Harris outwitted Trump, but will that sway undecided voters?

Being drunk on hubris and narcissism is the surest way to lose a confrontation to a clever, clearheaded opponent. It’s a story that’s been repeated throughout history.

Napoleon was a cocksure emperor and commander, a skilled battle tactician who became a master of propaganda in service of his own legend. In 1812, he invaded Russia, but in that campaign, his military innovating failed him.

The Russians used attrition warfare, retreating as Napoleon’s armies advanced, his supply lines unable to keep up adequately. By the time the French occupied Moscow, the Russians had Napoleon on their turf and the brutal Russian winter approaching. Napoleon entered Russia with hundreds of thousands of troops. He withdrew with only a fraction surviving.

It was a historic humbling, a staggering miscalculation that still resonates.

I kept thinking about this episode during Tuesday night’s debate as Donald Trump — also a cocksure propagandist, who has in many ways reshaped politics in this country — was repeatedly outmaneuvered by Kamala Harris, in part because his strategies have become predictable and his weaknesses well known.

Trump has spent weeks trying to cast Harris as “crazy,” “weak” and “incompetent” with a “low IQ.” He has denigrated her so often that he appeared utterly unprepared to face off against a woman who was both shrewd and strategic.

Harris laid traps Tuesday night and Trump kept walking into them. A perfect example: After she said that “people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom,” he was champing at the bit to retort, saying, “People don’t go to her rallies. There’s no reason to go,” adding, “People don’t leave my rallies. We have the biggest rallies, the most incredible rallies in the history of politics.”

Apart from the obvious, that her rallies have been large and rollicking, the exchange perfectly underscored the ease with which Trump can be goaded. It was almost — almost — a surprise to see how easy it was for the vice president to get him to reveal his complete lack of message discipline.

The genius of her approach was to constantly have him chase her, only for her to pivot again and again from his meanderings to her portrait of an American future guided by her plans, values and optimism.

Trump never made an adjustment. Maybe he couldn’t. Whatever the reason, it led to a disastrous night for him.

Harris’ rage-baiting of Trump forced him to descend into a reliance on some of MAGA’s most divisive set pieces: the notion that some Democrats favor allowing abortion to include killing babies after they’ve been born; claims that Haitian immigrants are eating people’s pets.

The Trump we saw on the debate stage should concern us all, and not just for the usual reasons. He should worry us because we saw how easy it is to emotionally manipulate him and how hard it is for him to self-regulate.

We saw how dictators around the world would be able — are able — to sway him. When Harris said to Trump that Vladimir Putin would “eat you for lunch,” anyone watching the debate with any remotely objective sense really had no choice but to credit the comment because we were watching Harris eat Trump’s lunch.

So what happens now?

In many ways, Trump’s base of support is set. His core constituents had long since made their peace with his lying and rambling. And many of his voters, including those whom my Opinion colleague Kristen Soltis Anderson recently described as “begrudging Trump voters,” seem to have either priced in or affirmatively embraced his shortcomings and even his criminal convictions.

By contrast, it was pretty clear that going into the debate, Harris had room to increase her support: A New York Times/Siena College poll published this week found that more than a quarter of likely voters felt they needed to learn more about her. Many of them will still want to know more about her positions on specific issues — Harris delved into some of that Tuesday, but not, as Opinion editor Kathleen Kingsbury noted, to great degree.

But what voters did learn about her during the debate was that the ways that Trump has repeatedly, disparagingly described her were false. Regardless of whether you agree with her or plan to vote for her, it was evident that she is quite sharp and quite capable. She never backed down or got pushed around. She was a candidate in control of herself, the stage and the moment.

This debate isn’t likely to drastically alter the race; it will probably maintain its current momentum and trajectory, and I think that, in and of itself, favors Harris. The race is too close to call, but Tuesday, Harris was the clear victor. Trump, on the other hand, left no doubt about his limitations.

He may not have met his Waterloo, but he more than met his match.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

© 2024 The New York Times Company