Going into the debate, I expected that Harris would perform very well, and that Trump would be very unhinged. Harris performed well, but based on her experience as a prosecutor, her skillful cross-examinations of witnesses (Bill Barr, etc.) in Senate hearings, and her general knowledge/experience with.....to use trial advocacy terminology... "impeaching" the credibility of a "hostile witnesses" ......I actually thought she would perform slightly better. This means that if there's a second debate, she has room to improve.
Trump was exposed, humiliated, and emasculated. This means that if there's a second debate, Trump will most likely be more unhinged.
It's been a couple of days since the debate, and when I first posted my observations online, so some of the observations/predictions are already occurring:
Trump was unsurprisingly unprepared, which is consistent with previous accounts of his general work ethic, as well as his previous debate preparation, specifically.
Yes, the moderators didn't pin Harris down on questions about flip-flopping on positions she's previously taken. And yes they attempted to pin Trump down when he didn't answer questions. However, despite attempting to pin Trump down with follow up questions on some topics, they still allowed Trump to avoid answering questions about:
- Whether Trump supported a national abortion ban
- Trump's contempt for the military
- Trump's plan to deport 11 million plus immigrants
- Why he killed the immigration bill
- Whether Trump had regrets about how he handled January 6th
- Whether Trump thought it was in the United States' best interest for Ukraine to win the war against Russia
- About his race-based comments about Harris
Since the debate, many Republicans/MAGA have called for Trump's debate team to be fired...and are upset he repeatedly "took the bait".
But here's the thing: Trump is pathologically incapable of not taking the bait. He's incapable of not defending his pathologically fragile ego. I explained this in a 2019:
It's futile to try to view/understand Trump through a lens of reason, logic, and strategy rather than pathology. There is no method to his madness, there are just consequences of his disorders.
Trump is far more compulsive and reflexive than he is strategic. To oversimplify, think about it in terms of his disorders existing on a continuum, with narcissism on one pole and sociopathy on the other, with both disorders locked in an ongoing battle for disorder dominance/expression.
Without question his narcissism appears to be ever present. But he also appears to be a sociopath. However, whereas sociopaths can be cunning, strategic, and able to execute a plan to bring about the desired consequences of a cunning strategy, Trump’s reflexive, impulsive, compulsive narcissistic need to defend his ego results in self-sabotaging short-term gains or near-sighted “wins” that often have detrimental long term consequences on his sociopathic strategies/agenda/desires:
His narcissism > his sociopathy.
As a result, Trump not only constantly gets in his own way, and undermines....his political agenda....
...Trump’s ineptitude in executing a plan [is] due to his inability to refrain from making impulsive, ego-defending statements....
The Right/MAGA being "disappointed" that Trump "took the bait" continues to show their denial and/or ignorance of Trump's severe Cluster B Personality Disorders.
Regardless of whatever dire circumstances or traumatic experiences Trump encounters, he will never become "more presidential".....he will never become more unifying, etc.
Shortly after the assassination attempt, I was asked how Trump would respond to the assassination attempt. Reporters were writing stories that naively predicted that Trump would tone it down to "unite the country". My response, in part:
Trump will never "change". He is psychologically incapable of deviating from the pathological instincts/drives that control him and dictate his behavior.
Trump's pathologically fragile ego prevents him from being capable of accepting a "loss"....regardless of whether that is an election loss, or a debate loss. The predictable result is that Trump's disorders compel him to revise history, to create alternate realities, to fabricate conspiracies, and to claim victimhood. In 2020, it was the "Big Lie", and conspiracies about the election being stolen from him. After the 2024 debate, he's claiming that "everyone" is saying that he won, is accusing ABC of giving Harris the questions prior to the debate, and whining about being "unfair" treatment from the moderators.
It's important to remember that this is not just an election to Trump. This election likely determines whether Trump goes to prison. So, this pattern of behavior will not only once again repeat itself months from now if Trump loses in November, but it will escalate as he desperately tries to self-preserve.
In the short term, Trump will seethe over Harris exposing to the whole world that "his" generals call him "a disgrace"......and that foreign leaders laugh at him. Trump's rally speeches, and his social media posts will become more belligerent, more threatening, and more foreboding.