POLITICS & CRIME

POLITICS & CRIME Đivo Đurović's analysis: The debate between Pence and Harris was a debate between America that is disappearing and the one that is coming Telegram's American correspondent analyzes debate between Vice President Mike Pence and Senator Kamala Harris Đivo Đurović Đivo Đurović 15:20 17 RECOMMENDATIONS 2 COMMENTS Vice-presidential debates are rarely memorable events and this one has not failed in that regard. Kamala Harris, a former prosecutor also known in the Senate for her outspoken examination and dominant style, apparently did not come to create memorable moments for social media, but to conduct the debate so as to create as little controversy as possible. Playing it safe is the logical strategy of Biden's camp, which, according to opinion polls, has been running since March, and after the first debate it has increased its advantage. Aplexiglass wall in the middle of the stage symbolically and literally defined the debate between Vice President Mike Pence and Senator Kamala Harris . Plexiglas was not only a sign of the pandemic era in which the confrontation took place in Salt Lake City, but also a very concrete obstacle to the possible transmission of the virus from the current vice president to its challenger. Although he has tested negative in recent days, Pence refuses to follow the public health instructions of the coronavirus headquarters, which he heads, and did not retire to a two-week quarantine after his boss Donald Trump contracted covid-19. The Democratic candidate has therefore not only been given extra precautions - a larger gap between the payphones and a plexiglass wall in front of each - but also a target for devastating criticism of an administration whose negligence has killed more people in America than anywhere else in the world. THREE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS TO WHICH PENCE HAD NO ANSWER By tone, the debate was the exact opposite of last week’s presidential; they did not differ much in content. Although he interrupted and jumped Harris into the word, Pence did not run wild like Trump. But still - he repeated the same lies and delusions told by his boss, only in a velvety voice and a soothing tone, without a torrent of insults. The vice president did not have an answer to three very important questions: why does America have more dead from coronavirus than any other country; how the administration will preserve the Obamacare protection measures when the Supreme Court is likely to declare it unconstitutional in the middle of next month; and whether he is willing to commit to a peaceful transfer of power in the event that Trump and he lose the election. It’s a truly devastating score in an election campaign dominated by three questions - the coronavirus, health insurance and the legitimacy of the election: exactly those questions that Pence had no answer to. KAMALA HARRIS HAD TWO BIG OBSTACLES IN FRONT OF HER Kamala Harris, who, according to various opinion polls, won the debate, had two major obstacles: how to debate convincingly, and avoid the impression, which is a reflex of patriarchy, that there is an aggressive, "unsympathetic" angry woman on stage; the second obstacle was similar to the first, but there she had to avoid an aggressive, "unsympathetic" angry black woman. Harris is only the fourth woman to ever be on the ballot: after vice presidential candidates Geraldine Ferraro (Democrats, 1984) and Sarah Palin (Republicans, 2008) and presidential Hillary Clinton (Democrats, 2016). Also, she is only the second non-white person, after Barack Obama , and the first black woman and the first American of Indian descent to run in the election for the two most important positions in U.S. government. Lots of history and lots of expectations, to be good not only for themselves but also for those who recognize themselves in it. THE DEBATE BETWEEN AMERICA THAT IS DISAPPEARING AND THAT THAT IS COMING In a way, the debate between Kamala Harris and Mike Pence was a debate between America that is disappearing and that that is coming. Pale, gray, and dull, Pence is just another of a few hundred older white men who have taken turns in the Oval Office, or competed for it for the past two centuries. But America today is demographically more like Kamali Harris, the daughter of immigrants from Jamaica and India, than Pence, a white Irish Catholic who was "reborn" in his student days and became an ultra-conservative evangelical. By the middle of the century, whites will become a minority in America, not to mention women, who have always been the majority, but manage to win a place in the race for the White House only now, a hundred years after they were given the right to vote. THE TEXT CONTINUES AFTER THE AD Sponsored content Now is the right time to become a member of Arena Casino as new players have 7 days of free spins. Midas - Native Internet Advertising With the exception of the fact that Pence also refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power, just like his boss, the vice-presidential debate did not bring anything scandalous. On several occasions, Pence performed without a shred of shame, even without a minimum of self-awareness: Kamali Harris said at one point that he "stopped playing political games with human lives" and that he "has a right to his opinion, but no right to his facts." It takes an incredible level of audacity for such comments to come from a man who is Vice President Donald Trump. PENCE ALSO TRIED TO SPIN 210,000 DEAD FROM THE CROWN The position of Chief of Staff for the fight against the crown was a weight around Pence's neck that could be easily used by a less skilled debater than Kamala Harris. The very fact that they are debating through two Plexiglas firewalls speaks of the debacle of the Trump administration in the fight against the crown. It’s hard to spin 210,000 dead, even though Pence tried, with a lot of effort. His "case" says: Biden handled the swine flu epidemic so badly when he was vice president, that many more people would have died from it if only the flu had been more deadly. In other words, if anything wasn’t, it would be different and Trump would act less guilty. The need to build an alternative reality testifies to how deep Mike Pence found himself in the real reality. Although not equally deadly in all segments, Harris destroyed the vice president around the crown, who could not explain why America has more deaths and infections than any other country. Surprisingly, she was also quite convincing when she spoke about foreign policy, where she has the least experience - they obviously prepared her well, and our criteria