Democrats and their minions in the establishment media have a plan. Bet on it.
According to The Hill, Democratic strategists and lawmakers have expressed angst over Vice President Kamala Harris’s prospects ahead of Tuesday’s debate against former President Donald Trump in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
“People are extremely anxious about her performance,” Democratic strategist and former Senate aide Ray Zaccaro said. “There’s a sense of real caution about expectations on her performance.”
Indeed. Keep those expectations as low as possible.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a candidate with more weight on a given moment than this candidate will have at the debate Tuesday,” Zaccaro said after expressing surprise that recent polls have shown Trump gaining momentum.
Former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. forged an alliance with Trump on Aug. 23. Since then — if not a little earlier — polls certainly have shifted toward the former president. That even includes polling results from establishment pollsters with a recent history of wildly exaggerating support for Democratic presidential nominees.
At least one anonymous Democratic lawmaker admitted anxiety in light of tight polling in projected swing states.
“If you’re a conscious, informed Democrat, you’re nervous. How could you not be? All these battleground states are 48-48 [percent], 49-49 [percent], and there’s a lot of support there for Trump that seems incomprehensible, but it’s there,” the unnamed senator said.
Of course, as Kennedy himself recently noted, Harris also has a propensity for speaking in word salads. Without saying as much in so many words, the anonymous senator admitted anxiety on that front.
Will Kamala Harris perform better in this debate than Joe Biden did in June?
“Yeah, I’m nervous. She’s not tested,” the senator said, adding that Harris’ handlers will prepare her as well as possible and that she really only needs a handful of good moments.
Meanwhile, other Democratic strategists characterized the debate as something the vice president must simply “get past.”
In light of Harris’s obvious limitations as a speaker, one can certainly understand Democrats’ stated anxieties.
Do not think for a moment, however, that they lack the ability to manage or spin whatever transpires on Tuesday.
Recall, for instance, President Joe Biden’s catastrophic debate performance on June 27. That performance emboldened Democratic elites to stage a coup against Biden and replace him with Harris.
Or did it? Ask yourselves why the establishment pushed for a historically early presidential debate.
Then, ask yourselves why the establishment media turned on Biden immediately after the debate, demanding his withdrawal from the race.
Furthermore, ask yourselves why Snopes finally decided to fact-check the “very fine people” hoax only one week before the Biden-Trump debate — seven years after the media launched that hoax, and five years after Biden cited the hoax as the reason he ran for president — if the establishment had not already decided to jettison Biden in the event of an embarrassing debate performance.
The establishment has a plan for Harris, just as they did for Biden.
In short, they know that she cannot speak in an interview or press gaggle without lapsing into word salads. The same holds true for unscripted parts of speeches.
With that in mind, they have kept her largely hidden from public view. In the meantime, they have allowed the establishment media to run her campaign for her.
At the same time, however, they recognize the odds of her suffering a Biden-like debate collapse as fairly low. As long as she can memorize lies and avoid viral clips of her brain malfunctioning — something Biden could not do — she probably will “get past” the debate.
Thus, Democratic strategists and lawmakers have set the bar as close to the ground as possible.
Then, when she clears that absurdly low hurdle, they will pretend that she somehow channeled Demosthenes.
Surely Trump knows all of this, as well.
One wonders, therefore, how he will conduct himself during the debate.
Perhaps, he will assume a characteristically defiant posture and emerge with one or two of his own signature debate moments.
Or, perhaps he will take a passive, disciplined approach. Answer the questions posed to him. Then, allow her to talk. Behave as if she does not exist.
One senses that the latter approach, by focusing attention on Harris and making her feel alone on stage, could unnerve the vice president and thereby fulfill Democrats’ expressed anxieties.
Either way, make no mistake about it, those expectation-lowering confessions of anxiety constitute part of their plan.
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