Our Project 2025

 

     Let the orchestra's tuneup cacophony begin while we dramatically play clips from old presidential debates. Let the pundits breathlessly repeat the tale of the tape. And, in the backdrop, if one listens very carefully, one will hear the ghostly, barely audible strains of a calliope from far offstage.

     It's not exactly Frazier-Ali I from 1971 but it's what we have. The Harris-Trump debate in Philadelphia is in a few hours, likely the only one to which Trump will consent. The political Marquis de Queensbury rules are identical to CNN's last June 27th: No prepared notes, no teleprompters, no audience and microphones will be muted while the candidate's not speaking.

     They should've worked to Joe Biden's favor but unfortunately, Biden seemed to forget where he was and looked less like a president and more like a nursing home resident who just got a bolus of morphine. This time, however, it's a new ball game and, like an abusive, jilted lover who wants back the battered ex girlfriend who'd moved on, Trump pines for Biden to re-enter the race. He longs to put those brass knuckles back on, to get back in the saddle.

     But, as stated, it's a whole new ball game. In Biden's stead is his vice president, who's a successful prosecutor, former big state AG and has an impressive track record putting away sexual predators, crooks and mob bosses just like Trump.  She's 22 years younger than Biden, nearly two decades younger than Trump and is at the top of her game.

     Naturally, no matter how many lies Trump will tell tonight, and, as with the last debate and anywhere else, there will be plenty, ABC and the MSM in general will try to spin this as a mere debate between two perfectly normal candidates in a neck and neck presidential race. Of course, the one major difference that they'll strenuously ignore at the behest of the corporate cunts who sign their fat checks is that only one person on that stage will be sane.

     I'll leave it to, you, Dear Reader, to infer which one that will be.

     One wants to give households with children a $6000 child tax credit, which would go a long way toward paying for daycare costs.

     The other says, "child care is child care" and thinks sky-high tariffs will pay for them.

     On immigration, Harris' border policy can be summed up thusly, per the Washington Post: "Kamala Harris supports an earned pathway to citizenship and wants to revive the tough border compromise law that would close loopholes in the asylum process and give the president more authority to shut down the border." Very pragmatic and hardly what one could call "liberal".

     Trump is yelling about Hannibal Lecter and has been for months and months.

     While it's a disturbing flip flop, Harris has reversed her 2020 position on fracking and is now in favor of it.

     Trump is blathering about whether he'd rather get electrocuted by an electric battery or eaten by a shark.

     Harris proposes raising the capital gains tax from its present rate of 20% to 28% on those who make $1,000,000 a year or more.

     Trump tried to shake down oil executives for a billion dollars in exchange for friendly legislation and executive orders and promises more ruinous tax cuts like the one in 2018 that wreaked havoc on the middle class, in which 83% of the money will eventually skyrocket straight to the 1% by 2027.

     Harris is a strong proponent of women's reproductive heath care.

     Trump is spreading fact-free claims that doctors and mothers are murdering newborn infants post partum.

     Harris supports transgender youth.

     Trump is claiming school kids to go the school as one gender and come back home another gender.

     I could go on and on but I think you get the point.

     So, yes, one candidate is clearly suited for the presidency while the other is just as clearly completely insane.

     But the maddening thing is that the consensus is that Harris has a higher bar to hurdle than Trump and that this debate, which, again, may be the only one to which Trump will consent, is as much  a make-or-break night for her as June's debate proved to be for Biden.

     Because that's just how the mainstream media operates: sandbagging Democrats while giving Republican lunatics and idiots a free pass. CNN after all, didn't make the slightest effort to fact-check Trump in June's debate then doubled down and defended that policy, even though fact-checking a presidential candidate caught spewing a fire hose of lies in real time is exactly what the media are supposed to do. It's not supposed to ignore lies and give them the patina of honesty in a desperate attempt to appear as non-partisan. There's nothing partisan about simply telling the American people what's true and what's not.

     But I don't hold out any reasonable hope that ABC will be any more invested in being honest with the American people as CNN was last June.