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She set a tone at the very start when she walked right into his space to shake his hand and made him almost pull back into himself in response. She was in charge and never stopped being in charge.
Harris also managed what neither Joe Biden nor Hillary Clinton nor any of the 2016 Republicans managed to do which is successfully bait Donald Trump and get under his skin. Within a few minutes Trump was visibly angry and not in a way that empowered him but in a way that made him lose focus, go down rabbit holes and generally go off onto damaging tangents. Spittle anger, not righteous anger, shall we say.
I don’t think the MAGA movement is able to have realistic responses at this point.
This thing normal people can still do – “that was good, but we could do better”, or even “wow, expected much more than that” – would be impossible for MAGA. Any performance must be the best they have ever seen. Trump can do no wrong in the eyes of his supporters. Any room for improvement is seen as weakness.
The fact is, Trump could have gone out there and laid right down for a nap. MAGA would still say it was the best debate performance they ever saw in the history of the country.