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Meredith Perkins

On September 10, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris met for the first time in Philadelphia to complete a 90-minute presidential debate moderated by ABC News. Since the last debate in June, the race has changed tremendously: Biden dropped out of the race, a heinous assassination attempt was made against Trump’s life, both presidential conventions had occurred, and the Democrats had gained a narrow lead over Trump in the national polls. Amidst a tumultuous race and close polling data out of swing states, yesterday’s debate drew around 60 million views – 28% higher than June’s debate.

With all eyes on Harris and Trump, the candidates took two very different approaches. Harris opted to break the fourth wall like a prosecutor speaking with the jury, setting the tone of the debate from the very beginning by directly telling audiences what they were about to see on the debate stage.

“I’m going to tell you all, in this debate tonight, you’re going to hear from the same old, tired playbook, a bunch of lies, grievances and name-calling,” Harris said in her opening remarks, positioning herself as a guide with whom the audience could identify and react with. “What you’re going to hear tonight is a detailed and dangerous plan called Project 2025 that the former president intends on implementing if he were elected again.”

Straight out of the Make America Great Again playbook, Trump began the debate with the same strategy that has lost him the popular vote two times previously – emphasize how terrible our country is, and enthuse us with visions of a fictitious past that only Trump can bring back. As he often does during rallies, Trump began with pushing the unsubstantiated claim that “millions of people are pouring into our country from prisons and jails, from mental institutions and insane asylums” and invited us to ponder if we were better off four years ago than we are today.

“I created one of the greatest economies in the history of our country,” Trump said. “I’ll do it again and even better.”

If you watched the debate, you probably have already forgotten what was said about the economy during the opening question of the debate. According to Google Trends data, one of the top-searched questions audiences had during last night’s debate weren’t about Harris’ child tax credit or Trump’s tariff plan. People went to Google to figure out why on earth Trump kept bringing up Springfield, Ohio.

For context, here is the full anecdote of what Trump said about Springfield, a Dayton suburb located about 75 miles north of Miami University.

“Our country is being lost. We’re a failing nation. And it happened three and a half years ago. And what, what’s going on here, you’re going to end up in World War 3, just to go into another subject. What they have done to our country by allowing these millions and millions of people to come into our country. And look at what’s happening to the towns all over the United States. And a lot of towns don’t want to talk – not going to be Aurora or Springfield. A lot of towns don’t want to talk about it because they’re so embarrassed by it. In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating – they’re eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what’s happening in our country,” Trump proclaimed.

Trump didn’t get on this tangent out of nowhere: he took the bait from Harris. She poked fun at his rallies not filling arenas, and instantly after, Trump’s fragile ego sent him off-the-walls talking about immigration.

Within mere minutes, “THEY’RE EATING THE DOGS” was trending on X, the platform where misinformation about Springfield had spread like wildfire among alt-right circles last week. At first, the assertion that a mysterious ‘they’ is eating America’s beloved puppies feels quite out of left field. But racially-motivated false claims calling upon a Birth of a Nation-esque image of Haitian migrants eating dogs are nothing new Trump’s playbook. 

How has Trump previously talked about migrants on the campaign trail?

Claims like these are par for the course of how Trump has been talking about immigration for months. 

At the Conservative Political Action Committee conference in February, Trump fear-mongered his audience about New York City, claiming that the influx of illegal immigrants has “languages coming into the county” and “we don’t have one instructor in our entire nation that can speak that language.” (By the way, the language spoken by most Southern border asylum seekers is Spanish, a language more commonly spoken than English.)

At a Florida rally in July, Trump compared families crossing the border to Hannibal Lecter. “You know what an insane asylum is, right? Did anyone ever see the lovely movie Silence of the Lambs? Have you seen it? Did you ever hear of Hannibal Lecter? He was a lovely man. He would love to have you for dinner. He will take you. He had many people for dinner. Well, we have a lot of people coming in,” Trump said.

There’s no question why, during September 10th’s debate, Trump wanted to bring up these fake photos of Springfield and assert them as fact. Despite Springfield’s city manager confirming that there are no cases of migrants eating dogs – or anybody eating dogs, for that matter – Trump has used Springfield as a metaphor of his apocalyptic vision for America suburbia. Whether he truly believes this or is just pandering to white supremacist voters, Trump is nonetheless trying to convince the white American public that the diversification of suburbia is a threat to the American dream. Do not read this claim as anything more than it actually is: it’s a racist comment to win racist votes, and it’s not even a statement about a real event.

The Most Shocking Moments of the Debate

While Trump’s comments on a scenario that don’t exist have dominated post-debate memes and clickbait titles, what the nation really should be talking about is the fact that this comment on migrants eating dogs isn’t even the most radical or extreme thing Trump said last night. In passing comments, Trump offered stances on real-life happenings that shed light onto the former president’s willingness to abandon or undermine democratic principles for his own personal gain. Instead of fixating on dog whistle comments, let’s look at three moments in last night’s debate when Trump blatantly spoke against the institution of democracy.

