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The presidential debate between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris is shown at a watch party hosted by the Travis County and Hays County Republicans at Pinballz Kingdom in Buda on Tuesday, September 10, 2024.
We are now in the “debate over the debate” phase of the presidential campaign. Who actually won? Were the moderators biased? How will it impact votes in the swing states where this whole election hinges?
The general consensus is that Harris trounced Trump. Even on Fox News, chief political analyst Brit Hume admitted that “Trump had a bad night,” while Harris “kept her cool.”
The vice president successfully set up Trump with taunts about his crowd sizes, his deference to dictators, and his disrespect for the military.
Trump bit at the bait as if it were one of those delicious domestic pets in his unsubstantiated bloviation about immigrants eating cats and dogs in Ohio. He instantly reverted to his fulminating rally rants about doctors murdering babies after they are born (false) or how he dealt very strongly with a guy named Abdul, who he wrongly claimed was the head of the Taliban. (The name of the leader is actually Hibatullah.)
Still, it was the outrageous story about pet-eating Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, that has become the meme of choice. “They’re eating the dogs. They’re eating the cats,” Trump claimed. “They’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”
Immediately, ABC moderator David Muir corrected the former president, citing Springfield’s city manager, Bryan Heck, who wrote that there have been “no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community.”
Alas, credible reports have no credibility for the credulous. The Trump campaign has run with this story. His running mate, JD Vance,has encouraged people to spread the pet-eating lie even though he admitted on X that it might be false. “It’s possible, of course,” he wrote, “that all of these rumors will turn out to be false.”
This is a remarkable admission by a major party candidate and merits a moment of reflection, if such moments still exist in the shyte-flooded zone of information. Vance is doing something different than Trump and other politicians. Trump tells a lie but pretends it is the truth. “I won the last election,” for example. That now seems old-fashioned. But listen to how Vance defends promoting the fake story. “If we have to meme about it to get the media to care,” Vance said, “we’re going to keep doing it.”
It is not about a moral position on truth, or a leader’s responsibility to avoid divisive rhetoric. It’s merely a cost-benefit analysis in the campaign, and it works. So, as he says, they will keep doing it. Spreading disinformation is now not just normalized, it is actively encouraged.
In a similar vein, in the days since the debate, Trump has blamed the moderators for his performance, claimed the event was “rigged” against him, and suggested that ABC should lose its license. To be fair, he was fact-checked four times while Harris was not fact-checked at all, but he also got a full five minutes more speaking time than she did, which is a massive advantage in a debate.
And just like the Springfield stories, the notion that the debate was a “three on one” sham has taken hold as gospel truth in Trumpville. Why is that? Part of the reason is that the groundwork was laid beforehand, by bots and other online misinfo merchants.
To show how, GZERO partnered with Cyabra, a company that uses AI algorithms to track disinformation online. We looked specifically at trust in the presidential debate, analyzing more than 1,500 online profiles that discussed ABC News moderator David Muir in the run-up to the debate.
At least 15% of these profiles were identified as fake … making it difficult for users to distinguish between authentic andinauthentic conversations. And the fake profiles “specifically spread negative content about Muir, claiming his political bias was in favor of Kamala Harris, suggesting Muir would undermine Trump during the debate.”
Some of the fake profiles even “pushed a false narrative that ABC provided Harris with debate questions but withheld them from Trump.” That is to say: Before the debate even started, people were encouraged to believe that it was rigged against Trump.
As Mark Twain supposedly once said, “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.”
But in today’s world, there isn’t even time for the truth to get out of bed, let alone put on footwear. The mere fact that there is more outrage over a journalist fact-checking a lie than about a politician actually telling a lie is perhaps the most revealing aspect of the normalized world of disinformation. The Trump campaign and its supporters know this, and they are feasting on the possibilities like so many, er, dogs and cats.
Ah, the elusive youth vote, a demographic that has been historically unreliable in terms of turnout — but will be key in the extremely close US election. In the 2020 election, about half of voters under 30 voted, up from 39% in 2016. Meanwhile, in Canada, youth participation tends to be higher and more stable, with projections indicating about 60% turnout for young voters in the next federal election.
Following the debate on Tuesday, Taylor Swift endorsed Kamala Harris, leading337,000 people to visit vote.gov, a website that helps first-time voters register to vote.
The pop icon’s endorsement, while unlikely to change the minds of many Donald Trump supporters, could have an outsized impact on turning out Democratic-leaning young voters to write Harris’ name in the “Blank Space”on their ballots.
