US Politics Megathread

[fightinfrenchman]

There are 30,000 hits on google for the exact phrase "Trump disavows project 2025." Of course, one can argue he is lying or still linked to the project, but he did very publicly distance himself from it.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald ... rcna161338

Do you think he is still linked to it?

[Dolan]

Looks like Kamala actually needs to earn it. Just counting on the vibe shift and the momentum she got when people collectively gave a sigh of relief for not having to vote for Biden again doesn't cut it anymore.
She needs to prove she wants that top spot badly, that she's a political animal, or else move over.
If there's anything that Trump has in spades is that he is a true political animal, he'd eat shit to get elected.
I don't see the same determination in Kamala, she looks like someone pushed her in that spot and now she has to make something out of it.
Curious to see what she demonstrates at the upcoming debate

[Dolan]

You know who is a political animal and also a women? Georgia Meloni.
Just to give an example of someone who would debate anyone anywhere unscripted and come off looking full of conviction. She would come off looking like she's 'showing the way'.

I think that's what Kamala needs to demonstrate, that she's not just debating or going through the motions of playing the 'presidential candidate campaigning' role. Of trying to get a 'good performance'.
She needs to break through the screen, as I once said about real leaders. And make Trump look old news, because he is old and it's hillarious how he's try-harding to look like he has something relevant to say about the future, what with courting crypto bros and saying the US needs to make sure it has better AI capabilities than China.
Anyway, why am I even arguing in favour of any candidate, when both of them are clueless about either crypto or AI. It's all just posturing for those extra percentage gains.
In the end, each candidate will just prove his or her mettle and the one who wants the top job most will win.

[Goodspeed]

Well, given that your concerns about Trump seem to center on his perceived threats to democracy, I'd appreciate if you were willing to admit this was an "attack on democracy" by the Obama administration and Clinton campaign. If we stipulate my claim, that "a dossier containing anti-Trump slander, funded by the Clinton campaign, was used to initiate a federal investigation into Trump associates," would you agree or disagree? This claim can be verified in a few minutes by reading Wikipedia's "Steele dossier" page.

Oh that. I don't remember much of this, from the wiki page it sounds like opposition research that went out of hand and found its way to the FBI which considered it worth investigating. Labeling this an attack on democracy, and naming the Obama administration which was very loosely if at all connected, both seem a bit wild at first glance. But I'm not informed enough to have a strong opinion either way. And since I, unlike you apparently, don't consider the actions of democrats in 2016 to be in any way extenuating factors in Trump's literal betrayal of the constitution, I still don't think it's relevant.

That said, far-left members of the party such as Harris often propose policies I consider communist, such as nationalizing healthcare or capping food prices.

How would you define communism?

A "fair" distribution of wealth is not important to me? I am concerned with my family and community's standard of living and policies that will raise it, not with the number of zeros in others' bank accounts.

Okay so even if the other option leads to fairer outcomes, you prefer this option because you think it leads to a better outcome for you personally. If you vote with only your own interests in mind, I can respect that.

When Obama was asked in 2008 if he would raise capital gains taxes even if it reduced federal revenue, he replied yes, "for purposes of fairness." I disagree very much with this sentiment.

And that made the rounds in conservative circles so much that you remembered it all this time? Yikes. I dislike quotes taken out of context with a passion. The actual conversation should help you understand why:

Q: You favor an increase in the capital gains tax, saying, “I certainly would not go above what existed under Bill Clinton, which was 28%.” It’s now 15%. That’s almost a doubling if you went to 28%. Bill Clinton dropped the capital gains tax to 20%, then George Bush has taken it down to 15%. And in each instance, when the rate dropped, revenues from the tax increased. And in the 1980s, when the tax was increased to 28%, the revenues went down.
A: What I’ve said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness. The top 50 hedge fund managers made $29 billion last year--$29 billion for 50 individuals. Those who are able to work the stock market and amass huge fortunes on capital gains are paying a lower tax rate than their secretaries. That’s not fair.
Q: But history shows that when you drop the capital gains tax, the revenues go up.
A: Well, that might happen or it might not. It depends on what’s happening on Wall Street and how business is going.

You misrepresented what was said, which tends to happen when context is ignored.

As for the sentiment of "increase taxes even if it benefits literally no one", obviously I don't agree with it either, and neither does Obama or anyone else with half a brain. It's a straw man.

I don't object to the existence of entities such as the SEC but believe that a mostly Laissez-faire policy is the best for the overwhelming majority of Americans, from all economic classes.

