The Harris-Trump debate was a slap in the face to us all

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Christa Graves, Resident of East Palestine, Ohio

Tonight, the evening of the presidential debate, I sit here wondering, “What’s the point? Does it change anyone’s vote?” Here in East Palestine, Ohio, and the surrounding areas, we have had some great bi-partisan responses in the early days following the Norfolk Southern train derailment, followed by nothing happening at a presidential level. We’ve asked President Biden to issue a disaster declaration for East Palestine; he hasn’t.

I can’t think of a single time in my life someone watched a presidential debate and said “Ya know, that debate really changed my mind,” or, “I had no idea who to vote for prior to this debate, but it really cleared things up for me.” I only hear individuals boasting about their candidate or tearing down the other.

Tonight, instead of the internet being abuzz about a whole region of the country being poisoned by a railroad company and failed by our government at every level, millions will be watching a debate that will only lead to social media posts from people praising their favored candidates and bashing their opponent, not changing anyone’s mind about who they’re going to vote for—friends and family will fight over candidates who will never know their names.

This time, for me, is better spent in meaningful conversations with community members and those who seek to support us, spending time with our family, or preparing for a loved one to come home from a two-week hospital stay after they experienced sudden onset heart and kidney failure. My mind doesn’t have space for this debate—I’m too busy wondering if exposure to toxins from the derailment caused these health issues, and if it’s going to get worse when they return home.

Tonight, watching two adults play word acrobatics and trying to rhetorically one-up each other isn’t a priority. To be honest, I can’t think of a single time in my life someone watched a presidential debate and said “Ya know, that debate really changed my mind,” or, “I had no idea who to vote for prior to this debate, but it really cleared things up for me.” I only hear individuals boasting about their candidate or tearing down the other.

Memes flood social media, yet our voices are unheard. At the local, state, and federal level, candidates on both sides of the aisle have ignored us. They have all shown us what they have to offer, right here in real life. Many actions could still be taken to help the people here, my family included; many laws on the books could have been enforced to prevent what happened here; but the people continue to be abandoned.

Tonight, by not watching the debate, I chose instead to invest my time and attention in my family and my community.

Norman Solomon, National Director of RootsAction.org

In the debate, Kamala Harris helped her campaign against Donald Trump. But she didn’t do anything to help the people of Gaza, who are dying courtesy of US taxpayers.

The debate dramatized how Trump represents extreme bigotry and contempt for basic human rights, while both candidates have a militaristic outlook on the rest of the world.

Harris replayed what has become a familiar tape loop from her—declaring support for Israel’s right to “defend itself” while expressing some brief compassion for Palestinian civilians. It’s a formulaic set of rhetoric that most significantly amounts to refusal to deal with the reality of what makes the ongoing slaughter of those people possible—the unconditional pipeline of weapons and ammunition from the US government to the Israeli military.

The debate underscored Donald Trump’s fascistic qualities, more dangerous than ever as he appears to have a 50-50 chance of winning the presidency. On issue after issue, his demagogic approach combined xenophobia, racism, and nationalism.

In contrast, Harris espoused a combination of social and cultural liberalism that embraces diversity. She also banged the drum for a militaristic and messianic foreign policy that endangers the world—with a far-fetched claim, for example, that if Russia had been allowed to win the war in Ukraine then Vladimir Putin would have “his eyes on the rest of Europe, starting with Poland.”

The debate dramatized how Trump represents extreme bigotry and contempt for basic human rights, while both candidates have a militaristic outlook on the rest of the world. Trump offers domestic repression that would have progressive forces back on their heels for four years. Harris at least would enable progressives to organize with some effects on policies. Not a great choice in this presidential election, but it’s the one we’ve got.

Ju-Hyun Park, TRNN Engagement Editor

The history of massacres is a history of lies—lies told after the fact to erase crimes from history, and lies told in the buildup that make these atrocities possible.

If our political system can only offer two candidates of genocide, are we not already in fascism?

Donald Trump’s lies captured the media spotlight last night. His demonstrably false claim that Haitian migrants are “eating the pets” of Springfield, Ohio, bewildered millions. Yet for millions more, these falsifications are all too real. We need only look to the recent pogroms in the UK to see how quickly this sort of propaganda can instigate a frenzy of racist terror.

Yet Trump was not alone in propagating blood libel. Once again, Kamala Harris promoted the debunked claim of mass rapes committed by Hamas on Oct. 7. This lie has been permitted to circulate unchallenged in US media for nearly a year, remaining a central talking point of genocide supporters.

While Trump’s comments rightfully provoked a fact-check from ABC moderators, Harris’ did not. Israel’s well-documented use of rape and sexual terror against Palestinian men and boys had no space in the debate; neither did the horrific bombings of tents in Khan Yunis on Tuesday morning, when Israel dropped 2,000-pound US-manufactured M-84 bombs on displaced Palestinian families, killing at least 40 people and leaving a 30 meter crater.

Whether from one party or another, the use of dehumanization to justify racist violence has dire political consequences for us all. The conversation on the future of democracy cannot be fixated on a single candidate or party—not when all major political players openly deploy blood libel to justify the slaughter of Palestinians. If our political system can only offer two candidates of genocide, are we not already in fascism?

Taya Graham and Stephen Janis, TRNN Investigative Reporters

The question of who won the first debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump is, in some sense, beside the point.

Why does Trump’s bad performance on the stage not equate to significant gains for Harris?

Of course it was a win for Harris. Trump is disturbingly unwell. He took the bait on almost all Harris’ traps, including crowd size and pet eating. The contrast between the two candidates was stark, and Harris was in charge for most of it.

