New York Times and other media outlets for surrendering to "sane-washing," which is how he described attempts to "edit Donald Trump's crazy statements down to a shape that allows them to then make sense of them."

So what do you do with a man who believes that if you repeat a series of lies often and loudly enough they will somehow become truths?

You get him a room and you make him do it on live television.

In less than two hours this week, Harris showed America that it is not normal for a candidate to be more concerned about the size of his rallies than he is about women bleeding out in parking lots because restrictive abortion laws have made doctors skittish about treating miscarriages. That it's not normal for a former American president to praise dictators and deride NATO, to promote the racist lie that Haitian immigrants are eating dogs and cats in Ohio, to continue to insist that he won an election he lost. That it's not normal for a man convicted of 34 felonies to claim to believe in law and order.

Harris set traps for Trump so obvious that a child, never mind a man who has participated in three sets of presidential debates, could have seen them a mile away. And, like a child, he walked into each and every one confident that he could talk his way out.

Which he definitely tried to do. During the debate, hosted by ABC and moderated by David Muir and Linsey Davis, Trump spoke for five more minutes than Harris, often pushing back against the moderators' attempts to cut him off, and managed to get the last word on every topic.

But when that talk forced the moderators to step in and point out that um, no, infanticide is not legal in any state (after Trump once again insisted that some abortion-rights-advocating politicians are in favor of executing babies after birth) and that there have been no actual reports of Haitian immigrants eating dogs and cats in Ohio (which even Trump's running mate had agreed was false), it was difficult to see the former president as anything but, well, weird.

Along with the more mundane lies about skyrocketing crime rates (they are at record lows) and countries illegally sending mental-hospital patients into the United States (no evidence of this), Trump also managed to say things like: "She wants to do transgender operations on illegal aliens in prison" and "All I can say is I read where she was not Black, that she put out, and, I'll say that. And then I read that she was Black, and that's OK."

For people who are too young to remember a time when Trump was just a rich guy who cheated on his wives, there was a time when remarks like these would have never been part of a presidential debate. And as Harris made clear with an admirable range of facial expressions and come-to-Jesus rejoinders, they should not be considered normal now.

 

This is precisely what Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, have been trying to do over the past two months: Persuade voters that Americans deserve a president who does not view the United States as a postapocalyptic hellscape over which to reign but as a place with problems that can be fixed if we start treating each other with respect.

That's not just a vibe. Harris came to the debate determined to break through the almost decade-long attempt to defend, defuse or otherwise accept Trump's norm-breaking words, actions and expressions by proving that it isn't just dangerous. It's absurd.

As Trump seemed determined to prove, he can't keep himself from personal attacks (i.e., that President Biden secretly hates Harris, and Harris hates both Israelis and Arabs), or trying to gaslight voters (i.e., that overturning Roe made everyone happy and Trump had nothing to do with the Jan. 6 insurrection), or align himself with authoritarian figures (e.g., Hungary's Viktor Orban). Even when avoiding all of the above is in his own best interest.

Harris did nothing more, or less, than allow Trump to be Trump, un-sane-washed, while offering a very clear alternative. Her first action was to introduce herself to him and shake his hand, a professional courtesy that clearly took Trump by surprise and one he did not extend to her. Throughout the debate, Trump referred to the sitting vice president almost exclusively as "she" or "her" — though he did manage to name Biden often enough for Harris to remind him, "Clearly, I am not Joe Biden." He rarely if ever looked at her, choosing to glower at the moderators or the camera as if she were not there.

Harris, on the other hand, addressed Trump by his name or his title and often turned to speak to him directly. When, apropos of nothing, Trump offered the tired canard that Harris wants to "confiscate your guns," Harris admonished him to his face: "Tim Walz and I are both gun owners," she said, with an exasperated firmness. "We're not taking anyone's guns away, so stop with the continuous lying about this stuff."

That moment alone was worth cheering for. Even as the nation reels from yet another school shooting, Trump continues to insist that any form of increased gun control will lead to people being stripped of their legally obtained weapons, despite the fact that, like Harris and Walz, most gun owners support some amount of more stringent measures.

Unlike Trump, who was easily baited into defending everything from attendance at his rallies to his negotiations with "Abdul … the head of the Taliban" (Hibatullah Akhundzada was and remains the leader of the Taliban), Harris appeared to take nothing personally. She responded to Trump's repetition of remarks about whether or not she is Black not with a rebuke but with the reminder that most Americans are tired of divisiveness and just want to get along with their friends and neighbors.

