Sometimes, it’s hard to tell whether you’re laughing or crying.
Donald Trump, a man who used to be president of the United States and may be again, stood on a Philadelphia debate stage Tuesday night and repeatedly insisted that immigrants to this country steal and eat pet cats and dogs.
(I immediately texted two friends, children of immigrants: “Why didn’t you tell me? I thought we were close.”)
Even after debate moderator David Muir revealed that his team had called the city manager of Springfield, Ohio, where this alleged pet-eating took place, and found that it was an unsubstantiated rumor, Trump all but pounded the podium: Dogs and cats, he maintained, are being eaten. He’s seen it on TV. (Since this must be said, a woman in Canton, Ohio, has been charged with killing and eating a cat. She is not an immigrant.)
And yet somehow this presidential election is neck-and-neck. The latest Free Press poll of likely Michigan voters, conducted before last night’s debate, found Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, ahead by one percentage point, 47% to 46%.
Against a man who says that immigrants eat cats, who has falsely claimed, again and again, that doctors in Virginia (or maybe West Virginia) execute babies after birth. A man who is more interested in defending the size of campaign rallies than discussing any substantive policy plans, but wants to run this country for another four years.
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And this election is going to be a squeaker.
I don’t even know what to say.
With President Joe Biden’s low energy and propensity to misspeak off the ticket, and off the debate stage, Trump’s rambling idiosyncrasies and outright untruths were on full display.
Harris played him like a fiddle, deconstructing his rhetorical technique, such as it is, and baiting him into long digressions about the size of his rallies or foreign leaders’ opinion of his competency.
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And historically, roughly half of Americans like Trump despite — or maybe because — of things like that cat-eating riff, and I really don’t know where that leaves us as a country.
When Trump burst upon the political scene, we all nodded sagely to the self-evident truth that Trump was merely the catalyst for Trumpism, that if he were teleported off the planet tomorrow, the fractures he’s exposed in American life would remain. But it’s been eight years. Four years of a mentally and emotionally exhausting Trump presidency, capped by the Jan. 6 insurrection. Trump’s baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen and his lack of respect for democratic norms and his byzantine meanderings have been on full display.
Harris did what she needed to do in Tuesday’s night’s debate. She was presidential and authoritative; she rankled Trump but kept her cool; she spoke compellingly of the struggles of regular Americans and the devastating harm wrought by the repeal of Roe v. Wade; she placed the concerns of Israelis and Palestinians on equal footing with a full-throated endorsement of both peoples’ right to exist; and if she shied away from more clearly illuminating her positions on a few policies, well, it’s a debate, and there’s no question that she’s capable of engaging with policy, which is more than can be said of her opponent.
Who might win.
Will Trump’s shambolic performance lose him a single vote? It hasn’t so far.
Trump called Biden’s presidency the most polarizing in American history. It’s just one of the many things he’s wrong about. The Trump presidency — Trump himself — polarizes the American people like nothing else.
Trump fans consistently brush off his cognitive and moral failings in favor of his business-friendly tax policy, or whatever political wedge issue he seems to champion. Democrats watch in horror, unable to believe that anyone can follow this man.
That has become the fundamental divide in this country, the single most significant indicator of who you are and what you believe in American civic and political life: Where you stand on Donald Trump.
If Harris wins, it’s not likely to be a landslide or a repudiation. It will probably be close.
I’ve wondered for eight years where America goes from here.
I still don’t have an answer.
Nancy Kaffer is the editorial page editor of the Detroit Free Press. Contact:nkaffer@freepress.com. Submit a letter to the editor atfreep.com/letters and we may publish it online and in print.
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