Wednesday, September 11, 2024

Part I

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Where was the Serious Exchange of Ideas? The American People Need More Than What Happened Last Night in the ‘24 Presidential ‘Debate’

Well, last night’s debate, they called it a debate, was probably not a major turning point in the 2024 election, but it might not be a footnote either. First of all, it wasn’t a debate. This is just a matter of presidential history now, it’s a matter of electoral history in the United States. You look back, for instance, at the Lincoln-Douglas debates in the 19th century, and you consider what took place there in Philadelphia last night. We’re not even talking about the same activity, not even remotely the same. When you look at Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas, and remember that was for a Senate election, not for a presidential election, the most famous of these debates, you were really looking at two candidates setting out massive worldview systems and intricate policy proposals.

And they clearly clashed on some of the most basic issues, not only legislatively but morally in the United States, particularly over the question of slavery and then how the nation should deal with the issue of slavery. But what we were looking at last night in Philadelphia was a political event. No doubt it was a political event. It was a media event. No doubt that turns out to be part of the problem in modern presidential debates or what are called modern presidential debates. There is no serious exchange of ideas. There is no serious engagement of worldview. At times there is something that can approximate a serious statement about policy. But that being said, the candidates last night on the stage in Philadelphia were not really trying to make arguments, they were trying to score points. Now, if you’re just keeping score, my guess is that most viewers would believe that the vice president scored higher than the former president. And that seems to be a pretty widely held perception and frankly, among Trump supporters as well as his detractors.

And there are a lot of reasons for that. But I want us to think before we look at the score or the perceived score, and before we even ask if that’s going to make a difference in the election, I want us to think about the fact that we really lost something in our national culture when something like that is billed as a debate and there is no serious exchange of ideas. And when we understand the condition of our nation, we understand the scale of the issues we confront, even the scale of the issues that were at least brushed up against last night, the reality is that we need more than what took place last night, but in all likelihood, we’re not going to get it. In the current media context, we’re probably never going to get it.

Now, what happened last night was not without argument, it was not without disagreement. And the most important, at least from my perspective, is what took place starting 17 minutes into the debate and lasting unfortunately only 10 minutes. And that was the clash over the question of abortion and I’m never going to apologize for focusing on that as the issue of first most clarifying distinction between these two candidacies.

Part II

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Kamala Harris Escaped Explaining Her Real Position on Abortion – She is the Most Radical Proponent of Abortion in U.S. Electoral History

And here’s where President Trump, the former president, he actually scored some significant points, but he made his arguments in such a way that the vice president was able to escape much of what he was charging against her. And that turned out to be very sad. It was a tragic development when we’re talking about abortion, because as I will discuss at greater length as we look at this in the future, Kamala Harris is the most pro-abortion candidate in the history of American politics.

And when you add Tim Walz, her running mate, the Minnesota Governor, the reality is that the Democratic ticket is the most energetically, unapologetically, unconditionally pro-abortion ticket, again, in American history. And we have to take that as a matter of grave consequence. Now, again, I want to give the former president some credit for dealing forthrightly with this issue. And of course it started with the former president on the defensive because of his own equivocations on the issue of abortion in the context of the 2024 campaign. And this is what I’ve spoken to repeatedly just simply warning the former president and his campaign, that if they do not have massive support from pro-life voters, there is virtually no hope for a Trump victory in November. But to his credit last night, the former president sought to put Kamala Harris on the defensive, which is exactly where she deserves to be.

And so he made two arguments. Now, he didn’t make them as carefully as I would’ve wanted him to make them, but he did make the two arguments and he deserves credit for making the two arguments. Number one, that Kamala Harris is basically for abortion throughout pregnancy without restriction. Now, I wish he’d put it that way and you would have Kamala Harris unable to refute what he had said. But he went on to say that she would allow for abortion in the seventh, eighth, ninth month of pregnancy. And she retorted that that was ridiculous. Now, in this case, the former president was absolutely right. The policy position held by Kamala Harris would do exactly that. Now, she has said, and I assert again, this is a false claim that all she wants to do, as President Biden said all he wanted to do was to put Roe back in force by legislation.

That is not the position that is represented by her ticket, not the position represented by the law that was signed into effect by Tim Walz in Minnesota. It is not the position of her party. The position of her party is to push for abortion without restrictions. And if you doubt that, just listen to a Democratic candidate argue honestly otherwise at the national level. So score for truth in that situation, President Trump, he should have made the argument more airtight so that Kamala Harris could not have escaped it. The second thing had to do with the life or death of a baby once born. Now, the most careful way to put that is that the Democratic Party includes people, and at the very least, this includes Governor Walz once again, includes people who have actively sought to remove protections for infants born alive after an abortion.

