Cuckoo Award

Boy the Cuckoo Awards are coming fast and furious, this election season they are piling up the awards!
All Rise for the Most Insane Conspiracy Theory About Last Night’s Debate

It’s all over once someone starts talking about earbuds.
Slate
By Luke Winkie
September 11, 2024

Nothing about Tuesday night’s debate was particularly surprising. Donald Trump, in visible decline, became agitated, pedantic, and increasingly unserious as the broadcast wore on. He turned in yet another weirdly checked-out performance and continued a losing streak that was only briefly broken up when he faced off against an opponent who was slightly more advanced in his sundowning, three months earlier. Harris, meanwhile, is a career prosecutor, an effective performer of politics, and a 59-year-old woman—conditions that created an abject mismatch onstage. The VP proceeded to wipe the floor with the former president, by virtue of her ability to appear competent and normal in contrast to the dog eating and the rally-size grousing. There weren’t any curveballs dispensed from the moderation team, either, who teed up a pretty standard set of policy queries on immigration, abortion, the economy, and democracy. Harris did what she was supposed to do, and Trump did what he always does. That is the way things work.

And yet, for the embattled MAGA base who have internalized this idea that Harris is incapable of stringing words into sentences, her ability to answer basic questions about her policy positions could only be justified by conspiracy and collusion. We have been down this path before. Perhaps you remember the swirling rumors in 2020 that Joe Biden received his debate questions before the event—the same accusations were leveled Tuesday night, but this time around though, they were weirder, and much dumber.

Clue the Dragnet music!

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And here is the really cuckoo part…

The prevailing theory in MAGAdom is that Kamala Harris was discreetly wearing a pair of earbuds embedded in the earrings she wore on stage. The tech itself is real—in 2023, the audio company Icebach unveiled a set of pearl jewelry called the “Nova H1 Audio Earrings” that were outfitted with the ability to transmit audio into the wearer’s cochleas. If you are way down the rabbit hole, you might be willing to believe that Harris had orchestrated some sort of elaborate walkie-talkie system so she could receive live coaching from, I don’t know, Pete Buttigieg, standing a few feet offstage. It’s a position that has been signal-boosted by some of the more prominent knuckleheads on the right—particularly Naomi Wolf, former feminist scholar, current anti-vax nut job, who frankly deserves some sort of lifetime achievement award for gullibility. Here’s Wolf, laying out her case:

Say WHAT?

She has cochleas implant????? So she can cheat at the debate? This is right out of la, la land. It has gotten so bad that USA Today had to do a “Fact Check!”

No evidence there were transmitters in Kamala Harris' earrings during debate | Fact check
By Joedy McCreary
September 11, 2024

Our rating: False
There is no credible evidence that Harris' earrings contained audio transmitters, which would have broken rules that ban in-debate interactions with people offstage. Photos of the debate show her earrings do not match the Nova model referenced in the post.

No evidence Harris’ earrings contained wireless earphones
For more than 90 minutes on Sept. 10, Harris and former President Donald Trump traded barbs, claims and policy proposals during their first presidential debate of the election season.

But the claim in the Facebook post is baseless. There is no credible evidence to indicate Harris’ jewelry during the debate contained audio transmitters that could have allowed her to be “coached," as the post claims.

This, this beats the cake! The Cuckoo Award today is given to all those gullible MAGA people the crazier the theory the more they eat it up!

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AP News
From there it went all downhill for Trump

On the serious side.

Harris Set the Traps, and Trump Dumbly Walked Right Into Them
The vice president didn’t have to be particularly clever to bait an impetuous brute like Trump. But it worked like a charm.
The New Republic
Alex Shephard
September 10, 2024


The biggest problem with the first presidential debate this year was obvious almost from the very start. Joe Biden was incoherent. He struggled to answer questions. It was clear that he was incapable of fulfilling another term as president—a conclusion Biden himself ultimately arrived at a month later, when he announced he would not seek a second term and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris.

There was another problem, however, that was nearly as serious. In that debate, Donald Trump was also incoherent. More than that, he was deranged. He would rave about wild fantasies—undocumented immigrants committing violent crimes with impunity, babies being murdered minutes after being born—and often did so when asked about an entirely different topic. He looked old, diminished, beleaguered. But Biden, being older and more diminished, was incapable of making the case against him. In fact, Biden’s debate performance was such a disaster that it overshadowed what could have been the story of the night: Trump’s growing extremism and paranoia.

That’s not a problem anymore. Harris undoubtedly “won” her debate against Trump on Tuesday night, but it’s important to understand why. She accomplished what Biden simply could not: to make it obvious that Trump is not only unfit for office but severely unhinged—even more hinged than four years ago, when he tried to foment a coup. The contrast between the two candidates could not have been clearer during the debate. Harris made the case that she was confident and knowledgeable enough to be president, but more important, she baited Trump into reminding voters of just how crazy he is—and how exhausting a second Trump term would be.

Okay, it is the part that reads “she baited Trump” that is where my concern lies… Trump is so easy to bait, his narcissism is what makes him so easy to bait.

Putin baited him and Trump took the bait, Xi and Un baited him and he called them “Some really nice people.” By knowing which buttons push.

Right at the beginning Harris dominated him just by shaking his hand. You could see his brain spinning do I shake hands?

I asked Perplexity AI: “In the debate did Harris play on Trump's narcissism by baiting him?”

Answer
Based on the search results, it appears that Kamala Harris did employ strategies that could be seen as playing on Donald Trump's narcissistic tendencies during their debate. Here are some key points:

1. Harris took an assertive approach from the start, marching across the stage to shake Trump's hand and introduce herself, setting a tone of control.
2. She baited Trump with jabs at various aspects of his presidency and personality, including:

•     His economic policies
•     His refusal to concede the 2020 election loss
•     His performance at rallies Harris mocked Trump's praise of dictators, saying they "would eat you for lunch".

3. She repeatedly challenged Trump's claims about the 2020 election, stating "You did in fact lose that election" and "Donald Trump was fired by 81 million people".
4. Harris particularly seemed to get under Trump's skin when she criticized his rally performances, noting that people often leave early. This visibly irritated Trump, who insisted his rallies were larger than hers.
5. She employed a strategy of redirecting the conversation to her advantage while gathering her thoughts, a tactic she has used in previous debates.
6. Harris aimed to combine humor with substantive details to contribute to a larger narrative, which could be seen as a way to challenge Trump's self-image.

While the search results don't explicitly state that Harris was targeting Trump's narcissism, her debate tactics - particularly her attempts to provoke him on personal points like his rallies and election loss - could be interpreted as efforts to exploit his narcissistic traits. By challenging his grandiose self-image and need for admiration, Harris may have been attempting to throw Trump off balance and provoke reactions that would be unfavorable to viewers.

If Trump is so easily manipulated in a debate can you imagine how leaders like Putin or Xi can twist him into make bad decisions for the country to protect his ego?

That is what makes this election so dangerous, people know what buttons to press.

 

Will there be a Debate II?

By pressing the right buttons I think VP Harris can play on his narcissism and get him to do another debate against the advise of his handlers.

Vote Blue! And save the country… and save the world.