How Racism And Sexism Helped Harris Crush Trump In The Debate

Winning Debates Is A Black Job

By any objective, sensible, measure, Vice President Kamala Harris resoundingly defeated Donald Trump in their debate. It was not even close. The conservative voters telling pollsters at about a 35% clip that Trump won the debate are doing massive rails of copium laid out on the top of their red MAGA hats.

The primary reason Harris won was because she did a great job. She didn’t descend into a morass of policy and figures, as Democrats too often do, nor did she offer too much deference or grace to Trump, who deserves none of it. She expertly jabbed at him, brought him to a boiling point, then mercilessly laughed at him. About as perfect as it gets.

But an x-factor in Harris’ victory turns out to be the twin forces opposing her candidacy. These forces, in fact, are the two biggest drags on America and the world: Racism and sexism.

To understand how these things ended up helping Harris, pay attention to the key phrase from former First Lady Michelle Obama’s speech at the Democratic Convention.

“Who’s going to tell [Trump] that the job he’s currently seeking might just be one of those ‘Black jobs’?” she asked.

(You should also check out the excellent TikTok dance beat of the speech)

Trump and the conservative movement he leads cannot conceive of a universe in which President of the United States of America happens to be a “black job.” In their view, such an important position — like CEO, coach, movie star, etc. — can only be the domain of straight, white, men.

Ever since Harris entered the race, Trump has claimed that she is stupid and that she “can’t talk.” Of course anyone with half a brain can see this isn’t true, and one doesn’t need to be a dyed-in-the-wool liberal or Kamala superfan to acknowledge this. But he can’t.

Even worse in Trump’s eyes, Harris is a woman. Trump has a distinctly 1950s view of how women should know their place in the world. They should be eye candy, adornments and playthings for men like him, but they can’t possibly be in positions of leadership. In his rambling, disconnected campaign speeches, Trump frequently talks about the dynamic of household relationships with men coming home from a hard day’s work to their housewives, where they both quibble about the latest liberal-inflicted problem like immigration or windmills that kill birds.

It was clear before the debate that Trump didn’t factor in the notion that a woman — a Black woman — could get the best of him in a talking contest. Fresh off his debate victory over President Joe Biden (who handled him fine in 2020), Trump was high as a kite on his own supply. He never saw Harris coming because he’s too packed with racism and sexism to see someone like the vice president as a worthy rival.

This is the same mindset we saw back in the 2008 election cycle, when Sen. John McCain dismissed then-Senator Barack Obama as merely a substance-free “celebrity” and not someone who could seriously contend with him, a veteran and a multi-decade senator. McCain may not have been as overtly racist as Trump, but he was singing from the same hymn book.

And even after Obama won, the right coped with his victory by telling themselves that despite the open evidence that Obama was arguably the best speechmaker to hold the office since Abraham Lincoln, he was actually just really good at using a teleprompter. Of course in their eyes, Obama wasn’t really president, because as the birther conspiracy that figures like Trump popularized, he was really a foreign-born Kenyan interloper.

Contrast the right’s treatment of Obama, Harris, and Sec. Hillary Clinton to how it approached President Biden. While they clearly don’t like Biden, there isn’t the same level of vitriol against him that there are against these figures (ditto former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez). That is because in the eyes of the right, for all his supposed left-wing faults, Biden is still the right gender and orientation to be leader of the free world.

“He may be a liberal left wing lunatic, but at least he’s still a straight white man,” is their group thought process.

Harris being a woman, Black, and Asian severely threatens this bigoted world order. It upends all the bogus race and sex science they endlessly repeat to each other, with fractured nonsense about “alpha” men and the purported superiority of “western” (read: white) culture. Her victory means their entire world system is broken and wrong. It creates cognitive dissonance and more importantly, it makes them real sad.

The election still has to happen and the last 25-plus years have shown us that assuming anything is locked in stone until after it happens is a fool’s errand. But the incessant whining and conspiracies from the right following the debate make it clear that Harris won this key contest.

Another barrier has come falling down and America is a better country for it.

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— Oliver

Follow me, Oliver Willis, on Threads @owillis1977

Exclusive Kal-El Photo

My neighbors have been doing some construction this week and while I think the noise has actually been minimal and well within acceptable volume, Kal has been such a Karen about it. He stares out the window like Gladys Kravitz from Bewitched, and if he could I think he’d call the cops or a HOA.