Debate night, 9/10/24
Last night, September 10th, 2024, former President Donald Trump “debated” current Vice President Kamala Harris. ABC news aired the event, with moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis at the
helm. This is the first debate between these two since President Joe Biden dropped out of the race following the previous debate with Trump. This is also, as CNN repeated ad nauseam, this was their first in person meeting ever. Harris confidently approached Trump and introduced herself to which he responded, “have fun”. Off to an amazing start with these two already.
Right out of the gate Harris stated that she understands the middle class and has a plan to cut taxes for them, versus Trump who wants to continue lowering taxes for the rich. There was also mention of a “second mom” from Kamala when attempting to relate to a small business owner. This appears to be in reference to a woman, Regina Shelton, who ran a nursery school below the apartment Harris grew up in. Not a bad open, appealing to the gullible masses looking for platitudes over policy. Without hesitation, Trump started talking about tariffs, and how when he was president he made other countries “pay their fair share”, not Americans. The headshaking and smirking from Harris has begun, it truly is her best quality as a candidate.
It doesn’t take long for us to jump right into the border, with Trump accusing Harris, “border czar”, of allowing illegal immigrants to take jobs, Black jobs, and hurting unions. Sloppy, but the point will resonate with his base. These people need an enemy, and immigrants are a classic for them to fall back on. Harris comes back sharply with, “Trump left us with record unemployment and a deadly virus”. Ok, let’s take a moment here. This is shameful rhetoric that is doing no one any good. Donald Trump didn’t cause the pandemic, and his administration did no worse, and in some ways better, handling it than the current administration being run by Harris and Biden. Alas, this is again likely appealing to her base, who are equally looking for an enemy, but more interested in targeting their opponents with nonsense instead of the real threats they pose. This is because they’re all part of the same camp, and to expose anything really material would be to expose themselves. I digress.
Harris takes little time bringing up the specter of Project 2025 and the evils Trump will bring with it. Let’s take a moment to talk about Project 2025 and the fear it instills in liberals. Project 2025 is a plan for a more conservative USA under the hand of the religious right and their political proxies. Whilst this should be something people are watching, working against, and so on, it is also not some new threat emerging from Donald Trump’s potential second term. This is nothing more than the longstanding religious right’s intentions for this country, just more organized and with a powerful group of neo-cons at the helm. Trump has also, wisely, denied being in any way affiliated with it. This is a waste of time and a distraction that both sides are happy to have in play.
Trump followed up, as expected, by denying his involvement with Project 2025 and said that before the pandemic they had a “great economy” but after that they could only do so much. Kamala and Trump exchange empty jabs about their economic successes/failures, with Harris repeating over and over that she has a plan and Trump doesn’t. Trump, not as sharply as one might expect from him, replies “she copied Biden’s plan. It’s like four sentences, ‘run spot run’.” Not his best, he’s a bit sluggish up there, just not the old Don we’re used to.
At this point I’m fairly impressed by the moderators. They are both doing a pretty good job trying to keep the candidates on topic and ask relatively important questions. Trump, leaning into the economy, says Harris should have stopped the China tariffs if she doesn’t like them, but they’re still in place almost four years later. With China mentioned, it doesn’t take long for some fear mongering, with Harris accusing Trump of “selling us out” selling chips to China, and that he thanked President Xi and lied claiming President Xi wasn’t transparent with the US when Covid struck the globe. This anti-China rhetoric is incredibly transparent and dangerous. Enough is enough. Alas, the people need an enemy and China and Russia are the evil “other” du jour.
Here, folks, is my favorite moment of the evening. Donald Trump, straightfaced and angrily shouts “she’s a Marxist, everyone knows her father is a Marxist professor”! Read that again. I have to say, as a Marxist, it’s both nice and crazy to hear Karl mentioned in a presidential debate in this capitalist hellscape. I am happy to report that from here the debate shifts into gear and gets fun.
Our moderators bring up the topic of reproductive rights, and without hesitation Trump claims he’s the most pro-life president ever. From there he starts ranting about ninth month abortions, and accusing Virginia of after-birth abortions saying, “Execute the baby”. The moderator is able to follow up with a fact check that there’s nowhere in the United States where babies are killed after nine months or birth.
Harris, in true Democrat fashion, says “If elected I will sign Roe v. Wade into law”. This is just the latest in a long running trend of Democrats using abortion as an election tool. It’s disgusting, and people have got to see that. These people have had 52 years, with plenty of control of our governing bodies, to make that happen. They don’t want to, because with control of our reproductive rights they lose something to hold over us and make us fear the repercussions of not voting for their candidates.
