Puck: The totality of Donald Trump's debate decimation by Kamala Harris was as staggering as it was indisputable

[Dennis Donovan]

Link to tweet

Rick Wilson
Slaughterhouse 45:

"The totality of Donald Trump’s debate decimation by Kamala Harris was as staggering as it was indisputable. But even more stunning—and possibly more consequential—is the post-debate meltdown now consuming Trumpworld, from Mar-a-Lago to the farthest reaches of the MAGA-sphere."
puck.news/a-post-debate-meltdown-is-consuming-trumpworld/

Slaughterhouse 45

The totality of Donald Trump’s debate decimation by Kamala Harris was as staggering as it was indisputable. But even more stunning—and possibly more consequential—is the post-debate meltdown now consuming Trumpworld, from Mar-a-Lago to the farthest reaches of the MAGA-sphere.



John Heilemann
September 15, 2024

Presidential debates invariably consume a gargantuan amount of attention and are freighted with vast significance by the candidates, the campaigns, the professional political class, and the national press corps. And every so often—the famous face-offs between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon in 1960, say, or the solo debate between Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter in 1980—they have been known and shown to move the needle appreciably among voters. But historically speaking, the instances in which debates have produced tangible electoral effects have been the exception and not the rule.

Bill Clinton didn’t snatch the Oval Office from George H.W. Bush in 1992 on the debate stage; 41’s son, George W., didn’t triumph over Al Gore due to the magnum force of his forensic mastery. The three debates between Barack Obama and John McCain in 2008 were all more or less forgotten within days, and Obama’s #epicfail against Mitt Romney in the first 2012 debate didn’t result in Willard moving into the White House. As a general matter, it’s fair to say, presidential debates create a ton of sound and fury, but portend precious little.

Of course, even before Fight Night in Philly last week between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, 2024 was different, and not just mildly or on the margins. Indeed, among historians, political scientists, analysts, experts, reporters, and pundits who’ve been around the block a time or two (or, in my case, heaven help me, eight), the first debate between Trump and Joe Biden in Atlanta in June was the most reverberative presidential cage match in the annals of the Republic—a debate that didn’t just move the needle but one that radically altered the trajectory of the entire election by setting off the chain reaction that drove Biden from the race.

For all the build-up ahead of Harris vs. Trump, few serious people imagined that last week’s debate could have that level of impact on the race, and even now, it’s almost certainly a stretch to claim that it will. But given what transpired that night in Philly—and, more to the point, the comprehensive and metastasizing meltdown that’s ensued within the Trump campaign, inside Mar-a-Lago’s sanctum sanctorum, among what remains of the G.O.P. establishment, in every corner of the MAGA-sphere, and, apparently, inside Trump’s head—there’s at least a chance that history may look back and judge that Harris-Trump in the Cradle of Liberty was at least in the same coliseum of consequence as Biden-Trump in Dogwood City.

/snip

[Cha]

1. Don't want this to get lost in the cracks. TY