In Donald Trump’s world, there are places in America where babies are born and then executed because of lax abortion laws, and where immigrants in Ohio eat cats, dogs and other pets.

Trump’s fictional apocalyptic vision collapsed Tuesday night under the spotlight of a neutral presidential debate, where moderators pointed to lies and a capable opponent in Kamala Harris.

“Donald Trump was fired by 81 million people,” Harris said of a 2020 election that Trump still can’t accept. “He’s having a hard time processing that.”

Opinion

If a successful presidential debate reveals the clear differences between the contending candidates, Tuesday night’s event in Philadelphia was an unmitigated victory for the American people, thanks to the provocative questions and answers from both Trump and Harris.

It was the same Donald Trump who showed up to debate Joe Biden in June, an angry former officeholder whose remarks were an unfortunate combination of insults and lies. It took a historically terrible performance from a declining Biden to make the aftermath not just about Trump. That won’t happen this time. Kamala Harris proved to be Trump’s equal in the facts, command of the field, and the human temperament required to hold the highest office in the land.

Trump unleashed everything in his arsenal of venom. He called Harris a Marxist. That she ruined the country. That she hates both Israelis and Arabs. That she pays voters to attend her rallies. That she wants to perform transgender surgeries on illegal aliens who are in prison. And that those undocumented aliens who are not in prison came here from mental institutions and insane asylums, but somehow they are smart enough to take jobs away from blacks and Latinos. And since violent crime is up here (it isn’t), it is going down in the rest of the world as a result (it isn’t).

There is no reason to rationalize this.

Harris listened intently. She shook her head no, almost incessantly, as the onslaught of lies unfolded. Sometimes she laughed. She never got upset.

It’s unfortunate that analyzing a debate is like revisiting a crime scene. Some substantive moments have come and gone. Harris worries that Trump’s plan to impose massive tariffs on imported goods from China and other countries will raise the price of those goods in this country, similar to a sales tax. Trump, who lives in his own personal bubble, somehow believes that other countries will bear all the pain.

The most obvious difference was Trump’s worst issue, abortion, and that’s truer now than ever. Trump’s central lie, an old one but a good one, is that “every legal scholar, every Democrat, every Republican” wanted to repeal the federal right to abortion (with limitations), which was upheld 51 years ago by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade. By appointing a court that revoked a woman’s right to choose, “I did a great service by doing that,” Trump said.

Harris said he would “proudly” sign a bill to affirm a federal right to choose. Trump repeatedly dodged the question. “The government and Donald Trump should certainly not be telling a woman what to do with her body,” she said.

If a Republican had run for president who lived in reality and stuck to a platform of improving economic affordability in this country and better managing the borders — two weaknesses of the past four years for different reasons — this could have been a major battle of ideas in this campaign period.

But that’s not what’s happening, and Tuesday night revealed it for all who would watch. What was supposed to be a debate about ideas was lost in a sea of ​​lies and self-deception. Donald Trump took a beating Tuesday night in the debate that actually happened. Harris proved her presidential credentials and then some. But it was Trump who undone himself by saying things so outlandish that the moderators had to remind viewers of the actual truth in real time. Trump’s campaign is on a collision course with political suicide.