Dominance and Catharsis

Finally

We’ve been waiting a long time for that, haven’t we—the validation, the satisfaction, the sheer joy of watching a man who so richly deserves it to be humiliated, eviscerated, and dominated.

Not only did Vice President Kamala Harris expose my uncle’s weakness on the debate stage last night, which left him seething with rage and reduced to sputtering incoherence, she also gave millions of us something we have needed for almost a decade — catharsis.

And Harris did it in a way that was not just masterful, it was almost surgical. She dominated Donald from the outset, crossing the stage to his lectern and forcing him to do something he did not want to do—shake her hand. (I confess, I did not want her to shake his hand—not because I thought it was a tactical mistake, but because I didn’t want her to have to touch him.) And then, while addressing policy issues and giving us substantive answers to the moderator’s questions in a way that underscored how incapable Donald was of doing the same, she slid the knife in again and again. She told him to his face in front of the world that he is a disgrace. She looked at him with bemused condescension, pity, and outright contempt. She called out his lies and, worst of all for him, she mocked his rallies:

I'm going to invite you to attend one of Donald Trump's rallies because it's a really interesting thing to watch. You will see during the course of his rallies he talks about fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter. He will talk about windmills cause cancer. And what you will also notice is that people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom.

Donald never recovered from that accurate and damning assessment of one of the most important metrics by which he measures his worth This bit of rhetorical evisceration, which happened at about the 25-minute mark, undid him and he spent the next hour defensive, desperate, and flailing.

We needed someone to call out Donald’s lies in a context he did not control. We needed someone to set the record straight while he had to stand there and listen. Harris did that while laying out his decades’-long patterns of racist, corrupt, and disturbing behaviors that are utterly disqualifying.

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For over nine years, this country has been in thrall to a cruel and deranged man who cares only about himself. His constant war on truth and basic human decency has worn us down, demoralizing those of us who care about other people, who want a better world, and who crave a leader who exhibits empathy and understanding.

We’ve been waiting for somebody in a position of authority to stand up to Donald in a way that would matter, that would loosen Donald’s grip on power and perhaps even undo him. Instead, we’ve watched helplessly as the entire Republican Party bent its knee to him; as corrupt judges give him a pass; and as the illegitimate super-majority of the Supreme Court ripped up the Constitution in order to give him, this man who has earned nothing and deserves nothing, more power.

Robert Mueller, in whom so many people invested so much hope, failed to meet the moment. Merrick Garland didn’t even try. Finally on Tuesday night Kamala Harris channeled all of our frustration, all our fear, all of our rage and put that pathetic man in his place—and he knows it.

The only way Donald knows how to prove his strength is to tear other people down. The only way he feels superior is to treat people with contempt and cruelty. Vice President Harris has been showing us a different way. Last night she proved not only that she is a kind, brilliant human being, but also that she knows how to deal with bullies and liars. And she made it look so easy. 

It’s hard to pick which moment of the night was the most gratifying—it was, after all, an embarrassment of riches—but I think perhaps the most important moment came after Donald lied about how “everybody wanted” Roe v. Wade overturned. Harris, who has spent the post-Roe era actually talking and listening to American women, delivered a rebuke that resonated deeply. 

You want to talk about, this is what people wanted? Pregnant women who want to carry a pregnancy to term, suffering from a miscarriage, being denied care in an emergency room because the health care providers are afraid they might go to jail, and she’s bleeding out in a car in the parking lot? She didn’t want that. Her husband didn’t want that. A 12 or 13-year-old survivor of incest being forced to carry a pregnancy to term? They don’t want that.

I felt the anguish and righteous anger in those words. Women all across America felt that and, hopefully a lot of men did, too.

As we know, debates don’t win elections, but Harris’ brilliant performance definitely answered questions many Americans still had about what kind of leader she is. She proved that she would be ready on day one. We can’t depend on that, however. There are too many systemic anomalies that give Donald the edge. No matter how low he goes, tens of millions of people continue to support him.

So, we need to finish the job and make sure Democrats up and down the ballot win in such massive numbers that Donald’s claims that the election was stolen will be believed by nobody but his most deluded followers. We also need to make sure that President Harris has Democratic majorities in the House and Senate so she can make the kind of sweeping changes necessary to fix this deeply broken country of ours.