Kamala Harris seems to have come up with a debate strategy that boils down to smirking whenever Donald Trump opens his mouth. Whether or not this tactic works remains to be seen, but her logic is pretty transparent. If you catch her on the split screen during the debate, she’s shaking her head, making exaggerated faces, and mouthing “not true” even when Trump says something that hasn’t even gotten a response yet. It’s clear she’s not actually engaging with what he’s saying—she’s just performing for the camera.
It’s nothing new. She’s borrowing from her boss, Joe Biden, who pulled a similar stunt in his 2012 vice-presidential debate. Back then, Biden laughed at everything Paul Ryan said, treating him like a joke to get under his skin. It was all about creating the perception that the other guy was a clown while keeping your cool. Half of it was for the audience’s benefit, and the other half was designed to throw the opponent off his game.
And to be fair, Biden’s trick worked in 2012. He rattled Ryan pretty effectively. But here’s the thing: Ryan and Biden were actually engaging face-to-face. Harris, on the other hand, looks like she’s trying to imitate the same approach from a distance, and it’s not exactly landing the way she thinks it is.
Where Biden came off like he didn’t care if he looked a bit unhinged—because let’s be honest, running for vice president doesn’t require much more than making your opponent look silly—Harris is trying to come across as presidential. And frankly, it’s just not working. Instead of looking like a confident leader, she ends up giving off a “schoolteacher trying to control the classroom” vibe, which, let’s face it, doesn’t scream commander-in-chief.
At the end of the day, while Biden’s laugh-in-your-face approach worked for him in 2012, Harris’s version of it just makes her look more awkward than authoritative. If her goal was to make Trump seem like a clown, she might want to rethink her strategy—because right now, it’s not Trump who looks foolish.
