Earlier this month, the two leading candidates in the 2024 United States Presidential Election faced off on the debate stage for the first, and likely only time. The event, hosted on ABC,  lasted 1 hour, 45 minutes and was watched by over 67 million viewers across major TV networks according to Nielsen TV ratings. Democratic candidate Kamala Harris and Republican candidate Donald Trump debated over the economy, immigration, foreign policy, healthcare and more, while also attempting to use their time in the spotlight to display their visions for the future of America, visions that will shape the world into which we as students will enter.

This article is a brief summary of the debate’s major themes and moments, and of the effects the debate has had on polling data and on broader culture in the ensuing few weeks. A debate transcript is available from ABC News and all debate quotes used here will follow the ABC transcript.

The Talking Points

Former President Donald Trump’s main talking point throughout the debate was immigration, specifically his claim that Democrats’ weak border policy had let waves of criminals into the country to wreak havoc. These claims often soared into the extreme (such as claiming that Haitian immigrants were eating cats in Springfield, Ohio, which the Springfield Police Department quickly denied), but in total painted a dreary picture of an America overrun by criminals as a result of inaction on the part of the Biden/Harris administration. When pressed on his own policy positions, Trump rarely explained his policies in detail. When questioned about Obamacare, he railed against it as a disaster while claiming he had “concepts of a plan” for replacing it. His explanation of how he would create the “greatest economy in the history of the country” was similarly nonexistent. 

Vice President Harris had a broader suite of major points, and she focused more on how to change the future than on the challenges of the present. She put particular emphasis on her proposed economic policies, intended to create what she termed an “opportunity economy.” Her proposal included providing tax rebates to small businesses, increasing the supply of housing, and working on cost caps for medication and other necessary consumer goods. Where Trump mostly attacked the Biden/Harris administration’s record, Harris turned to the past where needed to deflect those attacks, including her retort that she and Biden had spent the last four years “clean[ing] up Donald Trump’s mess.”

The Barbs

Harris’ main line of attack on Trump throughout the debate was to tell the audience that they were going to hear an endless barrage of lies from Trump, a point she returned to repeatedly when attacking several of Trump’s more outlandish claims. Her jabs highlighted Trump’s claim that Haitians were eating cats in Springfield and his assertions that blue states allow post-birth abortion, particularly when the moderators themselves corrected Trump. Trump’s attacks against Harris were more varied, but one common thread was claiming that Harris’ lines either were “incorrect statements” (as he said in reply to her calling his plan a national sales tax) or that her points had been given to her in advance. His attacks, however, often fell flat, especially against Harris’ requests that the audience research Trump’s platform themselves.

Another zone of conflict that wasn’t recorded in the transcript but dominated the live broadcast was their body language and use of space, particularly when listening to their opponent. Harris dominated this field from the very start of the debate, marching directly to Trump’s side of the stage and intercepting him before he could get to his podium for a pre-debate handshake. From then on, Trump appeared nervous, and he almost never looked in Harris’ direction for the rest of the debate, even when directly speaking about or to her.

Harris, on the other hand, took every opportunity she could to exploit the cameras. Every time Trump spoke, Harris spent the time looking incredulously towards his side of the room, and several of her expressions have since become memes. Her early assertions about Trump’s lying had primed the audience to expect lies; her facial expressions ensured viewers would both pay attention to those lies and react with the appropriate bafflement.

Harris’ focus on Trump’s lying did not stop some of her phrasing from falling under scrutiny for stretching the truth. In particular, NPR notes her claim about unemployment rates under Trump and about the lack of American troops in active war zones as being misleading. Harris’ statement that “there is not one member of the United States military who is in active duty… in any war zone around the world” is technically true, but US troops are still under threat, and in January of this year three US service members were killed in a drone attack in Jordan.

The Visions

While the debate is intended to let candidates discuss policy and leadership, both candidates also used it as a chance to promote their visions of America and the perspective they would take as president. Nowhere was this more evident than in the closing statements. Harris’ closing statement focused on her own policies, her ideals for the future, and her leadership, with only a single reference to her opponent. She further described her career history and experience that she would bring to the table, recounting her journey from “prosecutor… (to) now vice president” and explaining that throughout her career she has “only had one client: the people.” Harris’ debate work portrayed her as an experienced leader seeking to be a President for all Americans who will protect their fundamental freedoms while working to provide actual policy solutions.

Trump’s closing statement, on the other hand, focused entirely on Biden’s record as president and Harris’ record as vice president, and on the current state of the nation, which he depicted as disastrous. He called America “a failing nation… that’s in serious decline” and described Harris as “the worst vice president in the history of our country.” The only policy achievement from his previous term as president that he listed in his own statement was a brief claim that he  rebuilt the military, a claim he explained in no further detail. Where Harris portrayed herself as a candidate of progress and the future, Trump portrayed himself as a candidate who seeks to return America to a past that he treats as a lost golden age, without providing a roadmap for that proposed revitalization.

