If you missed my column yesterday about how much fun it was to watch Kamala Harris repeatedly bait Donald Trump into ranting and raving about nonsense, you can read it here. Here are some thoughts from the day after.
Nielsen says 67 million people watched the debate live Tuesday night. With clips being posted on every news and social media platform, that number will grow to well over a hundred million. None of that is a guarantee that Kamala will beat Trump in November — particularly with the result-rigging his supporters are already doing in swing states — but it sure won’t hurt.
I wonder how all the MAGA Morons who were mad at Mike Pence for not throwing out the valid results of the 2020 presidential election would feel if Trump were to win this November, but Kamala Harris — who would still be Vice President and thus oversea the ratification process in January — refused to certify the outcome and instead gave it to herself?
Trump said yesterday that ABC News should lose its license because of the way its moderators (Linsey Davis and David Muir) treated him during the debate (i.e. by fact-checking his lies in real time). So let me add some fact-checking of my own. Trump’s claim is more proof he doesn’t know how the US government works. There is no license required for any newsroom to operate anywhere in this country. The FCC is the only agency that oversees broadcast outlets — which includes the TV stations owned and operated by ABC’s parent company, Disney — but has no say in their content (other than obscenity). Furthermore, the FCC would have no standing to shut down any broadcaster just because the loser of a debate whined about bias. Just imagine how the right-wing media would react if Joe Biden tried to shut down Fox News or Newsmax.
The increasingly clueless JD Vance actually said this sentence yesterday on Fox News: “We admire Taylor Swift’s music, but I don’t think most Americans are gonna be influenced by a billionaire celebrity who I think is fundamentally disconnected from the interests and the problems of most Americans.” But enough about Donald Trump!
Counterpoint: within twelve hours of Taylor issuing her endorsement of Kamala on Instagram and posting a link for people who want to register to vote, over a third of a million people had done so. Pretty good for a person with no influence, JD.
And finally: I’m old enough to remember the time a presidential candidate lost a debate so badly he had to withdraw from the election.