So it seems the Harris/Walz ticket has adopted “snark” as an official campaign strategy.
I approve.
You might like this article:
There are two words that Harris can say which predictably work in her favor, (and will cause Trump to go crazy):
1.“Loser” , and
2. “sharks”. 
“Loser”, with a capital L, is the label that Trump fears the most. It invades his mind , destroys his pride and self-image. It raises all his daddy issues and his deep fears of inadequacy.
If Kamilla answers a question and uses the word “loser” , Trump will immediately lose control of his thoughts (and possibly his behavior), he’ll forget what the question was, and just rant till he thinks he has justified himself and restored his pride.
Here’s how Harris could manipulate Trump:
If the journalist asks Kamilla a question about, say, the economy, she should answer the question, but in her final sentence include the word “loser”. She could say, “my economic policy is X and will work, unlike the unsuccessful policy that Trump tried. This proves that Trump is a loser on this issue, a big loser.”
Trump’s response will be to lose his shit, stamp his foot, scream “I’m not a loser!” He will lose any train of thought that he might have had, and he won’t be able to put together a coherent answer to the original question about the economy.
If Harris repeats “loser” five or 10 times during the debate, it could become a theme (and an internet meme) , with pics and videos of Trump going crazy while the word “loser” is stamped on his forehead.
And , of course, there is the second option: use the word “shark” in the same way. Harris could answer a question, and end it by saying “my economic policy will benefit workers, but Trump’s policy will destroy the average worker, like a shark attack”
Trump will rant about sharks, and another meme is born.
Drat - I’ll be out of the country then!
Good response. I firmly believe Karris is a very smart person. But countering nonsense IRT can be challenging, even for a very smart person.
I have seen her commit 2 types of “errors”:
-response to emotional BS with complicated intellectual reasoning. Generally, you cannot reason people out of their beliefs. And many of the people who bought the emotional BS will dislike you as an intellectual.
-strain to respond with a “Gotcha!” sound bite. I really hate it when a smart person works overhard to get in a soundbite they think will go viral for them.
Now Harris is certainly capable of responding to Trump in a sophisticated and effective manner. I just hope she manages to do so on 9/10.
From their response,…
Hell, I would say there wasn’t a peaceful transfer of power in 2016. Donald Trump refused to work with Obama’s team on a transition - he just came in with no government experience and wrecked havoc.
It will go badly for Trump. Harris can prepare for this quite well. You can come up with humorous responses to the 50 or so standard things Trump will claim. His material has not changed in four years. Other than the occasional sharks.
Yeah–I don’t get the idea that Trump is unpredictable. He’s one of the most predictable politicians out there. He has a selection of mean dumb jokes that he likes to make, and a selection of lies he likes to tell, and he’s damn near guaranteed to turn his debate time into a Greatest Hits concert.
Harris, I think, has several jobs in debate preparation:
- This one is dumb, but we live in a dumb timeline. She needs to practice her attentive face, so the media isn’t flooded with stories about what her mouth was doing when Trump was talking. Remember how Al Gore was so snobby during his debate, and how Biden was so senile during his? Don’t give the media fodder for this sort of nonsense.
- She needs to have a good response for when he calls her, or the moderators, “nasty” and “so rude” and so on.
- She needs to triage his lies: what needs a substantive response, what needs a zinger, and what can be ignored? Then she needs those substantive responses and zingers so solid that she can toss them off naturally.
- I wish this was the most important, but see:dumb timeline. She needs to have a few visionary policy statements that are broadly popular, and know them inside out, and then she needs to be ready with wonkish details on nearly everything else.
That’s my take, speaking as someone who hasn’t engaged in a formal debate since fifth grade, so take that for what it’s worth.
How many people, including a dozen skilled Republican politicians and would-be 2016 Presidents, thought Trump would be easy to debate and upstage? Ted Cruz, for all his charms and flaws, finished in the top twenty at the World University Debating Championships.
Trump is not easy to debate. Getting under his skin is a reasonable strategy. This must have been tried before, I am less optimistic that it will work well. Though I agree memes, humour and parody is the best approach. But also restraint: during the Biden debate, Trump only referred to his difficulties once, which was better than ten times.