I also believe that, the rub being in how we define "mostly". In my view, one of the roles of government is making sure the profit motive isn't leading to bad outcomes. One common scenario where I believe government should intervene is when there is exploitative use of inelastic demand. You mentioned health care, it's a good example because there is widespread exploitative use of inelastic demand in American health care and its outcomes happen to be behind those of other Western democracies, despite America's overwhelming resource advantage (this is important to mention; We should expect the US to be miles ahead of everyone, given they are swimming in money). Imo it's a complex problem with no simple solution, but it seems clear to me that government can't just take its hands off of it. You mentioned Harris wants to nationalize it; That's not actually her position, but leaving that aside, what would you do?

Fundamentally, when it comes to public goods the incentives of companies are often not aligned with the incentives of the community. There's the basic example of a company emptying its toxic waste in a river, making the simple calculation that the worsened living conditions of the people downstream don't weigh up to the money saved. Misaligned incentives like these are common in a capitalist economy, especially one as complex as ours. When government is too weak to defend the interests of the people, this leads to bad outcomes. In fact, you might even end up crashing the world economy.

Can we agree the government has a crucial role there?

I am not inclined to look into "Project 2025" when Trump "disavowed" it (NBC, NPR); it is more meaningful to me to compare the Trump and Biden administrations. That said, if you think it is important I will. We both likely feel that the other has not properly engaged with their arguments and only selectively replied to a few points.

I mention it as a counter example of democrats being the party of "big government" because it's a conservative plan that clearly and rather significantly increases the power of the federal government. You can argue Trump isn't involved in it, I don't really care to debate that, it's a conservative plan nonetheless.

[Goodspeed]

This is Not Good for the world

How dare the world not do the good thing for itself

It really should know better by now

[Dolan]

Btw, I just want to react to an argument I've seen here on price capping.
Some years ago, we had a crop failure which led to a collapse in the domestic production of sunflower oil. The scarcity that ensued on the market tripled the prices for the consumer and it was still hard to even find sunflower oil for cooking on the shelves.
In such a crisis context, the government decided to use a part of the national sunflower oil reserves to ease off the scarcity on the market. They effectively gave retailers sunflower oil at a low price (that only covered production costs, no mark-up) and told them to sell it not too far from that price point. And what did the retailers do? They kept the triple prices that were set by the previous market conditions and started selling the oil from the national reserves to pocket the profits.
So then the government came out and imposed a price cap, to make sure market conditions would cool off, until next year when the crop yield would recover and the market should return to normal.
The result was that market prices returned to normal, as retailers couldn't artificially profit from the scarcity selling cooking oil from the national reserve at tripled prices.

It's an example of how government intervention to cap prices can be both lawful and reasonable, to correct a situation in which normal market price-setting fails to work properly and retailers behave like a cartel keeping prices up artificially when there's no justifiable reason to do so.
And we're not a communist country, we're a market economy that has been growing steadily ever since.

I would actually argue the government should have intervened again in the current market, because despite global natural gas and oil prices returning to normal after they soared as a result of the war in Ukraine, corporations have kept prices artificially high, which is a major reason why inflation grew in many countries across the globe. Meanwhile oil and gas corporations have declared some of the highest profits ever. Where did those extra profits come from? Keeping the prices for consumers high, despite commodity prices having returned to normal. Here was another economic context in which government intervention would have been more than appropriate, but these oil and gas megacorps are probably too big funders of all major parties for anything to happen.

[Misha]

There are 30,000 hits on google for the exact phrase "Trump disavows project 2025." Of course, one can argue he is lying or still linked to the project, but he did very publicly distance himself from it.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald ... rcna161338

Do you think he is still linked to it?

I don't have an opinion, like I said I am not familiar with project.

[iNcog]

There are 30,000 hits on google for the exact phrase "Trump disavows project 2025." Of course, one can argue he is lying or still linked to the project, but he did very publicly distance himself from it.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald ... rcna161338

Do you think he is still linked to it?

I don't have an opinion, like I said I am not familiar with project.

good dodge

[fightinfrenchman]

There are 30,000 hits on google for the exact phrase "Trump disavows project 2025." Of course, one can argue he is lying or still linked to the project, but he did very publicly distance himself from it.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald ... rcna161338

Do you think he is still linked to it?

I don't have an opinion, like I said I am not familiar with project.

What do you think when you read this

Trump also spoke highly about the group's plans at a dinner sponsored by the Heritage Foundation in April 2022, saying: “This is a great group, and they’re going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do and what your movement will do when the American people give us a colossal mandate to save America.”