The Impact

Vice President Harris was overwhelmingly ruled the winner of the debate, even among conservative media outlets. However, it’s unclear if the debate performance has been influential on the electoral race more broadly. Politico polling analyst Steven Shepard argues that the debate had minimal impact, with polling averages barely changing in the wake of the debate. Pennsylvania saw a 1% shift in the FiveThirtyEight polling average from before the debate to afterwards, but that shift was the largest jump Harris saw among any swing state. Polls in Wisconsin actually shifted away from Harris, with the FiveThirtyEight polling average shifting from +2.4% for Harris before the debate to +1.9% for Harris afterwards. The cultural and media impact of the debate is undoubtedly significant, especially when coupled with Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Harris in the immediate aftermath of the debate, but it remains to be seen whether the media frenzy will amount to anything at the voting booth at the beginning of November.

Since 2016, our news feeds have been dominated by the presence of former President Donald Trump. As he reenters the political arena, eyeing the 2024 presidency, two questions loom large: Can he secure victory in the election, and, if so, what will that mean for the United States?

Can He Win the Election?
Donald Trump’s early actions in the 2024 election race have been noteworthy. He first won Iowa, a crucial state. Since then other contenders have begun dropping out, leaving only Nikki Haley in the race. It would appear that Trump has secured the Republican nomination. It seems that the 2024 election will be a repeat of 2020, a battle against Trump and Biden. But what are the chances Trump can pull it off?

While Trump easily clinched the Jan. 23 New Hampshire primary, concerns arose from exit polls. Despite winning over a substantial portion of “very conservative” voters, a significant number of independent voters leaned towards Haley. 35% of Republican primary voters. In addition, the possibility of criminal conviction lingers, causing hesitancy among some supporters. 53 percent of respondents.” 

It is promising that some Republicans are criticizing Trump and refusing to vote for him, but it would be naive to say that Biden is pulling unanimous support from Democrats. Dissatisfaction, particularly among young voters, is palpable. “I want to show the Democratic Party as a young person that you still need to earn our vote and if you don’t, the consequences will be your career,” McKenzie, a young person who voted for Biden in  2020, said. “A Republican getting elected isn’t the end. It is the beginning of a much larger fight.” 

A rematch of Biden and Trump is about the last thing most Americans want. Talk of voting for the lesser of two evils is reemerging and people continue to be dissatisfied by the two party system and the election process. However, in the midst of the chaos there exists a very real possibility that Trump could emerge victorious in the 2024 election.

What’s in Store if Trump Wins?
The events of Jan. 6, 2021, a dark day in American history, loom large as we consider the potential consequences of a Trump victory. Never before had America seen such an anti-democratic display. Damon Hewitt, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law says it best: “The violent insurrection on January 6th was an attack on democracy itself—an effort to silence the voices of millions of voters, including record numbers of Black and Brown voters who cast decisive ballots in the 2020 election.” It is obvious that Trump has no qualms about attacking democracy. If he ends up back in power, who knows what he is capable of doing. 

If he does win, will anyone hold him accountable? The answer seems to be no. The reality is he has faced the courts, he has faced impeachment, and the very systems that work to maintain checks and balances in America have failed to restrain him. An article in form The Washington Post says it best: “A court system that could not control Trump as a private individual is not going to control him better when he is president of the United States…The one check Congress has on a rogue president, namely, impeachment and conviction, has already proved all but impossible — even when Trump was out of office and wielded modest institutional power over his party.” If Trump enters the Oval Office in 2025 he will have defeated almost everything we can throw at him. This will only make him that much harder to control. With an unprecedented history of legal challenges against him, Trump’s return to power could signify further democratic backsliding.

What Can We Do?
In the face of this uncertain future, proactive steps must be taken. Voting becomes a crucial tool not only in presidential elections but also at the local level. Calling for immediate reform and pressuring President Biden to fulfill campaign promises becomes imperative to address the concerns of a divided nation. Should Trump win, it’s essential not to succumb to political apathy but to stay engaged and vigilant, ensuring that democratic values are preserved.

As the political landscape unfolds, the nation finds itself at a crossroads, grappling with the potential resurgence of Donald Trump and the uncertainties that may follow. The power to shape the future lies not just with political figures but with the collective actions and decisions of the American people.

(The following was written on Nov. 3, 2020, in the evening.)

