• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, September 12, 2024

Kamala Harris adopted just the right demeanor to come out on top of the debate Tuesday night with Donald Trump.

The expression on her face as she regarded the spectacle of her opponent reminded me of a quotation from the novel To Kill a Mockingbird.

It came when the lawyer Atticus Finch was explaining to his children why Bob Ewell, the gutter-dwelling witness from the book’s race-infused trial, had it in for Judge John Taylor, who presided over the case.

“John made him look like a fool,” Atticus said. “John looked at him like he was a three-legged chicken or a square egg.”

Kamala Harris did much the same thing, looking at Trump as if he was a square egg. In the process, she scored a visual victory in the televised debate.

When he ranted and seemed to struggle to express himself, she had a look on her face like the one in the screenshot above.

It projected an image of superiority over Trump. It broadcast that she was the rational one of the two who had it together in ways that he did not. 

As she listened and stared, I imagined a comic-strip thought-balloon over her head with words such as “Can you believe this guy?” or “Is he really saying that?”

Many of us watching at home felt the same way at moments such as when Trump said immigrants were eating dogs and cats, and putting the nation’s house pets in peril.

He was citing a story, now debunked, that newcomers to the town of Springfield, Ohio were using cats and dogs as a source of protein. 

“They’re eating the dogs -- the people that came in -- they’re eating the cats!” he said in the debate. “They’re eating the pets of the people that live there, and this is what’s happening in our country!”

Another thing that is noteworthy about the Harris debate demeanor strategy is that it worked so well when the two were seen side-by-side in a split screen, although in actual fact they were positioned far apart on the debate stage.

Her expression in the split-screen shots looked as if she and Trump were standing side by side as she shot him her expressions of disbelief bordering on pity.

In contrast to Harris, Trump came across as unglued. At one point, and possibly at other points as well, he invoked the names of the Fox News stars he apparently likes best -- Hannity, Ingraham, Jesse Watters -- as sources of “information” that would refute a Harris claim.

It was as if the former president prepared for the debate by watching Fox News every evening. 

Actually, Trump seemed wholly unprepared and inarticulate. Some years back, that is not how the TV Blog would have described a Trump performance on TV.

For example, plenty of TV Blogs here praised him for his dominance in debate settings, especially in the 2016 campaign when he vanquished the other GOP hopefuls one by one.

More recently, he “won” the June 27 debate with Joe Biden because Biden, 81, appeared hesitant and confused, a possible symptom of his advancing age. 

But what of Trump’s age and confusion? In all the attention paid to Biden’s senior moments, scant attention has been paid to Trump’s age of 78, as if he has somehow avoided the cognitive consequences of old age.

Maybe his performance in the debate Tuesday night indicates that he is having the same kinds of senior symptoms that forced Biden out of the running.