Even before we all went to bed last night, the media’s debate narratives began to form. Kamala Harris got Donald Trump angry! She got under his skin! Harris “walloped” him, as Politico wrote this morning. Even conservative media outlets spent the morning in gloom and doom, mulling over all of the ways in which Trump arguably fell short.
Well, maybe. But don’t don the Depends just yet, because most of that Harris joy is simply a kind of irrational exuberance, almost all of which arises from the contrast to the previous debate. Trump didn’t knock Harris out of the race like he did to Biden, and that qualifies as a victory of sorts for Democrats.
But how much of a victory? And for how long? Much of that depends (heh) on the media and whether they will force Harris to start engaging them normally after this debate. And much of it relies on whether the voters who watched last night…
