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It matters who won or lost this week’s presidential debate, but it also matters how they won or lost. In their post-debate analysis, many commentators focused on issues of style or tactics. Kamala Harris looked more presidential, they say, and she managed to goad Donald Trump into making some silly assertions, like claiming that “people don’t go to her rallies; there’s no reason to go. And the people who do go she’s busing them in and paying them to be there.”
What about substance? Who was more effective in persuading voters to support their policy proposals? Here Trump has a big handicap, since he has trouble debating ideas on their merits. Doing so effectively requires some command of the facts. But Trump does not so much assimilate facts as try to ignore them. He can get away with this when he is ranting within his MAGA bubble in campaign rallies or on right-wing media. In a debate setting, he can only hope that his opponent—and the moderators—are either too timid or too unprepared to call out his distortions of reality. Vice President Harris was neither.
Here are a few examples of the deceptions Trump presented in lieu of reasoned, fact-based arguments. Here I draw on the excellent fact-checking provided by the Washington Post.
On the economy, both candidates expressed concern about high prices, but only Harris had specific policy proposals to control consumer costs, such as the high cost of housing. Trump preferred to devote his time to blowing the problem out of proportion and placing the blame for it entirely on his opponent. He claimed that the recent inflation is “probably the worst in our nation’s history,” that his administration had “the greatest economy” of all time, and that the Biden-Harris administration “destroyed the economy.” In fact, inflation was higher in 1946, 1979 and 1980; the Lyndon Johnson and Bill Clinton administrations had stronger economies than his; and the Biden-Harris economy is also doing well by most economic measures. The rate of growth and job creation has been high, unemployment has been low, and the rate of inflation has come back down.
Trump also refused to acknowledge that his own tariff proposal would increase costs for consumers. He claimed, contrary to what economics teaches, that his tariff will be paid for by the countries that export goods to the United States. In fact, tariffs are taxes on importers, who usually pass them on to consumers. Cost estimates vary, but generally indicate that the tariffs will cost the average family several thousand dollars a year. A tariff is also a regressive tax, hitting low-income households the hardest.
On immigration, Trump claimed that 21 million immigrants have entered the country in the past four years, while the true number is closer to 5 million. He said that “they’re at the highest level of criminality,” when immigrants actually have a lower rate of crime than the U.S.-born population. Undocumented immigrants have an especially low rate, because they know that if they are arrested they can be deported. Trump described “millions of people pouring into our country from prisons and jails, from mental institutions and insane asylums,” so many that “crime is down all over the world except here.” These are total fabrications, even before we get to the immigrant cat eaters of Springfield. He also asserted, without evidence, that Democrats are deliberately letting undocumented immigrants into the country and then trying to get them to vote illegally. That’s one of the assertions he makes to support the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen. He repeated such claims over and over instead of debating the bipartisan immigration bill that Biden and Harris supported but he effectively killed.
On abortion, Trump tried to defend his successful effort to get the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade. Here he conveniently manufactured a consensus that doesnot exist: “Every legal scholar, every Democrat, every Republican, liberal, conservative, they all wanted this issue to be brought back to the states where the people could vote.” He also falsely accused Democrats of supporting late-term abortion and even execution of newborns. Harris supports the Roe standard, which calls for unrestricted abortion rights only during the first trimester, when about 90% of abortions occur. Trump refused to say whether he would sign or veto a federal ban on abortion.
In response to a question on climate change, Trump had no proposals to do anything about it. Instead, he went on the attack, saying, “If she won the election, the day after that election, they’ll go back to destroying our country, and oil will be dead, fossil fuel will be dead.” In fact, Biden and Harris promote both fossil fuels and cleaner energy in the short term, and production of both have increased under their administration.
On the war in Ukraine, Trump claimed that he could end it quickly, but refused to say whether he wanted Ukraine to win. He implied that the U.S. is already spending too much on the war, by stating that we have provided more aid to Ukraine than European countries have. That’s not true either.
Some may dismiss these falsehoods by claiming that all politicians lie, and that both sides are equally guilty. However, factchecking has turned up only a few problems with Harris’s debate positions. She did try to downplay her former opposition to fracking. She did take a couple of Trump’s quotations out of context, as when she said, “It is well known that he said of Putin that he can do whatever the hell he wants and go into Ukraine.” Trump was not talking specifically about Ukraine, but about a warning to a NATO country that we would not defend them if they did not increase their financial contribution to NATO.
Harris’s own positions and policy proposals deserve scrutiny and debate. But fruitful debate becomes impossible when the other candidate would rather rage against imaginary demons than engage with the real issues. Trump’s failure to propose an alternative to Obamacare after vilifying it for nine years shows that he prefers outrage to constructive governing.
Stretching the truth a little within a debate is one thing. Substituting outlandish claims for fact-based debate is something else. That defeats the whole purpose of debate, which is to inform the public of the candidates’ proposals and their arguments for them. Donald Trump displays such a flagrant disregard for truth that one must wonder if he really believes what he is saying. If he does, he is deluded. If he does not, then he is habitually dishonest. Neither trait is easy to change, so an improved performance by Trump in some future debate seems unlikely. Either should be disqualifying for the presidency.
Beneath the Surface 