The Joy of Watching Kamala Harris Beat Down an Old Man

It's not hyperbolic to say that Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, beat the shit out of former president (no, really, he was once president. Of the whole United States) and current GOP nominee Donald Trump at last night's debate. She didn't just get the best of him, throwing down genuine facts and insulting observations in equal measure. She beat him down in a way that he probably hasn't been beaten down since his hideous father likely pounded him. She degraded his record, reduced his presence, and obliterated his talking points. She was, to this incredibly biased observer, near perfect in her execution of the execution of Trump's ego. Harris fucked him up good. 

And, goddamn, we needed it. We needed to see someone say exactly who he is with clarity and energy, someone willing to go there, to all those weird and dangerous alleyways where his brain resides, and someone willing to call the Devil "the Devil" to his stupid, evil face. The dichotomy was stark. She's smart; he's dumb. She's poised; he's belligerent. She gives a damn; he couldn't fucking care less. She's lively; he's a fucking lump.

On that last point, Trump barely physically moved the entire debate. It was weird, like he was a mannequin. He looked at Harris very few times. The biggest motions he made were to lean into the mic for emphasis on some moronic point or other or to contort the mushy flesh of his face into a shit-eating grin. Gravity has not been kind to Trump. Always a frowner, his jowls are now pulled earthward by time and weight into a bullfrog-like permanent scowl awaiting a chance to bellow.

Meanwhile, Harris, at her lectern, danced around him with the physical lightness and fierce confidence of a boxer who knows exactly when and where to punch. She baited him constantly, and he fell into every single trap. And when he fell, she hogtied him again and again, like a rodeo cowboy who lassoed a steer. Unlike that steer, which might learn to not leave the pen after a few hog-tyings, Trump would rush out crazily every time, only to end up with his hooves in the air. 

On substance, it was laughable to watch Harris, an accomplished, experienced woman who worked her ass off to get where she is, go up against a convicted felon and rapist whose TV celebrity and blatant racism inspired the worst fucking people in the country to vote for him. You were literally seeing a prosecutor take on a game show host and it went exactly like you'd think that would go.

Every time Trump lied, she tore him a new asshole. When he said, "Every legal scholar, every Democrat, every Republican, liberal, conservative, they all wanted this issue to be brought back to the states where the people could vote," she ripped into him about the suffering that the end of guaranteed abortion rights has brought to women in places where it's banned. When he refused to answer whether or not he'd support Ukraine in its war with Russia, she gutted him by saying that he would let Russia have Ukraine and "Putin would be sitting in Kiev with his eyes on the rest of Europe, starting with Poland. And why don’t you tell the 800,000 Polish Americans right here in Pennsylvania how quickly you would give up for the sake of favor" and talked about how world leaders think he's a fucking joke, an easily flattered bitch boy. By the end, she had torn so many new assholes in him that he'll be shitting out of his arms, legs, and chest for months.

And when Trump would say something completely divorced from reality, Harris would smile as if she thought it was time to give Gramps his pudding cup, shut off Fox "news," and tuck him in. He couldn't deal with her constant emasculation of him. You could see his brain, which is always ready to overheat from the slightest usage, short circuit when she brought up how people leave his rallies because they're bored or when she pointed out all the people who worked with him who fucking despise him now. Once that happened, he couldn't get control again. 

By the way, bragging that you fire people you just hired a few months or a year before isn't the own he thinks it is. It just says that you suck at management. 

But the most disturbing part of the debate was how Trump brings every fucking issue back to his warped view of immigration. Harris nailed it early on when she said, "I’ll tell you something, he’s going to talk about immigration a lot tonight, even when it’s not the subject that is being raised."And she was right. Jobs? "We have millions of people pouring into our country from prisons and jails, from mental institutions and insane asylums, and they’re coming in and they’re taking jobs that are occupied right now by African-Americans and Hispanics and unions." His rallies? "What they have done to our country by allowing these millions and millions of people to come into our country and look at what’s happening to the towns all over the United States." January 6? "I ask what about all the people that are pouring into our country and killing people that she allowed to pour in?" Trump was flailing and always returned to this well. It's like watching the world's stupidest gorilla fall out of a tree again and again and instead of giving up, he shits in his hand and rubs his face with it, thinking it shows how strong he is when all it does is make him have a face full of shit.

The other thing that's clear is the only source of information for Trump is right-wing media because it is constantly fawning over him.  At one point, he cited "Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity, Jesse, all of these people" for debunking something. The whole "Haitians eat pets" thing came from click-seeking bullshitters on the right and no one who isn't terminally online would understand a single fucking thing about that (trust me - I've had more than a few people ask, "What the fuck?"). When he was fact-checked on that by moderator David Muir, Trump said one of the most pathetic things I've ever heard a grown up say, let alone someone running for president: "But the people on television are saying their dog was eaten by the people that went there." I'd go into hiding from embarrassment, but I'm capable of feeling shame. 

