Was that a debate or a street fight?

Well, it wasn’t the Lincoln-Douglas debates. Nor did it have any of the charm of the debate between Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale when both laughed (as did everyone else) at Reagan’s promise not to make an issue of Mondale’s “youth and inexperience.” Both Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump tried for something like a memorable moment that could be repeated on social media. For Harris, the takeaway she surely aimed at was reminding Trump (and the American people) that she is not Joe Biden but is instead a younger leader with a vision for a common future that will unite us. Trump, by contrast, returned time and again to the message that Harris’ promises should be measured against the last four years rather than an aspirational four years to come.

For older voters, there is little doubt that this clash lacked the relative grace of debates in the pre-Trump era when opponents were typically eager to demonstrate poise, politeness, and equanimity. Even if we were to go back to the Obama-Romney debates of 2012, we would see mutual respect and a certain solicitousness at work. All of that seems like a distant memory in the light of the Harris-Trump debate, which can only be seen as a street fight.

Harris endeavored to convince the voting public that the man on the other side of the stage is a criminal, a potential dictator, and a mentally unbalanced figure incapable of coming to grips with the reality of a lost election in 2020. Trump didn’t help his case by taking the bait to complain about the 2020 election and repeat social media rumors about Haitian immigrants eating dogs and cats in Ohio. On the other hand, he repeatedly pointed to the negative policy results of the Biden administration such as high inflation, runaway illegal immigration, and crime. In so doing, he accused his opponent and her boss of complete, buffoonish incompetence combined with utterly inexcusable negligence.

We have come very far from Richard Nixon in 1960 saying that he and John F. Kennedy agreed on the goals that should be achieved but simply disagreed about the means to achieve them. Donald Trump and Kamala Harris would both deny that their opponent has any real desire to do good for the country in which the two of them have spent most of their lives.

There was a significant focus on abortion during the contest. Harris seemed to be at her most confident rehearsing the standard Democratic case on the issue, which is that government has no role to play in decisions women make about their own bodies. That position inherently denies the separate existence of the unborn child. Trump, possibly to the distress of pro-lifers, continually emphasized that his goal had been to make the issue amenable to democracy and that he had achieved that. While pro-lifers want abortion to end, Trump seemed to be satisfied with the prospect that his presidency may have paved the way for an end to late-term abortion. While he tried to challenge Harris to come out against late-term terminations, he was unable to recruit the moderators to press her for an answer to that question.

One of the most interesting and consequential parts of the debate had to do with Republicans who now oppose Trump. He deftly deflected this particular critique by saying that he fired ineffective members of his administration and therefore gained enemies in the process. The Biden administration, however, he asserted, never fired anyone responsible for the debacle in Afghanistan and for out-of-control immigration. Biden had no enemies because there was no accountability.

There is a deeper sort of dynamic unfolding in this question of whether certain Republicans support Donald Trump. Notably, Harris talked about the fact that Dick Cheney, former President George W. Bush’s vice president, is now planning to vote for her. The fact is fascinating because Cheney was the equivalent of Satan for the Democrats only a few years ago. A recent Hollywood film portrayed him as a dark, villainous figure. No one could have predicted the Democrats would trumpet the support of that same man in 2024. What the Cheney-Harris connection underlines is that this election is clearly a battle between the American establishment and a challenger to the establishment. Kamala Harris is the establishment candidate and is running as such. Donald Trump shocked the establishment in 2016 and is determined to try to more fully topple it.

Who won the debate? While there were heavy punches thrown by each side, I think Harris can claim victory based on the expectations game. Those who expected the rambling, often incoherent, and unserious Harris they’d seen repeatedly on social media were disappointed. She played the adult in the room and remained disciplined. Donald Trump was Donald Trump, with few surprises, but Kamala Harris performed better than most Americans thought she could based on what they had seen before. The voters will decide in November how much of this matters.