Donald Trump definitely lost the debate, but that doesn’t mean Kamala Harris has good ideas

How the Republic has fallen. Tuesday’s presidential debate featured two presidential candidates with little-to-no fidelity to the United States Constitution and little-to-no vision for what the nation really needs or how to get there.

Of course, many supporters of former President Donald Trump are sure to object to the idea he lost the debate. They’ve point out, accurately, that while the ABC moderators fact-checked him on the spot, they did no such thing when Vice President Kamala Harris twisted the facts. That’s true and that’s a fair criticism of the debate. If the moderators wanted to engage in fact-checking on the spot, they should have done so consistently.

That said, Donald Trump didn’t exactly say much to convince voters exhausted by the idea of yet another Trump presidency.

He played the old hits, reverting to the role of demagogue when it came to immigrants and migrants. But as always, when it came time for him to explain how, exactly, he’d pull off in a mass deportation of over 10 million people, he dodged the question. He preferred to stick with demagoguing.

He praised over Viktor Orban, the authoritarian leader of Hungary who says things like “we do not want to become peoples of mixed-race.”

“Let me just tell you about world leaders. Viktor Orban,” said Trump, “one of the most respected men — they call him a strong man… Look, Viktor Orban said it. He said the most respected, most feared person is Donald Trump.”

We are certain Trump has already locked up the xenophobic gaggle of Viktor Orban enthusiasts who fantasize about mass deportations. Not exactly a positive vision.

Likewise, Trump reminded everyone that he still hasn’t come to terms with his defeat in 2020 and still doesn’t see anything wrong with his supporters attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

“I got almost 75 million votes. The most votes any sitting president has ever gotten. I was told if I got 63, which was what I got in 2016, you can’t be beaten,” he said, showing impeccable reasoning. He still can’t understand, apparently, that Biden both got more votes overall and got enough votes in key states to put him over the top. It’s that simple.

Harris, meanwhile, was at her best when she allowed Trump to keep reminding people of how exhausting he is.

She did indulge in some expected lazy campaign tricks, like tying Trump to the Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025” policy agenda (which we doubt he’s read a word of) and repeating the long-debunked lie that Trump defended the worst elements in Charlottesville. His “both sides” quote was clearly in relation to people with differing views of how to handle Confederate statues, not the neo-Nazi goons.

Most impressively, though, she managed to dodge responsibility for the failures of the Biden administration. Which, in some sense, is fair — since when did Americans think vice presidents actually did anything? — but in another sense leaves her unaccountable for anything.

Likewise, she managed to dodge having to explain her sudden shift on a number of policy fronts, from fracking to guns to health care, and was let off the hook by the moderators.

She likewise denied having promoted a bail fund for the “peaceful protestors” burning down cities in Minnesota, but her tweet doing so is still, actually, online.

And while Trump’s line, “Now she wants to do transgender operations on illegal aliens who are in prison,” sounds ridiculous, it’s actually basically true. She explicitly supported this in a 2019 questionnaire for the American Civil Liberties Union.

When Harris did manage to be specific — not just repeating “small businesses” — she was just playing Santa Claus, with vows to give away tax credits and down payment assistance for homebuyers. None of which, incidentally, are good ideas.

Needless to say, these are dark times for the American experiment.