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Notes -
Here is an interesting development: Kamala Harris is now demanding unmuted microphones for her debate with Donald Trump.
It's been memory holed, but I seem to remember the general opinion being that allowing Trump to interrupt his opponent during debates gave him an unfair advantage since he would interrupt more often. This appears to be a complete 180. It's tempting to model this as a reflexive reaction to Trump's dominance in the June debate with Biden (which muted the candidates' microphones when it wasn't their turn to speak), but I get the sense that there are deeper strategic considerations at play. A few possibilities:
The Harris Campaign wants Trump to come off as unhinged by giving him the oppurtunity to make a complete ass of himself. This didn't work for Jeb, Rubio, Cruz, or Hillary, but maybe it will work for Harris? (I am pressing X to doubt)
Kamala wants to unleash her inner prosecutor and roll around in the mud with Trump. This could work, but it strikes me as the kind of thing that sounds better in the shower than it does in real life.
This is just mind games. The Harris Campaign is using meaningless nitpicks to bait Trump into doing something stupid. I think this is an underrated strategy in general. It would be very bullish for Harris if the people in charge are this smart.
She is well known for having scolded previous participants including Mike Pence, so I strongly suspect the goal is to portray her dominance by both interrupting Trump and throw him off balance and theteby goading him into a nasty retort, and also to contemptuously scold him if he interrupts her. I'm sure the idea is to exploit female sympathy to the maximum extent possible. It didn't work that great for Clinton though, so I doubt it's worth the bad PR of reneging a fair agreement.
ETA: I previously stated that I much preferred the debate with no talking over and everyone I discussed it with expressed the same. They should keep to these rules purely for the benefit of the viewing public if nothing else.
Yeah, I'm not sure sounding like a scold is the win some think it is
It just leans into the further political polarization between men and women. Women overwhelmingly cheer a woman living out their "and everybody clapped" public humiliation fantasy against a boorish man. Men get PTSD flashbacks to all the normalized relational violence they've suffered. It's just going to be two screens the whole way down.
Can you please expand on this a bit? I’m not sure what you mean.
My read is that he's using 'violence' in the same way that campus protestors do, to mean things that make the accuser feel attacked. In this case, women humiliating their menfolk in public (which is obviously bad and can shade into abuse, but isn't violence).
My bad, I meant Relational Aggression. But no, I didn't make it up out of whole cloth.
Thanks!
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