There were too many idiotic things that Trump said to mention. When he said about Putin, "He’s got nuclear weapons. They don’t ever talk about that. He’s got nuclear weapons. Nobody ever thinks about that," I thought, "Yeah, they do, motherfucker. If he didn't have nukes, NATO would have bombed him into submission." When he said that Democrats wouldn't vote "to change" the Affordable Care Act, I thought, "No, motherfucker. The bill wasn't to change anything. It was to get rid of it and then hope your replacement plan might go beyond the concept stage at some point."

Harris has faced so many smarter, sharper, quicker opponents. It was a joy to see her treat him like the skeevy corner masturbator that he is. 

And, yeah, I know, I know, I fucking know that this debate didn't change many minds. One thing I hear often about what I write is that I'm preaching to the choir. And my response is always the same: "The choir deserves to be preached to. That's why they go to church all the time." If I were to expand on the metaphor, I'd say that there is always a chance that a few sinners will come into the church and get religion. That's not the only reason to preach, but it sure as hell is nice when it happens. 

Harris's evisceration of Trump and the entire empty charade of MAGA ideology might sway a few people in the narrow swath of voters who are still persuadable. But the real accomplishment was in pumping up the rest of us, we the choir, and getting us geared up to get out there and work to make this presidency happen and end the tyranny of Trump's drain on our national spirit. She showed us how to handle it: with the sword of muted rage and a dagger of a smile. 

Note to Corporate Media: You Don't Have to Act Like Trump and Vance Are Serious People

Let us say, and why not, that Democratic vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz is asked about his GOP counterpart and declares in an interview, "JD Vance's whole purpose in this world is to blow goats." When asked what he means, Walz could clarify, "I mean that Senator and Republican vice-presidential candidate JD Vance has one reason for living, and that's to suck goat dick. His entire life would be unfulfilled and he will be miserable if he doesn't fellate goats on a regular basis. And I mean the whole act. From gently tongue-bathing the goat's enormous testicles to bring it to full erection and then going down on that straw-sized dick until it ejaculates in his mouth. A goat dick-less JD Vance has no real value system or meaning in his life and he would have chosen a path to misery."

How should the major media outlets react to such an absurd thing? Would CNN ask Vance if Walz is correct? Would they have a panel discussion on the idea that orally pleasuring goats is Vance's purpose? Would commentators on the left quickly agree with Walz and insist that Vance's lack of blowing goats clouds his judgment and the only way he can be a contributing member of society and not some sad goatless dude is to take the goat jizz regularly? Would other Democrats praise Walz for being brave enough to say the truth about Vance and goat blowing? 

The answer is "Of fucking course not." It would be treated as deranged and baffling, as sign of Walz's unfitness for office and of the depravity of Democrats. The condemnation would be general and widespread, including from Democrats, likely leading to Walz being forced to drop off the Democratic ticket. Oh, sure, there would be some of us (me) who would defend Walz for being fucking hilarious. But we know that the outragegasm would be unending, and no reporter would ever let Harris or any Democrat get away with not constantly responding to it. Some things are beyond the pale, and they should be. There should be some things that politicians say that are disqualifying. 

Like, I dunno, maybe being on record constantly that women only have value and worth in American society if they breed. See, it's not just that JD Vance has said and keeps saying shit like that a woman who emphasizes her career is a "miserable person who can’t have kids because [she] already passed the biological period when it was possible." It's that the Most Important Newspapers and other media treat Vance and Donald Trump like they are Very Serious People with Very Serious Ideas that need Very Serious Consideration when, actually, no, they absolutely do not. Anyone espousing a philosophy that says that women who don't give birth to children are innately unhappy or that people without kids don't have a serious stake in the future of the world is an obvious fool and kind of a dick. 

We don't need reporting about how saying such nonsense affects voters. We need journalists saying that none of that is true and no one should believe it. It's that recent canard that if you have one person saying it's raining and the other person saying it's not, it's the journalist's job to open the goddamn window and tell everyone what's real. If someone is saying completely untrue shit, it's actually objective reporting to say that what they're saying is completely untrue shit. And it's completely valid to question other Republicans about what Vance has said and not let them get away with avoiding whether or not they think "the whole purpose of the postmenopausal female" is to help take care of grandchildren.

