How Kamala Harris de-normalized Trump in less than 2 hours [View all]

In Tuesday night’s presidential debate, Vice President Kamala Harris may or may not have increased her chances of becoming the 47th president. But she did what so many have tried, and failed, to do.

She de-normalized Donald Trump.

For years, various politicians and pundits have yelled themselves hoarse over the danger of normalizing Trump’s chicanery, casual mendacity, outrageous divisiveness and outright criminal behavior. For years, the media have attempted to contextualize a candidate/president/insurrectionist/candidate who often dismisses the most time-honored rules of American politics (including the peaceful transfer of power) and continues to feed his not-inconsiderable number of supporters a diet of self-aggrandizement and grievance.

Not surprisingly, outrage itself has become normalized too. For President Biden and now Democratic nominee Harris, every word, action and expression is analyzed with granular intensity. Meanwhile, Trump’s familiar litany of untruths and increasingly nonsensical speeches is regularly glossed as “Trump being Trump.”

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2024-09-12/kamala-harris-donald-trump-abc-debate-de-normalize