And there is simply no question that that is exactly what Governor Walz has done. And by choosing him as her vice president, there’s actually no way that Kamala Harris can avoid responsibility for holding the very same policy. And of course, you had former President Trump last night pointing to the former governor of Virginia, Ralph Northam pointing out that he had absolutely let the cat out of the bag, so to speak, by speaking honestly and candidly about this issue in an interview. And here’s the thing, you have people saying that never happens, but at the same time, health authorities in Minnesota have reported that it has already happened multiple times after Governor Walz signed the legislation. That’s simply the truth. I want to point to something else, and you’ve thought about this before, but it came up last night. You had Vice President Kamala Harris saying that she believes the vast majority of Americans believe that the government should not tell a woman what decisions to make about her body.

She said a woman has a, “right to make decisions about her own body.” Now that appears to be a statement beyond refutation. A woman has the right to make decisions about her own body, but let’s forget pregnancy and let’s put the baby out of the picture for just a moment. That’s not even true when it comes to everything one could do with one’s body. That is simply not a matter of law. You can’t do things with your own body, at least in terms of any legal protection and then claim you had a right to do this. For instance, and I’m not going to go into detail here, don’t worry, it is against medical practice and thus it is against institutional policy and this comes with the force of what can only be described as something like administrative law. It’s statutory law in some cases as well. There are things you are not free to do with your own body, and that includes some forms of mutilation.

It also includes the fact you can’t just demand and pay for someone to do a surgery that isn’t medically indicated. By the way, this implicates an awful lot of issues related to the transgender revolution. We’re going to have to save that for another time. But my point is there’s intellectual dishonesty in even saying the sentence aloud, but Vice President Kamala Harris has said that sentence over and over again. But let’s note that what makes the situation infinitely darker, in the case of what she said when she said it, is the fact that she completely ignores, no, by making the statement the way, she completely directly denies the existence of any other human person in the equation. Now, you add that to what I just said about late term abortion, and you come to understand that the average American last night, unfortunately viewing what took place, did not know the horror of the Democratic Party’s position on that issue.

Again, I give the former president credit for raising the issue and frankly in one sense, raising it repeatedly, I certainly believe, however, there was a horrifying missed opportunity in not clarifying what was at stake. By looking at her facial expressions, it was clear the vice president pretty much figured she had gotten away with it. But just to close this particular part of our thinking about the debate last night, we just need to remind ourselves that as Christians, we understand that nothing less than life and death is at stake because the question of abortion is at stake. And by the way, other life issues, life and death issues are implicated in the potential of a Harris-Walz administration in the future. We’ll take those in turn on a future edition of The Briefing.

Part III

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The Media Class Should Not Determine Debate Moderators: Conservative Candidates Should Consider Declining These Invitations in the Future

But now I want to turn just back to the debate, and understand that something happened in terms of our political culture that has made these kinds of debates far less than they should be, indeed almost something other than what they should be. And that is the fact that journalists are asking the questions. Now, you might think that’s kind of the standard fare in modern presidential debates, and it is in one sense going all the way back to 1960 and the debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. But looking at the classical setup for a debate, it wouldn’t be a journalist or a pair of journalists or a team of journalists asking the question, it would be persons who are particularly thoughtful and are understood to be clearly neutral. And what we saw last night was not neutrality. What we saw last night was the media class in its horrifyingly close relationship to the liberal political class, basically scoring points. And those questions as they were posed, the animus that was expressed, the fact checking, which was something that was done only in the case of one candidate, and I’m simply using that with quotation marks around it. That’s the term that was used. The reality is that this was the most undisguised form of media complicity we’ve seen in one of these recent debates.

And it raises the question as to whether or not these debates should be happening in the first place. I think it’s a very legitimate question as to whether a conservative candidate or in the case of Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, should agree to this kind of debate. Now, the media, because the media has more to gain from this in one sense than anyone else, it’s going to cry foul if any candidate, certainly a Republican nominee refuses to participate in this process. But as critical as I would be of the former President’s performance last night, in reality it was a setup in terms of the media context. And that’s to say it raises the question as to whether any Republican candidate should put himself or herself in the position of having the press control this kind of debate. It turns into a win for the press and don’t miss the fact that that’s what they’re in it for.