Last Thursday, in another of his rambling bullshit sessions, this time for the poor suckers in Potterville, Michigan, Trump went on a rant using the lie about transgender women at the Olympics: "You see the boxing in the Olympics, two transitioned people, they transitioned from men to women, did you see? Fighting, a young, beautiful Italian boxer, top boxer, they thought big things from her. And then bing. A left jab, just a jab. She go, 'Whoa, what? I just got hit with a horse.' Again, bing. She said, 'I’m out.' She quit. She couldn’t take it. Two punches. The second one likewise got into the ring with a couple of very talented women, just beat the hell out of them. They both won the gold medal, shockingly."

Trump likes to say that all of his incoherent, disorganized storytelling is called "the weave" by English professors and he says it has a point. Let me assure you, as an English professor (no, really), it's not called that. The only weaving is Trump creating fiction out of lies and the point is to spread hateful propaganda. News media should report that he's lying and then figure out if it's intentional or if he's fucked in the head or both.

There is no realm where this or anything Trump says needs to be taken seriously except as evidence of how delusional he is. And also how confused. In that same speech, without anything that anchored it to what he had been talking about, Trump seemed to swing into talking about his 2016 victory over Hillary Clinton: "And look, we did something that they’re very angry about. We beat somebody that should have been beaten in an election that we weren’t anticipated to win. But I thought we were going to win, because I came to Michigan the night before. We had 49,000 people. She came to Michigan the night before because she was told she may lose it. And this was an upset, so they had a fast tour. She had like 300 people. I said, 'Why would we lose?' We had the crowd you wouldn’t have believed it." 

Prior to this he was talking about electric cars and then, I think, President Biden at the Democratic National Convention. After this he introduced a soldier who was there supporting him. At no point did he mention Clinton. "She" in that quote is simply not defined. Can you show me a single moment from Biden where his brain seemed to leap to something so out out of context it was like he was giving another speech? No, you can't. 

The fact that the GOP ticket consists of an elderly man plainly declining mentally and a guy who lies about women in order to enslave them to childbirth and child care is the story that needs to be covered and simply isn't. And if it turns out that JD Vance is blowing goats, yes, that deserves some mention, too.

(Note: At the beginning, am I comparing having children to goat fellatio? Yes. Yes, I am.)

(Note 2: You are so right. I could have gone with couch-fucking. But, to me, that joke is played out, like a loveseat with too many secret sex holes.)

(Note 3: Yes, there is a cynical side of me which says that, of course, CNN would act like goat-blowing is now worthy of discussion because we'd all click on the clips of that panel to watch odious Scott Jennings talk about how goats need love.)

(Note 4: I couldn't figure out where to put this line, but I liked it, so here it is: "When Walz is asked if he would do anything to help JD Vance blow goats, like buy him a goat or bring him to a goat farm, Walz can put up his hands and say, 'Whoa, whoa, let's not get carried away.'")

A Poem for the Laborers

"Resistors"
by Brandon Som

"I just felt like he was fighting us with his machine."
             —Nellie Jo David

In Guadalajara to see where Motorola took the line
            my grandmother worked on, I can’t find the site
but spend the days in naves of a deconsecrated church

looking up at frescoes by Orozco. Here is a horse:
            a tow chain for tail, train piston for hock & hoof.
Over murdered Mexica, Cortez stands: lug nut hips

& kneecaps, gauntleted hand at the sword hilt, silver
            as a knot of solder. Opposite him: the Franciscan
& his Latin cross—miter-sawed angles hewn down

to dagger point—& an angel in assembly-line armor
            lifting a bloodied banner with the stenciled letters
of an alphabet, the one I must have started learning,

sing-song in the pitch & timbre of milk teeth, at 48th
            & Willetta, a one-bedroom duplex west of Papago’s
greasewood & buttes of sandstone & a block down

from the Motorola where my grandmother punched
            in nights to look after a conveyor of semiconductors—
those nascent ancient rotaries strung up to starlight

& empire (gaslighting like that Gast painting of progress
            & whiteness wrapped in telegraph wire, lithe & looping
as cake shop box string). No wall on O’odham land,

I hear the woman today protest from the bucket
            of a front-end loader—a Caterpillar, by her presence,
dumbstruck on tread wheels tall as vault doors, its maw

metal hollow, a confessional or old Mountain Bell
            phone booth she stepped into amid the felled saguaro
& ribs of organ pipe. Her body where dirt goes says

her body is the land the wall wants to eat. I stream this—
            download by data plan, by bandwidth, from the cloud
servers deep in their grid deserts to the crystalline

& rare earth minerals making my cell phone
            black box theater, making her code, making her
algorithm—both soprano & Mario Savio—the solder

seemingly quantum leap from soldada & solidarity.
            Still, I remember the ram’s horn baritone in my nana’s
King James, imagine her driving those years with riders

to shepherd the sound through solid state & know
            the harder truth: the defiant mic this woman makes,
resonates with her body beneath the digger’s teeth.