[Misha]

Well, given that your concerns about Trump seem to center on his perceived threats to democracy, I'd appreciate if you were willing to admit this was an "attack on democracy" by the Obama administration and Clinton campaign. If we stipulate my claim, that "a dossier containing anti-Trump slander, funded by the Clinton campaign, was used to initiate a federal investigation into Trump associates," would you agree or disagree? This claim can be verified in a few minutes by reading Wikipedia's "Steele dossier" page.

Oh that. I don't remember much of this, from the wiki page it sounds like opposition research that went out of hand and found its way to the FBI which considered it worth investigating. Labeling this an attack on democracy, and naming the Obama administration which was very loosely if at all connected, both seem a bit wild at first glance. But I'm not informed enough to have a strong opinion either way. And since I, unlike you apparently, don't consider the actions of democrats in 2016 to be in any way extenuating factors in Trump's literal betrayal of the constitution, I still don't think it's relevant.

I don't claim it's an extenuating factor. It's relevant in so far as (1) the same democratic apparatus is in place today and (2) I'm trying to gauge your reasonableness and it seems you can't or won't admit the following chain is an "attack on democracy": Campaign A pays for and compiles bullshit about Campaign B -> this bullshit is then used to help meet the evidentiary bar to instigate a federal investigation into Campaign B. Maybe this just an impass for us and there's no use in talking further.

That said, far-left members of the party such as Harris often propose policies I consider communist, such as nationalizing healthcare or capping food prices.

How would you define communism?

All prices were set by the state in the Soviet Union; caps on prices of certain goods as Harris suggested is similar albeit slightly weaker. Many Americans consider such policies communist. Let's use Wikipedia's definition of communism, or you can propose one of your own.

A "fair" distribution of wealth is not important to me? I am concerned with my family and community's standard of living and policies that will raise it, not with the number of zeros in others' bank accounts.

Okay so even if the other option leads to fairer outcomes, you prefer this option because you think it leads to a better outcome for you personally. If you vote with only your own interests in mind, I can respect that.

I essentially wrote that I do not view wealth disparity as an inherent evil, and you chose to interpret my statement in the most negative possible light, that I care only for myself. Thanks.

When Obama was asked in 2008 if he would raise capital gains taxes even if it reduced federal revenue, he replied yes, "for purposes of fairness." I disagree very much with this sentiment.

And that made the rounds in conservative circles so much that you remembered it all this time? Yikes. I dislike quotes taken out of context with a passion. The actual conversation should help you understand why:

Q: You favor an increase in the capital gains tax, saying, “I certainly would not go above what existed under Bill Clinton, which was 28%.” It’s now 15%. That’s almost a doubling if you went to 28%. Bill Clinton dropped the capital gains tax to 20%, then George Bush has taken it down to 15%. And in each instance, when the rate dropped, revenues from the tax increased. And in the 1980s, when the tax was increased to 28%, the revenues went down.
A: What I’ve said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness. The top 50 hedge fund managers made $29 billion last year--$29 billion for 50 individuals. Those who are able to work the stock market and amass huge fortunes on capital gains are paying a lower tax rate than their secretaries. That’s not fair.
Q: But history shows that when you drop the capital gains tax, the revenues go up.
A: Well, that might happen or it might not. It depends on what’s happening on Wall Street and how business is going.

You misrepresented what was said, which tends to happen when context is ignored.

As for the sentiment of "increase taxes even if it benefits literally no one", obviously I don't agree with it either, and neither does Obama or anyone else with half a brain. It's a straw man.

I am fully aware of the context. As per the quote, Obama was asked to justify a tax increase when "in the 1980s, when the tax was increased to 28%, the revenues went down." He accepts the premise of the question, that increasing taxes would decrease revenues. He then goes on to say he would increase taxes regardless for "fairness." Applying basic reading comprehension, Obama has stated here exactly the sentiment "increase taxes even if it benefits literally no one." Afterwards he does question the premise of the question but does not disagree as many democrats strongly would. Is your interpretation that he explained himself poorly here? Mine is that Obama views wealth disparity (of some degree) as inherently evil. Many radical leftists have this view---it is absolutely not a strawman.

I don't object to the existence of entities such as the SEC but believe that a mostly Laissez-faire policy is the best for the overwhelming majority of Americans, from all economic classes.