Though it would be funny if Harris came out dressed as a shark.
There isn’t much a moderator can do to hurt one of the debaters while maintaining even an illusion of fairness.
But we’re talking about Fox News, here. They don’t care about that. They’d do things like cutting Harris’s mic ten seconds before her time is supposed to be up (and never cut it for Trump, of course).
As for the possibility of Trump invading her personal space, if he tries that, all she has to do is snap her fingers right next to his ear.
Before every single debate Trump has done, people have predicted that Jeb/Cruz/Rubio/Christie/Clinton/Biden would absolutely eat his lunch. And he’s been fine. All this talk about how Harris will make him piss his pants in rage with some carefully crafted zinger is wish fulfillment.
This is absolutely right and bears repeating.
My opinion on how Harris can counter Trump’s firehose of lies is … not to try. It’s impossible. She needs to prepare some general counters like, “Just about everything that just came out of his mouth - what I could understand of it, anyway - was a lie. Here’s what my administration would do on this issue: [insert positive policy here.]” Or: “I don’t understand why he’s talking about sharks and washing machines, but climate change is an existential threat to etc. Here’s what Joe and I did about it and here’s what Tim and I will continue to do about it etc.” Just dismiss his blather quickly and disparagingly and move on to policy and positivity.
Do debates even matter? Yes. 51m people saw Biden debate Trump. But more commonly, they don’t move the needle and even Biden’s polls were similar after his efforts. Sure, Kennedy-Nixon was novel. Reagan didn’t make age an issue. Senator, you are no Jack Kennedy. Read my lips.
But the Democrats also have a Convention. Since most people do not know Harris or Walz well, including myself, this could be an important opportunity but needs to attract eyes and media attention. So this is the place for sharks and memes, not the gravitas debate in September.
Interesting (limited giftlink):
It can happen, but not often enough to sway an election. The one time I voted third party was for the Perot/Stockdale ticket in 1992. During the VP debate Gore and Quayle looked smooth and “Presidential” and Stockdale was at times a bit awkward. But he could give short and to the point answers to questions while the other two oily guys gave long weasel worded responses. In answer to the question on his stance of abortion rights Stockdale gave a one sentence statement "I believe that what a woman does with her own body is her business, period. " I voted for the ticket based on him, even though I knew it wouldn’t work, but I wanted it to.
The first time Trump tries this, Harris should respond with something like “Well, that was quite the firehose of BS, and you didn’t even come close to answering the question.” Then just keep repeating “firehose” every time he does it again.
I see two questions there. One — did Biden come out solidly on top in polls asking who won the 2020 debates? Both times in 2020, voters thought Biden won, and by margins bigger than Biden’s horse race polling lead.
The next question is — did Biden get a bump in the horse race polling average concerning who likely voters will vote for? The answer for the first debate is yes. As for the final debate on Oct. 22, 2020, Biden was already at the top of his horse race polling range going back many months. And he didn’t go up any further after the last debate. But I think that was a good result.
Now, if Trump can successfully paint her as a pure progressive, maybe the debates will be a tie. But she seems to be going in a grow-the-coalition direction.
She of course must have responses for every possible fiction he might throw out.
AND
She has to have fresh lines herself, not repeating her same material.
She has to be unflappable. Buttigieg should be her coach and role model. Trump’s microphone may be off but he can keep talking and she has to tune that out.
She has to be likable. Destroy him but in good humor.
Basically, she should do this:
I agree Harris and Walz are encouraging. I wish they win and win big. But, as has so often happened with Trump, he and his handlers are often underestimated. The Democrats have momentum and hope; this is great. But they need clear eyes and not starry ones.
If only. I just read on the Votemaster that they are now arguing over whether there will be an audience. If there is, the Trumpers among them will treat it as a campaign rally and cheer everything he says and drown her out when she speaks.
I think her best bet is to say something that utterly outrages him and he dies of apoplexy on the stage. (Joking.) Although she should provoke him by asking him something like, “Just why can’t you accept that you lost the last election and are a loser, loser, loser?”
That’s plausible. He’s been known to do it with golf championships at his clubs.