Part IV

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Taking the Bait, Lack of Pressing Kamala Harris on Policy, and Frowning: Donald Trump’s Main Problems in the Presidential Debate

I believe the main problem with Donald Trump in the debate last night really comes down to three issues. Number one, he made it personal. And in this case, I really don’t mean in terms of how he responded to Vice President Harris. I mean how he responded to what he saw as implicit slights to himself. And that took him back. It kept taking him backwards and it kept him talking about himself in a way that hurt his campaign. It hurt certainly his prospects in the debate last night. And secondly, the big problem is he didn’t deliver on, quite frankly, drawing attention to the radical policy proposals of the vice president and the Democratic ticket in a way that I think would’ve won him an awful lot of support or at least an awful lot of interest on the part of say, voters who may not have made a decision. Granted, that’s a small percentage of voters, but I think it was a missed opportunity.

And third, this just comes down to the fact that I’m not sure even how to interpret this in moral terms. I simply know that it is a fact. Americans grow tired of looking at someone with a frown on the face and tend to be drawn to someone with a smile on the face. Now, I’m not saying that’s a morally superior way for Americans to think. I’m simply acknowledging the reality. It’s hard to argue against the fact that that’s the way much of the media system works.

Part V

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‘My Values Have Not Changed’: I Believe Kamala Harris Means Every Word of That Statement – And That Should Frighten All of Us

But drawing this to a conclusion, I just want to say that I think what is most important from the debate last night, and I mentioned the issue of abortion and other crucial issues, president Trump I think scored some real points on immigration and the scandal of illegal immigration in the United States.

I think he scored some points on other issues. No doubt the vice president scored some points, particularly with her base on a number of issues. But I think the most important thing that was said last night, it was a truthful statement made by the Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris. I think the scary thing about it is that it was a true statement, an honest statement. She said repeating something that she had expressed in a recent CNN interview, at this point really the only sit-down interview she’s done with the major media and again, with the complicity of the media class, she said, and I quote, “My values have not changed.” And that came as she was asked a question about changes in her policy from when she was running for the Democratic nomination in 2019, in particular in the early part of the race for the Democratic nomination in 2020.

She was asked about fracking. She was asked about a number of other issues, why has your position changed? And the vice president came back and said, “My values have not changed.” In that CNN interview just a few days ago with Dana Bash of CNN, she’d said the same thing. There she said, “My values have not changed.” So it’s the same line. She thinks it’s a winning line. I think the frightening thing is that it is an honest line. I don’t think her values have changed. The big problem is her values. And when you consider and far more important than the issue of fracking, I’m not saying that’s unimportant, I’m simply saying I think the issue of the sanctity and dignity of human life and the larger question of say, the moral impact, the life impact, the marriage impact, the family impact, the global security impact of a Harris-Walz ticket or Harris-Walz administration, I think the big problem is that her values have not changed.

And I think when you look at her values, it’s a truly frightening picture. She will talk about abortion only insofar as she can talk about a woman’s reproductive health and she will talk about the right of a woman to make decisions about her body. She just completely denies the very existence of another human person or even another meaningful moral agent. It is an extreme and radical position, and I don’t think most Americans recognize just how extreme it is. But Kamala Harris, going back to when she began her political career, she’s been consistent on this issue and saying, “My values have not changed.” Well, that’s the big problem. Her values are the problem and they haven’t changed.

Part VI

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The Winner of the Debate and the Undecided Voter: Two Major Factors in the Debate, and the Consequences Will Not Be Revealed Until Election Day

But now there are two remaining big issues and we can’t answer either of them today. One is when you look at a political context such as the debate last night in the context of the 2024 election, what impact will the debate have? The fact is we really don’t know.

The media class, the political class response is often what’s referred to as a repeat echo, which is to say there’s a line and it becomes, say the Democratic line, it becomes the media line. In another context it could become the Republican line, and it just gets repeated over and over again, and you have journalists quoting other journalists saying the same line and politicians quoting other politicians saying the same line. We don’t know exactly what that is yet because it’s going to take a couple of days for that to play out. The second big issue we don’t know is the impact of this debate on the election day 2024. Now, the most important reason we don’t know the answer about that impact is because it’s going to take election day and knowing the results of election day to answer that question or even to come close to answering that question, because even then, we’re not going to know exactly what role the debate played.