But the more vexing question that has yet to be answered is how the debate will influence voters. And what we learn in the next week as the polls roll out might reveal some troubling truths—especially if an outsized Harris victory at the podium translates into a negligible impact on voter sentiment.

Truthfully, just as Biden appeared unfit in the June debate, Trump appeared similarly incapable of running a country. The two-hour clash showcased an vengeful, incoherent, irrational, and unhinged candidate. But unlike Biden, Trump’s behavior was not surprising. The debate simply emphasized what we already knew.

So if the polls barely budge in light of his poor performance, then a deeper question has to be asked. What exactly is motivating voters? Why don’t they outright reject a man who spews falsehoods, invective, and still refuses the results of the 2020 election? Why does Trump’s bad performance on the stage not equate to significant gains for Harris?

Pundits will cite inflation, housing costs, and a general malaise about the state of the economy. Bear in mind Trump never offers specifics on how he would fix these problems. He certainly didn’t during the debate. And if you think that was a fluke, take a look at Agenda 47, Trump’s meager offering in lieu of a party platform. It reads like a culture war digest woefully short on details.

That leaves us with one more query if the debate fails to shift public opinion: why won’t voters abandon Trump in light of clear evidence he’s not up to the job?

If an erratic man without an articulated policy agenda still polls at 48%, then what does that say about us? What are we missing about what really matters? Is Trump simply a flawed messenger for a deeper unease that we have yet to actually acknowledge, or is mistrust in any and all institutions so deep it has become synergistic with Trump’s own irrational behavior?

The polls will provide some insight into this question. And if they don’t budge, we have to start reconciling with the fact that nearly half of the country thinks Trump is the only answer.

Marc Steiner, Host of The Marc Steiner Show

The lack of substance around policy was glaringly real to this observer. It was a debate and brawl of personalities, and Trump’s falsehoods were glaring. Trump lied repeatedly during the debate, making up falsehoods from immigrants eating our pets, to the world prison population being down, to how tariffs would help bring down prices. Harris got under his skin by raising his criticism of John McCain, his support of racist violence in Charlottesville, and how he would kill parts of the Constitution. Then he said she was the first to drop out of the presidential race. She was not, nor was she the border czar, nor did she talk to Putin—these are all far-right talking points. Harris had a few herself, but overall this was a spitting match with little substance.

He said she was the first to drop out of the presidential race. She was not, nor was she the border czar, nor did she talk to Putin—these are all far-right talking points.

What seemed clear, as well, is that Trump is increasingly unhinged. I couldn’t stop thinking of Mussolini as he stood there scowling. Harris was calm, collected, and in control.

The reality, even though Trump came off a bit unhinged, is that it won’t budge his supporters or hers—it might move some of the undecided to vote for Harris, or not to vote at all. My observations might sound pro-Democrat, but they are not. We are faced with the real danger that the racist right could take over this country. This is akin to the end of Reconstruction and the rise of the Nazis in 1933, when moderates, liberals, and the left could not unite to stop the right. It might sound like hyperbole, but we are in the midst of a very critical historical moment.

The debate was not substantive, but gave us a glimpse of the battle for the future of the United States. The left needs to come together and organize, and needs to help stop the racist right from taking power.

Mel Buer, TRNN Staff Reporter

Vice President Harris came prepared for her first head-to-head with former President Trump, there’s no doubt about that. When you stand the two candidates side by side, Harris’s clear-headed responses and shrewd answers gave her the upper hand against Trump’s increasingly absurd rambling—and I think any reasonable person can look at the two of them together and come to the conclusion that Harris will always look like the adult in the room in comparison to Trump.

The project of creating better working and living conditions for working people will not be decided by the outcome of this election, as neither candidate will do what is ultimately best for the working class in this country. But we knew that already.

At this point in the game, however, that feels like a given. While folks will meme Trump’s racist conspiracies and Harris’s sardonic side-eyes to high heaven, the fact remains that both party representatives hinted at or elaborated on policy objectives that are increasingly conservative (and alarming) in their scope, that prioritize the American military-industrial complex at home and abroad, and present real challenges and pitfalls for the working class now and in the future.

It is also clear that a future Harris administration will respond to the ongoing genocide just as the Biden administration has—with lukewarm ‘condemnation’ of atrocities committed by the IDF in one hand, and a blank check to continue the wholesale destruction of the Palestinian people in the other.

It remains our responsibility as unwilling participants in this American Empire to continue to stand in solidarity with and organize for an end to these genocidal hostilities in Palestine and elsewhere around the world. As anti-genocide organizing continues across this nation, we must be fearless in our support of efforts to bring this slaughter to an end.

In the final analysis, this debate (and really any debate of the last 8, 12, 16 years) brings forth an unrelenting feeling of absolute and utter irritation: the longer those two stood on stage, the more I could feel my cynicism about the state of American politics rise to critical levels. What irks me most about these sorts of political events is that you feel as though you are being mocked, that your intelligence, your power as a worker and a voter, is being derided by the candidates; it doesn’t matter who they are, they don’t respect you and find your participation in the electoral process to be a total nuisance. Certainly what I felt while watching was a sense of falling—against my will—into a great chasm of uncertainty about the future of this country. Not to be hyperbolic, but that shit was grim, man.

I came away from the debate with a renewed sense of what must be done, however, despite my misgivings about the continued success (well, er—things may still run, at least) of this political system. The project of creating better working and living conditions for working people will not be decided by the outcome of this election, as neither candidate will do what is ultimately best for the working class in this country. But we knew that already. As always, it is our job as workers to build the community and conditions that will improve our own quality of life, and the only way to do that is to continue to organize together and bring that change around ourselves.

Some genocidal idiot is always going to be mucking things up from their gilded throne in the White House—the question is what will we be doing for our fellow worker, at home or abroad, despite this fact?