‘A disproportionate amount of time to mansplain’: Stephen King agrees that the real loser of the presidential debate wasn’t Kamala Harris or Donald Trump

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump took the stage in their first, and potentially only, televised debate on ABC News, and, as you’d expect Stephen King had a lot to say about it

Harris opened strongly, taking the stage and heading straight for Trump to shake his hand, a nicety that it was clear the former President was inclined to ignore or forget. By most accounts, except for those from folks blind to recorded evidence, Harris had a very strong debate. At several points, due to her stout refusal to entertain Trump’s more out-there moments, Harris had the self-declared stable genius running for the hills with stories of people eating pets and the post-birth execution of babies.

Yes, that is a thing that a former President of the United States claimed on live television if you are wondering how badly our current timeline is starting to degrade.

While Harris flew and Trump floundered, a third party came under scrutiny: the debate moderators. The purpose of moderators is to keep both participants within the bounds of propriety, which means limiting the more obvious fibs and keeping to their time. While Trump’s fans wailed about an unfair event that was designed to expose the weaknesses of their personal pick, the reality is actually a little different.

Many folks, including Stephen King, called out the moderators for giving Trump more time to talk than his opponent.

According to Twitter/X user James Surowiecki, Trump spoke for nine minutes longer than Harris, or roughly 30% more. Now, there is something to be said for the fact that this may not have been the case had Trump been able to stick to the truth when discussing his concepts. There is also a lot to be said for the fact that time divergence meant Harris had less time to talk about policy and actual politics, areas on which she was clearly winning due to Trump’s inability to go into any details on how he might actually help the average American (he has “concepts of a plan“, okay?)

Even Fox News admitted that Harris won the debate, although their claim that the moderators were on the side of the Vice President is somewhat undermined by the simple fact that those same moderators would have been less involved if there was less to moderate.

Ultimately, the simple reality of the debate was that Trump was given more time to talk, and he used it to make himself look bad by once again lying to the audience and the American voters.

For now, all roads lead to November 5, when Americans will head to the polls to decide which type of government leadership they want for the following four years. It seems unlikely that Trump will agree to another debate as there doesn’t seem to be any network that will give him what he wants, which is the freedom to make any kind of statement he wishes without some form of pushback.

The good news, or at least the silver lining, is that the debate has given rise to some truly excellent memes about the various things that were said. Perhaps the worst thing for Trump and his aspirations to return to the Oval Office for another presidential power nap is that Taylor Swift appears to have been waiting in the wings for Harris to shine.

The singer came on strong with an endorsement for Harris after the debate. While it’s not nice to kick a man while he is down, it’s possible that Swift waited for the cruelest moment to unleash the Swifties after Trump tried to fake his way to an endorsement by using AI-generated images. Right now, the most interesting thing about the Republican party’s political planning is what kind of political faux pas they will manage to run headlong into next.