But it is interesting that when you have post-election analysis, people often say, “Well, it was that turning point.” That was true in the 2016 debates between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. And it was certainly true as you look back to some historic presidential elections in America. But we’re going to have to wait till election day for that. But just as you look at the election, think of these two realities. Number one, this is an extremely close election, and most Americans have clearly already decided how they’re going to vote. The percentage of Americans who are up for grabs in this election, it is understandably at this point, probably very, very small. And secondly, we don’t know how many of those fellow citizens who might actually vote on election day, who are undecided today, paid any attention to the debate at all. So here’s another inverse equation you need to think about, and with this I’ll close about the debate.

It’s interesting that the people who argue the most about the debate, and this is true in the media class, the political class, and frankly, if you’re having coffee with a neighbor, they’re the people who are most politically active and the people most likely already to have decided how they’re going to vote. The reality is that a lot of the people whoever they may be who haven’t decided yet how they’re going to vote, they probably found another way to spend their Tuesday night as well.

Part VII

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If the U.S. Confronted a Major Military Attack, Who Would You Want as President? The Anniversary of September 11th Raises Major Questions About Presidential Leadership

But next, let’s just remember that today is September 11, 2024, and that reminds us it’s the 23rd anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks upon the United States. And I don’t think this connection is being made by many people in light of the 2024 presidential campaign, but it certainly came to my mind last night in thinking about the debate. Here’s the issue.

Who would you want as President of the United States if such an attack were to happen, say in the next four years? Who would you want to be holding that responsibility? Who would you want to be commander-in-chief of the armed services? Who would you want to be analyzing the situation? Who would you want to be acting in response to that kind of attack? That brings up an interesting question in American presidential history, and that comes down to the fact that when George W. Bush was elected President of the United States in the 2000 election, and remember that very complex in which you had hanging Chads in Florida in terms of ballot disputes, it took several weeks to determine the winner of the 2000 presidential election. But George W. Bush’s experience to that point had basically been being governor of the State of Texas. Now, despite the ambitions of some very proud Texans, Texas does not actually have a foreign policy. That is a federal responsibility.

And the big question came down in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, is President Bush up to this challenge? Now, I’m not going to get into a debate about long-term policy or about the second Gulf War. That’s for another day. The War on Terror and its extended ramifications. I am simply going to say that as a leadership lesson, it’s important to recognize that George W. Bush transformed himself in the aftermath and in the response to the September 11 attacks by his presidential leadership at the time. And that’s just a reminder of the fact that there are grave issues at stake. We’re living in a very dangerous world. The world has not grown less dangerous after September 11, 2001. If anything, it has grown more dangerous. We have foreign threats, just to include Iran, who are even more activist in terms of their animus and designs toward the United States.

And quite frankly, may, if not now, be soon armed with nuclear weapons. We are looking at a more dangerous world just about everywhere we look. We are looking at a Russian invasion of Ukraine. We are looking at Hamas terror attacks upon Israel. We are looking at various developments around the world, and I hope Americans really are thinking through the big question, who do you want as president dealing with these issues? And that comes down to a matter of personal temperament. It also comes down to a matter of presidential instincts. And this is where I think Americans face a very clear choice looking at the 2024 election. And this is not just an issue related to, say, a Republican nominee and a Democratic nominee, it is related to the basic question as to how these individuals see the world. And how these individuals, if elected president, would see America’s place in the world and the threats against America in the larger world and the necessity of the United States, its armed forces, its foreign policy, its entire governmental system being ready to respond to any such attack with the full force and credibility necessary.

And in thinking this through, I simply want to say that the disastrous withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan during the Biden administration in which Kamala Harris has served as vice president, I think it serves as an indication of the kind of disaster that can sometimes just happen. But then again, it didn’t just happen. It was a matter of presidential decision making and a matter of presidential responsibility. Joe Biden’s never going to have to face the American voters with a reelection question now, with the Afghanistan scandal, and America’s tragic withdrawal left as an open question. One of the continuing questions, however, is whether his vice president is going to escape moral responsibility for the decision. By the way, the Biden administration has responded that it was former President Donald Trump who, as president, came up with the plan.

But you know what? There are two different dimensions to this. One is the decision to withdraw, and the second question is how to withdraw. The Biden administration should not be able to escape the verdict of history in understanding the necessity of answering both of those questions, nor should the vice president. However you look at it, last night was not a great demonstration of the strength and credibility of America’s electoral democratic constitutional traditions. That’s not to say, however, it wasn’t important. How important? Well, as we’ve said, time will tell.