Tuesday night’s presidential debate exposed the rank corruption of the political establishment that has long endeavored to destroy Donald Trump. The ABC moderators spoke in serious “journalist” voices, but they treated the event like a big game hunt as their target thrashed about in rage. Kamala Harris, as everyone knows, got under Donald Trump’s skin, but like the gunman from Butler, Pennsylvania, she didn’t land the kill shot.

Her character assassination routine brought viewers all the way back to the 1980s when she brought up Trump’s view on the Central Park Five to paint him as a racist. That was long before his entry into politics made him a polarizing figure; and what she said hardly proved Trump was a racist, as opposed to someone who thought the black suspects was guilty. Harris dedicated so much time to dredging up arcane smears—all of which went unchallenged—that one might think she was auditioning for a job at CNN rather than the White House.

Kamala’s shrill, scolding performance thrilled the Democratic Party’s female base, but she failed to reveal anything incriminating about Trump, who was, as always, an open book. He defended the unjustly murdered Ashli Babbitt and the other January 6 protestors, and he did not recant his view that the 2020 election was stolen. He rejected the modern revisionism of the Central Park Five case, did not apologize for ending Roe v. Wade, and did not patronize voters with something like Harris’s sentimental pablum about “joy.”  Nor did he back down from his provocative comments on Harris’ race.

Harris said a whole lot of nothing. She treated viewers to an extended lecture about “democracy” and the “rule of law” that rang hollow, given the anarchic state of Democratic cities and towns, which are feeling the effects of mass immigration. She endorsed the cynical weaponization of the law against her opponent, who blasted the “fake cases” as nothing more than partisan electoral interference.

While Trump’s shotgun blasts were somewhat erratic, he did not, as Harris claimed, dwell on himself. Instead, he aimed his shots at an America that most Americans hate. When Trump brought up the invasion of Springfield, Ohio by 20,000 Haitians and rumors of the savagery unfolding there, Harris laughed it off with a smirk. Her condescending expressions conveyed indifference to Americans suffering with the chaos unleashed on them by their federal government. She did not give any hint that she found the current state of things unacceptable. 

Her jarring promise to “turn the page” was exposed as a joke when she touted endorsements from Republican Dick Cheney, his daughter Liz Cheney, and other neoconservative has-beens, people without a real constituency outside of cable news studios. Harris aligned herself firmly with the establishment, while Trump painted Harris as a typical politician—all talk, no action. In classic Trump fashion, he called out her promise of codifying Roe v. Wade as unrealistic pandering, comparing it to Biden’s empty promises to forgive student loans.

Kamala obviously wants to make this race about Trump rather than the last four years of Biden-Harris rule, but Harris did nothing to alter the perception that she belongs to the status quo. She did not articulate a vision for the future, lay out an economic plan, or clarify why she has changed her views on issues like fracking. The moderators, of course, let her skate, and it was up to Trump to hold her feet to the fire. Unfortunately, he was far less precise than he could have been.

The pundits are all declaring Harris to have been the winner, but Trump is still the only real alternative, the only “flavor” available to voters who are weary of the platitudinous, cynical gibberish that Harris and her machine are serving. If America is as frustrated with the country as Trump appeared on the stage Tuesday, then the odds are still in his favor.