For context, we looked at youth turnout in recent elections in the UK and France, which helped illuminate that when it comes to young voters nothing is guaranteed. In France, the rise of the far right in the first round of parliamentary elections led to a surge in youth turnout, at 57% of voters. This was up from 31% in 2022. Meanwhile, the UK saw youth turnout plummet to a mere 35% in the 2024 general election. This record low highlights deepening disengagement and frustration among British youth with the political establishment.
After a summer of discontent, an isolated and struggling Justin Trudeauannounced Monday that he has persuaded a superstar to finally lace up his skates and join the struggling Liberals on the ice.
Mark Carney, who has until now been watching from the stands, occasionally offering helpful critiques, will chair a task force on economic growth for Trudeau and help write the party’s platform. This is plainly good news since Carney is an expert economist, and the Canadian economy has been lagging even as the population rapidly expands. Trudeau’s situation is so dire, however, that insiders wonder if he will have to hang up his skates and make Carney the captain before it’s game over.
But Trudeau needed a plan to share with his MPs, who had gathered in Nanaimo, British Columbia, for the first time since his party lost a byelection in what should have been a safe Toronto seat back in June.
Time to go?
One MP has said publicly that Liberal politicians are hearing the same thing pollsters are: that Canadians want Trudeau to leave.
An insider with deep roots in the party says many other MPs have told Trudeau the same thing privately over the summer. “They told him, ‘Great record, great accomplishments,’ pumped his tires. ‘But you should go.’ He said the same thing to them all. ‘Thanks very much, but I disagree.’”
For two years, fearsome Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has led in the polls. A poll this week shows him 20 points ahead, which would lead to an electoral wipeout for the Liberals in the electoral reckoning ahead.
Trudeau may not be able to postpone that reckoning for long. A week ago, the left-leaning NDP withdrew its support in Parliament, saying it could no longer prop up the “radioactive” Trudeau. Trudeau does not face an immediate vote in the House, and he can hope to get through confidence votes with the support of either the NDP or the separatist Bloc Quebecois, but he is in for a tense autumn.
The omens are not good. He was recently publicly chewed out by an irate steel worker. His campaign director has quit, apparently in despair at the party’s prospects with Trudeau at the helm. Veteran staffers are headed for the exit.
And it may get worse. Next Monday, the same day MPs return to Parliament, there will be a byelection in a downtown Montreal riding that should be safe for Trudeau. Polls show the Liberals are in a tight three-way race.
A good candidate, on paper
Carney’s new role has Liberals wondering if he could step in, as Kamala Harris did, and attempt a comeback. But Liberals are not sure.
On paper, few people are better qualified. Carney grew up in Alberta, went to Harvard on a hockey scholarship, and then went to work for Goldman Sachs before doing a doctorate at Oxford. He returned to Goldman Sachs, became an official in the Canadian Finance Department, and then governor of the Bank of Canada, earning praise for successfully guiding Canada through the 2008 financial crisis. In 2012, he became governor of the Bank of England – the first foreigner to hold the job – and guided the bank through Brexit, which he rightly warned would cause economic troubles.
Since then, he has been a UN climate envoy, pushing markets to better account for their emissions, and vice chairman of Brookfield Asset Management, a Canadian investment fund.
Carney’s understanding of the economy, markets, and the green energy transition is world-class, but he is not quite a bloodless wonk. Throughout his career, he has demonstrated deft communication skills, showing sangfroid under withering attacks during Brexit, for example. But political operatives worry — based on long and bitter experience — that those skills may not easily transfer to the cutthroat world of partisan politics, where repetition, simplicity, and emotional resonance typically trump subtlety, precision, and elegance of expression.
Can he do it?
“How does this guy with a stellar CV translate that to domestic retail politics?” says Graeme Thompson, a senior analyst with Eurasia Group. “Does he know his way around a Tim Hortons in Red Deer? Can he do that? That, to me, is an open question.”
But Carney seems intent on getting on the ice. He is tying himself to the least popular politician in Canada for a reason.
“If he ever wants to run for the job, he can’t say no when people ask him for help, especially when it’s right in his field of expertise, and obviously the government could use it,” says someone familiar with the talks between Trudeau and Carney.
After all, if Trudeau does decide to heed the advice of those urging him to join Biden in retirement, Carney will be there, having freshly designed the economic platform for the next campaign.
It might not be a great strategy to put an untested rookie up against a bruiser like Poilievre late in the third period, but the Liberals are running out of time and options.
A Cal Fire firefighter keeps watch while the Bridge Fire burns in the mountain communities to the northeast of Los Angeles, near the Mountain High ski resort in Wrightwood, California, U.S. September 11, 2024.
A heat wave has got California scrambling to control three separate wildfires, one of which injured 13 people this week, a short-term crisis but part of a long-term challenge for homeowners and those who insure them.
