The Handshake

Say my name.  (AFP via Getty Images)

By lotusmaglite

Community 

Daily Kos

Tuesday, September 10, 2024 at 10:42:39p MDT

 

REPUBLISHED BY:

Blue Country Gazette Blog

Rim Country Gazette Blog 

A lot of things will be written about this debate, and rightly so. Vice President Kamala Harris won decisively, her all-gas, no-fucking-brakes offensive rocking Trump out of the hardwired Mad Libs spiel he wades through every time he speaks (because thinking creatively aged out of his corn-silked pumpkin head years ago).

And it started from the moment they took the stage. Trump, already a semi-ambulant turd, slowed as Harris — dare I say it — stalked him when she took the stage. And that’s what it was. A stalk. A hunt. Not just a power move, but a power move with context.

We all remember the 2016 debate, wherein Trump stalked former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton around the stage, menacing her physically, like the creepy sex offender he is. This was not that. This was pointedly and intentionally not that.

Harris took the stage and cut him off at the pass. I’ve watched enough NFL to know when a player is taking a good angle on another, and Harris was going to bury Trump behind the line of scrimmage. Trump visibly slowed, and whatever was really going on in his head, it looked like fear. It looked defensive, which was where Trump stayed the whole debate. You could see Harris change the “angle of pursuit” in order to reach him.

I believe there was intentional symbolism in that stalk-shake. It was the anti-2016. It was, “You even try that looming shit with me, fucko, and I’ll chop you down to size.” And because it’s Kamala Harris, it was delivered with a confident smile and a polite word. The only menacing going on tonight would be done by Harris. An avoidant Trump wouldn’t meet her hard stare through like 98% of the debate.

The optics. The optics, folks. It was every time a bully runs up against someone bigger and badder. Trump positively shriveled. All planned, from beginning to end, or I’m a monkey’s avuncular evolutionary cousin.

It was scrumtrulescent.  

The Knockout Blow

By Yosef 52

Community/Daily Kos