Trump, in keeping with Republican ideals of small government, is not in favor of a national abortion ban, and insists states make those decisions. When asked about discussing the topic with his Vice Presidential running mate JD Vance, Trump denies ever speaking to Vance about a national abortion ban or anything of the like. He follows that up with “I’m a leader in IVF” in response to Harris telling a heart breaking anecdote about a woman unable to have children due to these bans on reproductive healthcare. At this point the microphone muting has ceased and they’re yelling over each other. This is what I stayed up for.
Time to run for the border. Harris is hit with the fact that more immigrants have come across the border illegally under Biden than ever before. Harris wastes no time promoting a bill that would increase border control budgets and personnel, something nobody should be happy about. This is the same party that built the cages at the border, and Trump makes sure to remind us. Honestly, this exchange is at least an example of both parties being evil and out only for themselves. Pay attention to these types of arguments and notice how closely aligned these supposed polar opposite parties actually are.
We quickly move from substance to nonsense with Harris taking a jab at Trump, stating his rallies are boring and that people leave early because he’s rambling about Hannibal Lector and other things. Trump, a manchild, replies, “People don’t leave my rallies. They want to take our country back”. I’m sure the people on both sides ate this up. This, luckily, doesn’t last long, but where it goes is less than ideal.
Trump launches into the recent racism oozing out of Springfield, Ohio. According to some white people that were offered a chance to be on TV, Haitian immigrants are ruining their lives in a multitude of ways. The most dehumanizing being that they’re stealing peoples pets (cats, etc) and eating them. This is a tired tactic, one I remember from my childhood being used to dehumanize Chinese immigrants and their restaurant food. After shouting that under Harris , “we’ll end up being Venezuela, or worse”, Trump is confronted again by the facts by way of the handsome moderator. The city manager of Springfield, and all officials asked, have denied any reports of Haitian immigrants stealing and eating cats, but Trump was quick to angrily reply that he “saw it on TV”. Full grandpa mode activated.
Grandpa Donald then begins to yell about how he fired people in his administration because he’s tough and that Harris wouldn’t because she wants to avoid people writing books about her. Wild stuff here folks, but we’re just getting into it. He then turns to crime again shouting about Venezuela having lower crim because they’re “sending them to her and here and it’s ruining the fabric of our country”. This is the stuff, and like that it’s time for a new slogan for Don. “We have a new kind of crime, it’s called ‘Migrant Crime’”. When confronted with FBI statistics that dispute this, he snaps that the FBI are corrupt and those numbers are fraudulent. Harris uses this opportunity to tell us how pro-law and order she is and that we have to respect these institutions. Trump turns this into the Democrats “weaponizing the justice department” to go after him. Harris, going back to fear mongering, insists Trump would “terminate the Constitution” if elected. Trump replies to this with the most vitriol we’ve seen all night, “I probably took a bullet to the head because of what they say about me”.
We’re nearing an hour of this and Palestine has not been mentioned once. However, we’re going to talk about how much both of them love fracking and natural gas and it’s just disgusting. Another fine example of the one party being unable to even pretend to be dissimilar. Trump and Harris then squabble over how much money Trump’s father gave him, ending with Trump snapping at Harris attempting to interrupt him by quoting her, “I’m talking now”. He followed this gem with a low toned “sound familiar?”
I know this has been a long report, lord knows I’m tired of writing it, but don’t give up on me now for the best is still to come. “She wants to do transgender operations on illegal immigrants in prison”. I’m just leaving it there. It’s incredible and I need to save all the memes it’s produced. I think the Vince McMahon escalating excitement ones are my favorite.
Next up, the moderators ask Trump if he has any regrets about his part in the January 6th “insurrection”. Trump belligerently brings up Ashli Babbitt being shot by unprofessional cops and rolls that right into immigrants and how we need to be prosecuting them, not our own people. Truly xenophobic stuff that his base is eating up. CBS does little to stop this, nor does Harris. Somehow Trump segues into a joke about Biden, saying he could sign an immigration bill into law right now and to go “wake him up at 4pm”. Oof.
From here Trump is asked about claims of election fraud in 2020 and he doubles down, yelling about how they have proof and essentially pitches CBS a network special event if they want it. To her credit, Harris finally lands a punch by quipping, “Donald Trump was fired by 81 million people and having a difficult time processing that”.
