Trump Loses, Harris Wins?

The worst thing is that there is no certainty it will do any good in an environment as polarized as the one in the United States

The best thing that can be said about the debate between the U.S. presidential hopefuls, Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump, is that the vice president dominated the former president and literally exposed him as being a liar, egocentric and gullible.

The worst is that there is no certainty it will do any good in an environment as polarized as the one in the United States.

In a way, it can be said that the Sept. 10 debate was disappointing: Many had the satisfaction of seeing Trump for what he is, an accident of politics brought about by the modern media. But no one is sure that, with nearly two months to go before the vote, the debate had the defining impact that expectations heralded.

Beyond trashing the Republican, Harris served her purpose of appearing before a large number of Americans and occupying the political center, despite the accusations of being “Marxist” that Trump foisted upon her, perhaps trying to link her to the anti-communist “witch hunt” of the 1950s. In fact, the debate moderators repeatedly pointed out Trump’s errors, exaggerations and lies, as he literally tried to blame immigrants for almost all the ills afflicting the United States.

Trump again rejected the idea that he had lost the 2020 election or that he had any responsibility for the attempted coup of Jan. 6, 2021, while assuring that, with him in the White House, the Russian invasion of Ukraine would not have happened and the Gaza crisis would be over.

Harris claimed that Trump befriended dictators and criticized his mistreatment of his allies, whom the Republican again accused of having “abused” the United States for decades.

It was Trump’s seventh presidential debate and the first for Harris, who, having been part of the administration for the last four years, presented herself as the candidate of change, and although she did not break entirely with President Joe Biden’s policies, she put Trump on the defensive on several occasions.

Harris’ performance was appreciated all the more by Democrats and Trump critics after the dismal performance of a tired, aging Biden in the debate last June 27 that led to Democrats forcing him to forfeit his reelection bid and replacing him with Harris, his running mate.

And Harris, 59, almost 20 years younger than Trump, made the businessman look bad. Not because Trump looked old, but because he came across as incoherent and unfocused, with answers that — more often than not — ended in an exaggeration against the millions of illegal immigrants arriving, he said, from across the border.

The big question is whether it will do any good in a country where Trump has gone years without suffering consequences for his lies.