Opinion
By Mike Weland
That there could be people who, having purportedly watched the same ABC presidential debate broadcast last night as I did, still abide the delusion that Donald John Trump is or ever was of presidential stature is both ludicrous and alarming. But they do.
“She is the laughing stock of the World, lie lie lie and lie more!” one watcher wrote on Facebook.
Before the debate even concluded, the Trump machine sent out a press release continuing the Trump forte; “lie lie lie and lie more!”
“President Trump delivered a masterful debate performance tonight, prosecuting Kamala Harris’ abysmal record of failure that has hurt Americans for the last four years,” they wrote.
“We saw President Trump lay out his bold vision of America and how he would continue to build upon the successes of his first term by supercharging the economy, securing the border, and stopping crime from ravaging communities across the country.
Conversely, Kamala’s vision of America was a dark reminder of the oppressive, big government policies of Joe Biden that she wants to continue. High inflation, a porous border that allows criminals and terrorists to flood across, and being soft on crime— that is what Kamala represents.”
Truth is, Trump ran true to form and Harris was ready for him. She waited patiently for him to lie, go on the attack or resort to hyperbole. And she was ready. Whenever his lips moved she recognized the lie and lobbed a rhetorical hand grenade.
He caught each and every one on cue, and each one exploded, eliciting a shocked stare and what appeared to be a deepening self-realization that something wasn’t working quite right. This woman wasn’t intimidated by his bluster, she laughed at his lies and she walked him nonchalantly into every trap she sprang on him, eliciting the wrong but true-to-Trump response that showed him for what he is; a rich spoiled brat now grown into an angry old man still trying to please a ruthless father never pleased by much of anything.
From start to finish, Harris played Trump like a fish, expertly dangling lures she knew he couldn’t resist, goading him. And he responded as only Trump would; “People don’t leave my rallies. We have the biggest rallies, the most incredible rallies in the history of politics. That’s because people want to take their country back. Our country is being lost;” What about illegal immigrants? Billions and billions SHE let in! They’re ruining our country, it’s a disaster like no one’s ever seen before; “We need two things. We need walls. We need – and we have to have it. We have to have borders. And we have to have good elections. Our elections are bad;” she has no program, her and sleepy Joe, world leaders respect me, had I been there this never would have happened, when I’m reelected, I’ll have it fixed before my second term starts; “They allowed criminals. Many, many millions of criminals. They allowed terrorists. They allowed common street criminals. They allowed people to come in, drug dealers, to come into our country … And I think they probably did it because they think they’re going to get votes. But it’s not worth it. Because they’re destroying the fabric of our country by what they’ve done;” “I probably took a bullet to the head because of the things that they say about me. They talk about democracy, they say I’m a threat to democracy. They’re the threat to democracy, with the fake Russia, Russia, Russia investigation that went nowhere.
Every barbed trap Harris laid snagged him and set another hook, his anger growing, his responses more petty, more petulant, more vituperative and more juvenile.
On Tuesday night in Constitution Hall in Philadelphia, Kamala Harris gave Trump a spanking.
And she definitely showed Trump for what he is, a weak and egotistical bully without the desire or ability to serve anything more than himself. A grown man with the emotional development of a three year old. A man singularly unfit to serve the public trust in any capacity, let alone the highest office.
And this morning, of course, Trump is claiming (yawn) he won, but ABC cheated and should lose their “news organization” license.
“I think ABC took a big hit last night,” Trump said, adding another bramble of stinkweed to his reeking bouquet of stupid, stupid sayings. “To be honest, they’re a news organization—they have to be licensed to do it. They ought to take away their license for the way they did that.”
And his sycophants and die-hard MAGA minions are singing raucously every lie and conspiracy theory they can conceive to attempt to brace and bolster their candidate, who never should have been. Spoon-fed a diet of Trump propaganda for nearly a decade, conditioned to eschew the “lamestream” media, the MAGA millions, they are unsurprisingly unaware of the real world they refuse to countenance.
There are those complaining there’s still much about Harris they don’t know, but cut the vice president some slack … she had a giant to bring down and only 90 minutes in which to do it. An experienced prosecutor with a long and honorable public service career, she recognized and called out our nation’s 45th president as of a type she knew well from long years of experience — she confronted him as she would any other criminal.
And she knew where to land her punches. Not his head, too hard. Not his gut, too big and soft, it just swallowed the glove. Not the heart …he has none. Kamala instead danced out, danced in and peppered incessantly at Trump’s only weakness, his ego, hitting him hard in the nuggets, leaving him bloody and battered like the pets he says are being savored in Springfield.
Trump left the ring standing, but he was shaken to the core, his facade shaky but still held up by the tattered, fragile shreds of his confidence. Perhaps now, at last, MAGA folk will see the truth I’ve shouted from the wilderness since Trump rode down that gilded elevator; it’s not conservative or liberal, Democrat or Republican. It’s about the individual, the qualities they possess or the lack thereof.
Donald J. Trump simply does not possess the requisite qualities to be our nation’s leader or commander-in-chief, and it is incumbent on we, the electorate, to insure that he nor anyone else so grossly unqualified is ever again given the heavy reins of so much power, such onerous responsibility.
Donald Trump is being Donald Trump, and he will ever so be. It is we, the voters, who have let ourselves be intimidated, who are derelict. Kamala Harris just showed us how it can be done.
It is up to us now to do it.