probably dropped after four years of Trump, Pence and Mike Pompeo . HARRIS INTERVENED A FEW TIMES WITH 'VICE PRESIDENT, I'M TALKING' And this debate quickly lost its timetable - the moderator Susan Page from USA Today did not become famous, although Pence is to blame for the chaos, who did not answer questions but said what he liked and took longer than the time allotted to him. Harris jumped at the word and interrupted it many times - not even close to 120 Trump jumps at the word Biden, but still irritatingly too much. As a woman and as a black woman, Kamala Harris couldn't afford what Biden allowed herself without blinking, so she didn't yell at Pence, "Shut up for once, man!" rather, she smiled as he interrupted her, and on two occasions she turned and said to him, "Vice President, I speak." "I'm speaking." pic.twitter.com/KOu5MUkrCH - Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) October 8, 2020 Harris avoided answering a question about a possible Supreme Court extension if Republicans appoint conservative Judge Amy Coney Barrett before the election to replace the late liberal icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg . Biden did the same last week, and it's a pretty big deal - a possible intrusion into an institution that hasn't happened since the mid-19th century - and it would be worth a serious debate, just not to be overshadowed by even bigger and more basic issues, such as which are, say, whether the incumbent president will peacefully hand over power if he loses the election and whether racism should be condemned or supported. IT WAS BAD FOR TRUMP'S CAMP BECAUSE EVERYTHING IS IN THE SIGN OF THE CORONAVIRUS Both candidates avoided answering the expected and reasonable question of whether they had discussed with their boss about his advanced age and possible inheritance in the event of illness. America will get the oldest president ever elected next month, regardless of beating Trump (74) or Biden (78). At the same time, the country is in the middle of a pandemic that occurs once in a hundred years, and one of the candidates has a crown. The presenter lightly let both vice presidential candidates not answer this important question - in general, the concept in which the presenters only ask the main question, without sub-questions or repeated questions, is not appropriate for today's age of populist demagoguery. It was pretty bad for Trump's camp that everything went under the sign of the coronavirus, a topic they certainly wanted to avoid. But from plexiglass to most topics of debate, everything would sooner or later return to covid-19, a central theme in the lives of almost every American, the last week even the president himself. Above the stage in Salt Lake City hung a multitude of unasked questions to which we would soon find out the answer. For example, did Donald Trump know last week that he was positive at the crown and still came to the debate and consciously stepped on stage with Biden without a mask? When did the president have the last negative test and why was he “late” for the last debate and released into the hall without a test, just “on the word”? Also, why doesn’t the vice president follow the instructions of the headquarters he leads and not isolate himself for two weeks - he was in contact with Trump, who has the crown? TRUMP STILL HAS 25 DAYS TO SAVE HIMSELF FROM A LIKELY DEFEAT Mike Pence and Kamala Harris were tested just before the start of the vice presidential debate, and the audience in the hall had to sit apart and everyone had to wear a mask. That came after last week, when the entire Trump family marched into the hall without a mask and refused a request to put them on (except for Melania , who was the only one to have a mask). But even in this debate, where only the candidates and the presenter were allowed to be without a mask, Pence’s wife Karen - whom he calls “Mother” - took to the stage at the end of the debate without a mask! Douglas Emhoff , Kamala Harris ’husband, was on stage with a mask, as the rules required. Vice-presidential debates are rarely memorable events and this one has not failed in that regard. Kamala Harris, a former prosecutor also known in the Senate for her outspoken examination and dominant style, obviously did not come to create memorable moments for social media, but to conduct the debate so as to create as little controversy as possible. Playing it safe is the logical strategy of Biden's camp, which, according to polls, has been running since March, and after the first debate, it has increased its advantage. If this debate doesn’t move the clock, it will be good news for Biden. Trump, on the other hand, missed another opportunity for a turnaround - he only has 25 days left to save himself from a very likely defeat. Pence didn't hurt him, but he wasn't helpful either. EVERYONE IS KIDDING ABOUT THE FLY ON PENCE'S HEAD Social networks eventually got their topic of joy though: at the end of the debate, the most mentioned term on Twitter was The Fly. The black fly that landed on Pence's white hair at one point stayed there for a full two minutes, enough for everyone except the vice president to notice, even this cat. Omg. Even this cat saw the fly! pic.twitter.com/NwxOuB69Db - ARonUNC) (@officialaronnc) October 8, 2020 Here are some of the internet's best responses to the fly that landed on Mike Pence during the VP debate pic.twitter.com/aieBqCFbLJ - NowThis (@nowthisnews) October 8, 2020 What the fly lands on, whether the fly should be tested for a crown, whether the fly was transferred to Walter Reed and similar Twitter jokes got the quick company of Joe Biden himself, who posed with a fly swatter and a play on the word "fly" ) called on Americans to help his campaign with five dollars. Pitch in $ 5 to help this campaign fly. https://t.co/CqHAId0j8t pic.twitter.com/NbkPl0a8HV - Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) October 8, 2020 The fly won’t change much, because Biden’s campaign already has significantly more money than Trump’s without it. While the vice presidential debate is unlikely to be a turning point in the campaign, it was quietly still a historic moment: for the first time, a black woman debated as a White House candidate. In the shadow of Trump’s madness, such things often go unnoticed, and they shouldn’t. Kamala Harris is likely to become the first woman elected president or vice president of the world’s most powerful power; despite the huge delay, it’s a really big deal. debate , KAMALA HARRIS , MIke Pence , vice presidential debate Đivo Đurović Đivo Đurović Analyst 173 ARTICLES MORE ABOUT THE AUTHOR FACEBOOK (17) TWITTER (0) E-MAIL