A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
Standing Up To The Bully
Kamala Harris practiced a different kind of dominance politics in last night’s debate, confronting the menace of Donald Trump directly and taking him down a peg like you would a schoolyard bully.
After nearly a decade of Trump doing as he pleases with little accountability, a lot of appeasement, and very rare consequence, he was brought up short by an opponent who looked him in the eye, called him out, didn’t back down, and in the process threw him off his game and took command of the debate stage.
The emotional weight of her presentation was centered on confronting him with a combination of mockery, scorn, bemusement, disdain, and condescension. Yes, it got under his skin, Yes, he was rattled, Yes, it turned him into a fulminating old man. I’m less interested though in the stagecraft she used than in the catharsis it provided to viewers who have craved to see Trump get his comeuppance for so many years, only to be repeatedly and endlessly disappointed.
It was Joe Biden’s failure to confront Trump on this level during their debate in June that led to the existential crisis among Democrats. Biden failed in multiple ways in that debate, but the biggest letdown was his failure to stand up to Trump in a convincing fashion and instead let Trump run all over him.
In contrast, Harris confronted Trump repeatedly. She referred to him as a “disgrace” twice, as “dangerous and unfit,” as “confused,” and as lacking the right “temperament” to be president. She derided him to his face as someone dictators know “they can manipulate … with flattery and favors.” She often referred to him in the second person, a more charged and direct way of punching the bully in the nose. She called him out for warring against the rule of law and the Constitution and for his own criminally-charged conduct.
Just don’t confuse catharsis with election victory. The most sobering part of the evening was knowing that a solid 40+% of the country remains under the sway of this petty bully, huckster, narcissist, a chronic fabricator of falsehoods and misinformation. But at least Harris called him for those things.
Trump has no affirmative case to make for being president. He can’t win over new voters, so his only path is to tear down Harris to make her an unacceptable choice. By that measure alone, Harris was able to turn the tables.
A Panoply Of Kamala Harris Reaction Shots
A grateful nation vicariously reacted to Donald Trump through the facial expression of Kamala Harris (click to enlarge):
A Final Flex
The Harris campaign immediately called for another debate with Trump as soon as the candidates left last night’s debate stage. Trump waffled a bit when asked about it post-debate and refused to commit to another installment.
The Debate By The Numbers
The most annoying thing the moderators did was to repeatedly let Trump grab control of the microphone and talk out of turn. That led to considerable disparities in total time spoken and number of times speaking:
‘I Have Concepts Of A Plan’
Step aside “Infrastructure Week,” we have a new winner in the category of endless Trump promises that he never delivers on.
Somehow Trump went backwards from always on the verge of releasing his own Obamacare replacement plan while president to four years later having only the “concepts of a plan.”
What it looks like when a huckster is exposed:
Post by @aaron.ruparView on Threads
Harris’ Embrace Of The Military
It was a low-key point of emphasis, but Kamala Harris explicitly aligned herself with the military eight different times in the debate, by my count.
At first I thought it was an effort to highlight’s Trump’s consistent disparagement of the service members, but it came up in enough different contexts to make me think it was also a calculated effort to bolster her national security credentials and inoculate her against doubts about her becoming the first woman commander in chief.
The Most Absurd Non-Trump Moment
Climate change got short shrift in the debate, a single question framed in the most unsophisticated, open-ended way:
The question to you both tonight is what would you do to fight climate change? And Vice President Harris, we’ll start with you. One minute for you each.
It’s a measure of the degraded state of our public discourse about climate change that the debate question would be so general and non-specific – with an entire 60 seconds to respond.
Look What You Made Her Do
Taylor Swift, the preeminent childless cat lady, timed her endorsement of Kamala Harris to land just after the debate ended, which led to the odd scene of Rachel Maddow reading Swift’s Instagram post to Tim Walz live on the air.
Big News
The Missouri Supreme Court ruled that a measure to enshrine abortion rights will remain on the November ballot.
Army Stonewalls On Trump Arlington Fiasco
New reporting from Greg Sargent:
The Army has yet to provide Democrats in Congress with its internal incident report detailing the confrontation, even though they have been demanding it for almost two weeks, a congressional aide familiar with the situation tells me. Democrats have also demanded a blow-by-blow account of what exactly was communicated to the Trump campaign before the incident. Trump aides were warned against carrying out prohibited activities, and a full accounting would show the degree to which they knew in advance that their filming would violate specific laws and regulations. That has not been forthcoming either, the aide says.
More On The Terrorgram Indictment
Joyce Vance, on the feds busting up the Terrorgram Collective with the indictment of two of its alleged leaders:
Terrorgram Collective is a transnational terrorist group that operates on the digital messaging platform Telegram, where it promotes white supremacist accelerationism, an ideology centered on the belief that the white race is superior; that society is irreparably corrupt and cannot be saved by political action; and that violence and terrorism are necessary to ignite a race war and accelerate the collapse of the government and the rise of a white ethnostate.
Good Read
The Atlantic: Why Mike Lee Folded
It Will Forever Be Known As The Pet-Eating Debate
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Yay cat ladies!!! For the win.
Kamala’s willing, but Donald says no.
The fact that Trump’s repulsive racism, narcissism, incoherence, mendacity, clear cognitive decline, and sheer insanity is news this morning really paints a picture of the profoundly poor job the mainstream media has done in covering this asshole. Don’t look for any changes, though, because Trump is good for business!!
Oh, and yeah, flop sweat. That is all.