If you watched the vice presidential debate last night, you already know that Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), whom I affectionately refer to as “Black Hillary,” didn’t exactly make the best showing. In fact, it wasn’t long into the event before it became apparent that Vice President Mike Pence had nothing to worry about. 

However, it didn’t take long for the Democrats and their close friends and allies in the corporate press to start offering up lame excuses for Harris’ defeat. Only minutes after the conclusion of the debate, establishment media outlets went into spin mode, furiously concocting talking points designed to distract from the content of the event. 

First, there was the fly. That’s right, journalists and other high-profile leftists fixated on the fact that a fly landed on Pence’s head as he was talking. To be fair, many were merely making jokes about the bug. But others assigned deeper meaning to the little intruder.

The New York Times published a piece titled, “A fly sat atop Mike Pence’s head for two minutes during the V.P. debate.” As my colleague Sister Toldjah pointed out, David Frum, a rabid Never Trumper, wrote a column about the insect. In fact, she sums up this part of the story quite well: 

“This is one of the reasons I despise debates so much. Because when Democrats lose the debates, the media tends to want to focus on things that are entirely irrelevant to distract from the real issues. That’s exactly what happened here. Harris didn’t have a great debate performance, and because of that, the focus is on everything but how poorly she did.”

But wait, there’s more!

Another rhetorical sleight of hand the left is using to distract from Harris’ loss is their usual false accusations of bigotry. But realistically, anyone could have seen this coming even before the debate ever started. Progressives immediately began alleging that Pence was guilty of “mansplaining” during the debate. They claim the vice president was behaving in a condescending manner. 

RedState’s Bonchie laid out a series of tweets from news outlets and journalists pretending that Pence’s alleged mansplaining was the most critical focus of the night. To their credit, ABC News’ Martha Raddatz and former George W. Bush staffer Sara Fagen shot down the silly meanderings. But, again, Bonchie also rightly pointed out why the left is using this particular line of attack:

“But that’s where we are. Pence destroyed Harris so they needed to come up with a reason for why she lost. It doesn’t matter that she talked more. It doesn’t matter that Pence had to debate the moderator as well. They want voters to believe that things were somehow unfairly tilted toward the orange man’s campaign.”

Yet another excuse that leftists are trying out is the theory that Harris held back because she did not want to be viewed as an “angry black woman.” Author Mikel Jollett was one of the people putting forth this ridiculous rationale. On Twitter, he graced us all with his wife’s speculation. “She was trying to hold back because she didn’t want to be seen as an angry woman and Pence was playing up the patronizing CEO thing and I promise you every woman in America noticed,” he wrote. 

“She was trying to hold back because she didn’t want to be seen as an angry woman and Pence was playing up the patronizing CEO thing and I promise you every woman in America noticed.”
– My wife just now.

— Mikel Jollett (@Mikel_Jollett) October 8, 2020

By using these absurd arguments and deflections, the left is effectively conceding that Sen. Harris did not perform as well as they hoped. If she truly won the debate, the corporate press would be able to make substantive arguments about how she outmaneuvered the vice president and skillfully defended against his attacks. But, since neither of those things happened, they have to try to get America to focus on something else. 

The Democrats are like a kid with a laser pointer, and the public is supposed to be the cat that is captivated by the moving red dot. Of course, it won’t work, but did this debate move the needle in the end? The answer is that it probably didn’t do much either way as most of the country has already made up their mind as to which candidate they will support.

Let me know what you think in the comments below!

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