She saved her anger and passion for when she spoke about women and girls suffering under increasingly restrictive abortion laws, the importance of supporting Ukraine and NATO and how many former military leaders who served under Trump now consider him "a disgrace."

If the debate was short on policy details, well, Harris offered more than Trump, who answered a question about healthcare by trashing the Affordable Care Act and then, when asked if he had an alternative, saying he had "a concept of a plan." (Harris answered the same question by saying she will grow ACA and continue her and Biden's success with capping out-of-pocket drug costs and capping insulin prices.)

After the debate, Trump claimed he won, but even the most dedicated sane-washers, including prominent Republicans, had to concede that Harris had dominated. Which made Trump's familiar day-after drumbeat — the moderators were biased, the debate rigged — feel less infuriating than embarrassing.

It really is time to stop with the continuous lying about this stuff.


©2024 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

 

Comments

blog comments powered by Disqus

 

Related Channels

ACLU

ACLU

By The ACLU
Amy Goodman

Amy Goodman

By Amy Goodman
Armstrong Williams

Armstrong Williams

By Armstrong Williams
Austin Bay

Austin Bay

By Austin Bay
Ben Shapiro

Ben Shapiro

By Ben Shapiro
Betsy McCaughey

Betsy McCaughey

By Betsy McCaughey
Bill Press

Bill Press

By Bill Press
Bonnie Jean Feldkamp

Bonnie Jean Feldkamp

By Bonnie Jean Feldkamp
Cal Thomas

Cal Thomas

By Cal Thomas
Christine Flowers

Christine Flowers

By Christine Flowers
Clarence Page

Clarence Page

By Clarence Page
Danny Tyree

Danny Tyree

By Danny Tyree
David Harsanyi

David Harsanyi

By David Harsanyi
Debra Saunders

Debra Saunders

By Debra Saunders
Dennis Prager

Dennis Prager

By Dennis Prager
Dick Polman

Dick Polman

By Dick Polman
Erick Erickson

Erick Erickson

By Erick Erickson
Froma Harrop

Froma Harrop

By Froma Harrop
Jacob Sullum

Jacob Sullum

By Jacob Sullum
Jamie Stiehm

Jamie Stiehm

By Jamie Stiehm
Jeff Robbins

Jeff Robbins

By Jeff Robbins
Jessica Johnson

Jessica Johnson

By Jessica Johnson
Jim Hightower

Jim Hightower

By Jim Hightower
Joe Conason

Joe Conason

By Joe Conason
Joe Guzzardi

Joe Guzzardi

By Joe Guzzardi
John Micek

John Micek

By John Micek
John Stossel

John Stossel

By John Stossel
Josh Hammer

Josh Hammer

By Josh Hammer
Judge Andrew Napolitano

Judge Andrew Napolitano

By Judge Andrew P. Napolitano
Laura Hollis

Laura Hollis

By Laura Hollis
Marc Munroe Dion

Marc Munroe Dion

By Marc Munroe Dion
Michael Barone

Michael Barone

By Michael Barone
Michael Reagan

Michael Reagan

By Michael Reagan
Mona Charen

Mona Charen

By Mona Charen
Oliver North and David L. Goetsch

Oliver North and David L. Goetsch

By Oliver North and David L. Goetsch
R. Emmett Tyrrell

R. Emmett Tyrrell

By R. Emmett Tyrrell
Rachel Marsden

Rachel Marsden

By Rachel Marsden
Rich Lowry

Rich Lowry

By Rich Lowry
Robert B. Reich

Robert B. Reich

By Robert B. Reich
Ruben Navarrett Jr

Ruben Navarrett Jr

By Ruben Navarrett Jr.
Ruth Marcus

Ruth Marcus

By Ruth Marcus
S.E. Cupp

S.E. Cupp

By S.E. Cupp
Salena Zito

Salena Zito

By Salena Zito
Star Parker

Star Parker

By Star Parker
Stephen Moore

Stephen Moore

By Stephen Moore
Susan Estrich

Susan Estrich

By Susan Estrich
Ted Rall

Ted Rall

By Ted Rall
Terence P. Jeffrey

Terence P. Jeffrey

By Terence P. Jeffrey
Tim Graham

Tim Graham

By Tim Graham
Tom Purcell

Tom Purcell

By Tom Purcell
Veronique de Rugy

Veronique de Rugy

By Veronique de Rugy
Victor Joecks

Victor Joecks

By Victor Joecks
Wayne Allyn Root

Wayne Allyn Root

By Wayne Allyn Root

Comics

Dave Whamond Daryl Cagle David M. Hitch Bob Gorrell David Horsey Jimmy Margulies