There is an energy about – at least here in Liberty, Missouri – perhaps too everywhere inside these boundaries called the United States. If I say this energy is palpable, this is said not entirely for cliché.

That should be qualified. I mean that I refer to this palpable energy not in service of its cliché but instead to question the structures of engagement in which it is able to become cliché.

I cannot quite place a word around this energy. It is not stable, it drifts in and out of form. I catch it in glimpses. Someone walks by wearing a sticker affirming their vote. 

There appears to be two options. “There are always third party candidates!” someone interjects. Ignoring the ironic cynicism that seems coextensive with an appeal to third parties, the two options to which I refer are these: vote or don’t. 

As with all dichotomies, there is nothing correct to be found within its terms. That is to say, neither option, to vote or to not, is correct. This is not, though, to say that either option is incorrect – that too would be a truth claim from within the terms of the dichotomy.

What I am concerned with knowing is how these became the options, how this day among days has been suspended in time, such that it is not just a day among days – it is the day we’ve been talking about, been anxiously expecting, been dreading. What I find interesting is that Nov. 3 presents itself as a dichotomy.

A news notification pops up on my screen: polls are beginning to close. The implicit message: if you haven’t voted, you better do so as soon as possible; if you have voted, clasp your hands and pray.

Perhaps this is presumptive of the Washington Post’s intentions. Nonetheless, it seems that what is sustaining the persistence of this day as an exceptional one is the normative expectation that to vote is correct. Assuming that the general narrative is that to vote is better than not, let us proceed.

The cliché, this palpable energy, finds its excessive obviousness as the dominating presumption that something big is occurring today. Namely, today is voting day, it is the day a new president is elected. This is a factual statement, but we should unpack some of the ideology.

Today is the day those who are allowed to vote may cast a ballot to choose between two white men competing to serve the title President of the United States for the coming four years.

This is, in fact, the most normal description of a presidential election day for the United States government. Still, this particular election is a return to normal after three presidential elections that exceeded the bounds of the normal description. Maybe that’s why this one is so terrifying.

Before abstracting, we should examine this at the greatest level of particularity. The vote is between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. 

Biden and Trump. This reads best as a conjunction. I’m sitting in The Cage typing this, and happily I just overheard the perfect example: “it’s uh-oh either way.” Here are a few other examples: “they’re corrupt,” “they’re evil,” “they’ll ruin this country,” etc. 

“I’m voting for him to vote against him.”

The question, then, which is still my general question about the exceptional quality of this day, is why the imperative is to vote rather than not. Specifically, when given two highly objectionable options, why is the onus still to engage rather than to reject the very structure which continually produces highly objectionable candidates?

This is not to say that it is a better option not to vote. What I am asking for is that we reevaluate the ordering of our questions. The first question should not be between Trump and Biden. The first question should always be a structural one – we need to mercilessly interrogate the conception of necessity we attribute to government. What does this institution really do for us, people generally, not only well-off white cishet men?

Of course, this question should have been asked already, one should not have waited until election night to pose it. Perhaps it was not until tonight that I was impelled to write this because it was only tonight that the fear really became palpable for me.

I have not been able to shake the feeling that Donald Trump will retain the presidency, and I am terrified. Biden has just won California and has a commanding lead, but the feeling persists. My politics, my queerness, are endangered by a Trump presidency. My safety is threatened, yet I refused to vote for Biden. Perhaps I made the wrong choice, I really don’t know.

My justification appeals to something beyond my own safety: I imagine that the difference between Biden and Trump is minimal, for instance, to a Somalian under the fire of a military drone. In general, white supremacy is white supremacy, no matter how personable it looks shoving ice cream into its ghoulish face.

And I cannot shake the terror: maybe I made the wrong choice. I take comfort in knowing that, regardless, I would not have been voting in a swing state. 

To make my position clear: Donald Trump is despicable, and I find his presidency unique. Yet what I find unique about his presidency is that Trump is the most categorical manifestation of American politics we have yet seen. I will here repeat a text I just sent my friend, “Trump is America.”

American politics is akin to a casino game: pay more to play more, the house always wins. No matter who heads the thing, American power is interested only in its own maintenance and persistence. Exceptional though this day may feel, in effect it is only an evanescent moment within the history of genocidal occupation that calls itself the United States.

I am terrified that Donald Trump may win, but, for my comrades across the globe, I am terrified of Joe Biden as well. We must question the structure that leaves these as our only options and demands of us that we choose one.

For those interested in creating a brighter tomorrow, we have work to do. No matter who wins, we protect and feed one another, we protest, we occupy. Casting a ballot is not the most important political work. 

No matter who wins, we take the streets. No matter who wins, we fight for every inch of this blood soaked soil. 

Power to the people.