Harris doesn’t ease up from there, and tells Trump and the viewers that she speaks with world leaders regularly and they say Trump is a “disgrace”. Trump, having none of this, decides to invoke none other than Polish fascist president Viktor Orban, calling him a “strong man” that supports him. This is where things get cattier and cattier.
Finally, after an hour, we’re talking about the Middle East and Palestine. Harris immediately launches into blaming Hamas and that 11/7/23 was the start of the conflict. This is patently false, ignoring decades of open air imprisonment of Palestinians and the attempted genocide against them. She regurgitates that “Israel has a right to defend itself, we would”. Disgusting. Harris then lies about women being raped during the 11/7 attacks, a lie that both sides use to support the ongoing arms sales to Israel. Finally, Harris says that a ceasefire deal and the return of hostages is the only way for this to end, and that a two state solution is necessary. Same song, while countless Palestinian families are being murdered daily by the evil Israeli state. Trump pivots to Ukraine, saying Putin wouldn’t want him in office and that the invasion never would have happened with him still in office. He shouts that Harris hates Israel, a laughable accusation, and claims Israel “won’t exist in two years if she wins”. I wish. Former President Trump then claims, “She hates the Arab population too because if she wins the whole place will be gone” and that Iran has money for “terror” because his tariffs against them were lifted. This is clearly nonsense, but his base likely ate it up. Harris retorts that Trump wants to be a dictator, before our moderators take us into our first and only break.
Back from commercial and Trump is asked how he’d solve the war in Ukraine, as he put it, “in 24 hours”. He is also asked, rather aggressively, if he wants Ukraine to win the war. Trump responds saying that more people are dying than the “numbers we’re getting”, citing fake reporting. He says he knows Zelensky and Putin and, in the third person he said, “they respect your president”. He goes on to state “we’re playing with WW3” and shouts, “where’s Biden?” and that we deserve a president who “knows he’s alive”. Classic Don. This is what we’re here for.
Harris is quick to respond to Trump that, “you’re not running against Joe Biden, you’re running against me”. Says Trump would give up on Ukraine and that she stands behind all the money and weapons they’ve provided to them in the war. She finishes saying Trump would have Putin “sitting in Kiev”. Trump said everything Biden/Harris said before the invasion of Ukraine was “weak and stupid” and blames her for the Ukraine war.
Harris is then asked about pulling out of Afghanistan, and rather than admitting there were mistakes made, she doubles down on how proud she is of the work they did getting troops out and blames Trump for working with the Taliban. Trump then tells a story about when he met the Taliban leader and said, “I told Abdul, don’t do it anymore”, and showed him a satellite photo of his house as a threat. This is a story Trump's surrogates like to share with the press.
Harris then moves on to race, and goes right at Trump for his part in the unjust, dehumanizing imprisonment of the Central Park Five. Trump, being Trump, doubles down saying that even Mike Bloomberg agreed with him at the time and that they confessed, completely ignoring that they were coerced and abused by police to make that confession. This was a good shot for Harris when she needed it.
At this point VP Harris tries to pivot to her plan for small business loans and making it easier for people to buy a home. Before she can get going, probably a blessing for her and her lack of a real plan, Trump starts yelling “she has a plan to take everyone’s guns, defund police, and end fracking”. Harris responds that she and her running mate, Tim Walz, are gun owners and he should stop that nonsense. She then brings up how Trump spoke about John McCain, a real “hero”. Here she leans into how even Republicans are supporting her because of Trump being a disgrace. Trump is then asked about Obamacare and why he didn’t repeal and replace it as he said he would. Trump claimed he now has a “concept of a plan” to finish the job if elected. Trump finishes by stating plainly that Harris wants to take away private insurance for those that can afford it. While I would love that, we know that’s simply not in the neoliberal agenda.
Finally, climate change, thank goodness. Trump shouts, “they’re building factories in Mexico that are owned by China”, which is just INSANE but hilarious at the same time. The need to fear monger China is so strong it’s irresistible to them. To wrap this up, Trump throws out some conspiracy theories about money from Moscow mayors. I’m going to be honest, I don’t know what this was about.
Closing statements are predictable and nothing really noteworthy is said or done, which is honestly not the worst way for this to have ended. I’ll be honest, these bourgeois elections are nothing but a spectacle to raise money and fool the masses and anyone paying attention knows it. We communists know the truth about capital, it’s control of every aspect of our lives, and the people that work day in day out to keep us working for capital, and not the other way around.
Good night comrades, a better day awaits.