1. Trump’s refusal to acknowledge he lost the 2020 election

Nearly four years following the Jan. 6 insurrection, Donald Trump was given the chance to publicly concede the 2020 election and admit any regrets he had in how he chose to navigate one of the worst days in recent American history. 

He chose not to condemn the capital riot – and let me emphasize, that was an intentional choice. Instead, he brought up an insurrectionist that was killed and condemned Capitol police for defending the Capitol, and quickly defaulted to talking points on immigration.

“You talk about the Capitol. Why are we allowing these millions of people to come through on the southern border?” he pivoted.

After Trump refused to condemn the Jan. 6 riot, ABC News Moderator David Muir continued into his next question. “Are you now acknowledging that you lost in 2020?”

“No. I don’t acknowledge that at all,” Trump replied.

Despite dozens of court hearings across the U.S. upholding the authenticity of the 2020 election results, Trump continues to deny the results of the democratic process. He is still holding on to the pipe dream that he received 75 million votes, despite no evidence to justify the claim. This should tell you everything about what will happen in the event Trump loses in 2024, and this should be the most talked about point of the entire debate. 

2. Trump refusing to vocalize support for Ukraine

If Trump denying the results of the 2020 election was the most anti-democratic claim of the debate, his lack of support for the people of Ukraine is the second. 

Since violating rules of just war and launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Russian military has continued to commit crimes against humanity against Ukrainian citizens, according to the U.S. Department of State. Ukraine is a democracy and an ally to the United States, and it is the official stance of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization – another institution Trump dislikes – to support Ukraine. Trump has repeatedly said, without specificity, he could solve the war in two phone calls.

“If I win, when I’m President-Elect, and what I’ll do is I’ll speak to one, I’ll speak to the other, I’ll get them together. That war would have never happened,” Trump proposed.

As a diplomacy student, I’m pretty sure if I wrote an idea that overly simplistic in a policy brief I’d get laughed out of the classroom. However, it’s not Trump’s simple language that is the primary problem here – politicians of any party make broad, generalized promises all the time. It is what Trump said when Muir asked, “Do you believe it is in the U.S.’s best interest for Ukraine to win the war? Yes or no?”

Trump replied, “I think it’s in the U.S. best interest to get this war finished and just get it done. All right. Negotiate a deal. Because we have to stop all of these human lives from being destroyed.”

He professed no desire for Ukraine to win the war, a clear sign that a Ukrainian-Russian compromise brokered by Trump could offer a major blow to democracy in Ukraine and worsen our relationship with our NATO allies – assuming Trump wouldn’t just immediately pull the U.S. out of NATO.

3. Trump bragging about his friendship with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbàn

To counter Harris’ claims about world leaders laughing at Trump, Trump proudly pointed out that Hungary’s Viktor Orbàn – someone Trump says is “one of the most respected men” and a “strong man” – believes “the most respected, most feared person is Donald Trump.”

After the debate, Orbàn was one of the most-Googled people. The Hungarian Prime Minister is largely unknown in the U.S., but is known in Europe as an authoritarian leader who is anti-EU, anti-Ukraine, anti-foreigners, and generally anti-democratic. Over the years, Orbàn has changed Hungary’s constitution to solidify his power and turn the democracy into a ‘Frankenstate’ where totalitarianism is hidden behind performative democracy.

Trump’s belief that Orbàn is an excellent leader should raise questions about how Trump believes democracy should look. Praising a politician who has blatantly encouraged democratic backsliding is a betrayal to the core American value of democracy and freedom.

The Debate Didn’t Feel Like A Democratic Victory

Simply put, Trump used last night’s debate to discredit one of the most secure electoral systems in the world, deny support for a fellow democracy, and vocalize support for a known dictator who has used his position in Hungary to create a culture where democratic backsliding threatens the future of Eastern Europe. 

These three moments of the debate alone should concern you the most, because these were not said in moments where Trump was trying to get in a good sound bite or going for a laugh. Two of them were responses to simple yes or no questions from the moderator.

The court of public opinion largely agrees Harris won the debate, but frankly, I don’t feel a strong sense of victory as I write this. For me, seeing Harris hold her own and maintain her easy-going composure against Trump is like watching your football team finally get a win against its long-time rivals but only because the rivals’ team has gone so downhill. Sure, I am glad that more people are realizing Trump is an inadequate candidate, but I would much rather have two compelling candidates than one who dominates by merely acting normal. How much happier I would’ve been to watch, say, a Haley versus Harris debate, where perhaps talks of eating dogs and fears of democratic backsliding wouldn’t be the primary takeaway from the conversation.

I don’t think that’s too much to ask.