In the Western United States, insurers are flat out refusing to insure some homes, and there is pressure on homeowners to take steps — like removing shrubs near their homes and widening driveways — to reduce the fire risk. The situation is not as dramatic for Canadian insurers, but the cost to the industry of wildfires is rising north of the border.
The insurance industry is not the only one dealing with the fallout from increased risks from climate-associated natural events. The Canadian tourism industry is coping with an “image problem” related to wildfires. Not only is it deprived of visitors in areas, like Jasper, when a fire is nearby, but places far from the fires are also suffering.
In spite of the rising economic problems posed by climate change, the issue seems to remain a lesser one in the minds of voters, judging from the messages of politicians. During Tuesday’s presidential debate, for example, Donald Trump did not acknowledge the threat, and Kamala Harris failed to make concrete commitments.
Trump has been skeptical of climate change, dismissing it as a hoax, while Harris supports public investments in the clean energy transition.
It appears to be anything but a ballot issue in the United States, likely because cost-of-living issues are top of mind, and the partisan division around the issue is so stark that it would not help Harris with the swing-state voters she needs.
Canada's Minister of Finance Bill Morneau presents an Economic and Fiscal Snapshot in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada July 8, 2020.
Canada needs to think harder about aligning its policies with the United States if it doesn’t want to get left behind economically, former Canadian Finance Minister Bill Morneau has argued in an op-ed.
Morneau, who left Trudeau’s government under a cloud in 2020, criticized him in a book last year, complaining that he had had to “deliver economically illiterate political promises.” Morneau is now warning that one of the crowning achievements of the Trudeau government — the relationship with the United States — is at risk.
Trudeau was widely praised for his management of Donald Trump during the USMCA trade negotiations, but Morneau writes that Canada needs to change gears if it wants to stay on the good side of Uncle Sam. To maintain the trade relationship, Morneau writes, Canada needs to increase defense spending more quickly than promised. This, he says, requires “massive review of government expenditures and programs to free billions.”
Morneau also suggests changing other regulatory and tax policy to better align with America’s interests. In related news, Dave McKay, CEO of the Royal Bank of Canada — the country’s biggest – said Tuesday that Canada is on “the wrong path” in its relationship with the United States.
This hardening view from Bay Street suggests that many in the business world are ready to see the back of the current prime minister.
Democratic presidential nominee, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris gestures as she speaks during a presidential debate with Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S., September 10, 2024.
US inflation fell to 2.5% in August – down from 2.9% in July – which is expected to lead the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates next week. That could help Kamala Harris in the run-up to the presidential election.
It was the fifth straight annual decrease in consumer prices. From July to August, prices rose just 0.2%. Core prices, which exclude food and energy, rose 0.3% in August. The increase was slightly lower than estimated, which means economists are now expecting the Fed to cut interest rates by a quarter point. They are now at a 23-year high of 5.25 to 5.5%.
The drop in inflation is a small bit of good news for Harris, since cost-of-living concerns are top of mind for swing-state voters. If a rate cut helps boost wages, that could help the Democrats even more in an environment where over 50% of Americans wrongly believe the country is in a recession.
But good economic news doesn’t produce miracles. The Bank of Canada has cut rates three times this summer, without budging Justin Trudeau’sterrible poll numbers.
Former President Donald Trump speaks with reporters in the spin room at the Pennsylvania Convention Center after the ABC News Presidential Debate between him and Vice President Kamala Harris Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024.
The second presidential debate on Tuesday night appeared to be almost as significant as the first, but this time Donald Trump came out on the losing end.
When President Joe Biden met Trump in June, his performance was so terrible that Democrats found a way to push him out of the way to get Kamala Harris to lead their party. On Tuesday night, the vice president succeeded in getting Trump’s goat, goading him, for example, into angrily claiming that immigrants are eating people’s pets, which is not true.
The signs all point to a Harris debate win. Trump blamed ABC moderators and suggested that he would not debate again. CNN’s instant poll showed a mirror result of the Biden-Trump poll, with Harris winning as decisively as Biden lost.
We will not know for days if the debate has actually shifted the votes necessary to break the deadlock in polling. Debates do not normally move the dial. But there is reason to think this one might. Almost 70 million people watched, so many that internet traffic was down across the United States.
To cap a terrible night for Trump, the debate was followed by the endorsement of Taylor Swift, which could reach some of the voters Harris needs. Her post drove hundreds of thousands of young would-be voters to visit Voter.org, a site filled with voter registration information.
Americans are so hardened into opposing camps that the race may not change much, but it will be surprising if Harris doesn’t get a boost from a successful opportunity to contrast herself with a leader that Americans already know well.