Opinion editor’s note: Editorials represent the opinions of the Minnesota Star Tribune Editorial Board, which operates independently from the newsroom.
We heard what they did. Still waiting on what they’d do.
Minnesota Star Tribune Editorial Board members weigh in on the Trump-Harris debate.
The Minnesota Star Tribune
September 11, 2024 at 10:40PM
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While it’s likely that no debate will be as consequential as the one in June between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump — it ended Biden’s bid for a second term, after all — the intense interest in Tuesday’s debate between Republican Trump and the now Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, has the nation, and thus us, talking. Here are our brief observations, and we welcome yours in the form of letters to the editor in the days to come.
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The South African word “ubuntu” kept coming to mind in watching Tuesday’s presidential debate. It’s a concept that roughly translates as “humanity toward others.” Answers from Vice President Kamala Harris demonstrated the idea. Those from former President Donald Trump did not.
When Harris spoke about kitchen table issues such as the high price of groceries, or the pain caused by changes in abortion rights, there was empathy, compassion and understanding in her voice and manner.
As Harris predicted in her opening remarks, little ubuntu came through from the former president. His comments often returned to his comfort zone of the tired tirades he repeats at rallies — things such as immigrants being criminals or how “America is failing” even when those topics were not in the questions.
Neither candidate provided enough detail about their policies. It was particularly disappointing not to hear about education, where they reportedly have very sharp differences — including the very existence of a federal Department of Education.
That might have been because the moderators didn’t make it down their list to the subject. Hopefully, there will be another face-to-face meeting between the candidates so voters can learn about their positions and what they’ll actually do.
Denise Johnson, editorial writer
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The presidential debate essentially amounted to a political Rorschach test. What a viewer saw and heard depended on their bias going in.
Did we learn much about what each candidate would do to improve the lives of Americans on essential bread-and-butter issues? No.
Did we learn a lot about where Harris’ evolving positions on taxation, health care and energy policies would land or how Trump would temper his fixation with dictators, improve health care access, and prioritize immigration issues without leaning into the PETA lobby? No.
What we bore witness to was a tale of two temperaments, dispositions and conflicting forecasts on where the country is or should be headed. I checked in with an 82-year-old relative before and after the debate. He lives near Springfield, Ohio, a small city where an influx of legal Haitian immigrants allegedly poses a looming threat to domestic pets, according to Trump.
My relative scoffed at the pet claim. The devout evangelical also remained unbowed in his voting intentions. His issue is abortion. He aligns with Trump. His mind is made.
Phil Morris, opinion editor
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Trump announced his first run for the White House in 2015. He’s now in his third presidential campaign. Yet only the scantiest of details are available about what he’d replace the Affordable Care Act with.
The information drought continued in Tuesday’s debate. Questioned about what the Trump health plan would look like, the former president’s response is sure to become a running joke:
He only has “concepts of a plan.” Nine years after entering politics, including one term in the Oval Office, and this is all he’s got?
It’s a big deal because Trump and his party have long sought to overturn the ACA. But the health law is now starting its second decade and hit record enrollment this year. More than 21 million people access private health insurance through ACA marketplaces, such as Minnesota’s MNsure. Many of them — 58% in Minnesota — qualify for ACA assistance to offset cost.
Serious answers are needed about what Trump’s replacement would be. Moderators also missed a chance to press Harris on the evolution of her health care stances.
This debate was about who the candidates are. Another debate is imperative to focus on what they’d do.
Jill Burcum, editorial writer
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Commander-in-chief is most profound presidential power. So it was good that there was more foreign-policy focus than in the Trump-Biden debate.
Responses weren’t revealing enough, however, on Israel-Gaza, on the threat the theocracy in Iran poses to the Mideast (and beyond), and on the legacy and lessons of Afghanistan, let alone the other crises — known and unknown — either would face.
The one answer that was the most telling, however, was a non-answer.
After an initial inquiry about whether he wanted Ukraine to win the war against Russia, ABC’s David Muir pressed Trump twice more.
It’s “a very simple question: Do you want Ukraine to win this war?”
“I want the war to stop,” Trump said. “I want to save lives.”
When Muir then asked if “it’s in the best interest for Ukraine to win this war,” Trump responded: “I think it’s [in] the U.S. best interest to get this war finished and just get it done.”
Trump, who pledged to end the war even before being sworn in, is sending a signal to adversary and ally alike that the U.S. is not committed to the most basic tenet of a rules-based international order: respecting sovereignty.
Russia — and no doubt China, Iran, North Korea and others — were listening. America should, too.
John Rash, editorial writer
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One used to be a prosecutor and the other prosecuted, but both arrived Tuesday ready to pound the table with the other’s transgressions. Both were good at it. Neither was strong in defense.
But Trump had a shallower well of legitimate material. Before the first hour was up he was deep into his vat of hyperbolic hazmat.
“We have a nation that is dying, David,” he exhorted, shortly before using Viktor Orbán as a character reference. He was breaking the third wall to address moderator David Muir, not the fourth wall to talk to me, but I muttered in response: “Hmm. I don’t see it.”
Yet it doesn’t matter what I see. I listened to Tuesday’s debate with a prior Trump voter who had been declining to support him again. This person appears to be returning to the fold. To her the former president resonated with mere assertions on issues like immigration, and Harris grated merely by speaking.
By the time Trump was all akimbo, my debate partner was asleep. I’ll chalk that up to an early bedtime, but not without finding it emblematic.
David Banks, assistant commentary editor
Now that Gov. Tim Walz’s vice presidential bid has ended, there’s important work to do at home. Reinvigorating that “One Minnesota” campaign is a must.