I also believe that, the rub being in how we define "mostly". In my view, one of the roles of government is making sure the profit motive isn't leading to bad outcomes. One common scenario where I believe government should intervene is when there is exploitative use of inelastic demand. You mentioned health care, it's a good example because there is widespread exploitative use of inelastic demand in American health care and its outcomes happen to be behind those of other Western democracies, despite America's overwhelming resource advantage (this is important to mention; We should expect the US to be miles ahead of everyone, given they are swimming in money). Imo it's a complex problem with no simple solution, but it seems clear to me that government can't just take its hands off of it. You mentioned Harris wants to nationalize it; That's not actually her position, but leaving that aside, what would you do?

In 2019, CNN reported that "Harris appeared to tell CNN in January she would eliminate private insurers as a necessary part of implementing Medicare for All." Obviously, that is not her stated position now during the presidential campaign, but it speaks to what she might attempt if elected.

Fundamentally, when it comes to public goods the incentives of companies are often not aligned with the incentives of the community. There's the basic example of a company emptying its toxic waste in a river, making the simple calculation that the worsened living conditions of the people downstream don't weigh up to the money saved. Misaligned incentives like these are common in a capitalist economy, especially one as complex as ours. When government is too weak to defend the interests of the people, this leads to bad outcomes. In fact, you might even end up crashing the world economy.

Can we agree the government has a crucial role there?

Yes, I agree.

[Misha]

Show hidden quotes

There are 30,000 hits on google for the exact phrase "Trump disavows project 2025." Of course, one can argue he is lying or still linked to the project, but he did very publicly distance himself from it.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald ... rcna161338

Do you think he is still linked to it?

I don't have an opinion, like I said I am not familiar with project.

What do you think when you read this

Trump also spoke highly about the group's plans at a dinner sponsored by the Heritage Foundation in April 2022, saying: “This is a great group, and they’re going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do and what your movement will do when the American people give us a colossal mandate to save America.”

That's a ringing endorsement, obviously.

[fightinfrenchman]

Show hidden quotes

There are 30,000 hits on google for the exact phrase "Trump disavows project 2025." Of course, one can argue he is lying or still linked to the project, but he did very publicly distance himself from it.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald ... rcna161338

Do you think he is still linked to it?

I don't have an opinion, like I said I am not familiar with project.

What do you think when you read this

Trump also spoke highly about the group's plans at a dinner sponsored by the Heritage Foundation in April 2022, saying: “This is a great group, and they’re going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do and what your movement will do when the American people give us a colossal mandate to save America.”

That's a ringing endorsement, obviously.

Now that you've read that, what do you think about Trump and his connections to Project 2025?

[Misha]

Show hidden quotes

There are 30,000 hits on google for the exact phrase "Trump disavows project 2025." Of course, one can argue he is lying or still linked to the project, but he did very publicly distance himself from it.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald ... rcna161338

Do you think he is still linked to it?

I don't have an opinion, like I said I am not familiar with project.

What do you think when you read this

Trump also spoke highly about the group's plans at a dinner sponsored by the Heritage Foundation in April 2022, saying: “This is a great group, and they’re going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do and what your movement will do when the American people give us a colossal mandate to save America.”

That's a ringing endorsement, obviously.

Now that you've read that, what do you think about Trump and his connections to Project 2025?

I think that it is a project that Trump was undoubtedly connected to in the past and has now distanced himself from, perhaps only as a campaign tactic.

I read the first paragraph (extensive research) of Wikipedia's article. While I agree that many federal offices and agencies are overwhelmingly staffed by leftists and that this is generally bad (e.g. Peter "We'll stop him" Strzok), mass firings would create more problems than it would fix. I also don't think that Trump would do this.

[fightinfrenchman]

I think that it is a project that Trump was undoubtedly connected to in the past and has now distanced himself from, perhaps only as a campaign tactic.

Perhaps indeed

[Goodspeed]

I don't claim it's an extenuating factor. It's relevant in so far as (1) the same democratic apparatus is in place today and (2) I'm trying to gauge your reasonableness and it seems you can't or won't admit the following chain is an "attack on democracy": Campaign A pays for and compiles bullshit about Campaign B -> this bullshit is then used to help meet the evidentiary bar to instigate a federal investigation into Campaign B. Maybe this just an impass for us and there's no use in talking further.

You're trying to gauge my reasonableness by asking me to make a strong statement about some guy's opposition research from 8 years ago that I'm uninformed about? My take after skimming the wiki page is that it's at least not obviously an attack on democracy, let alone by the Obama admin, and to label it such I would have to look into it more and see some damning evidence. I would hope that my refusal to have a strong opinion on something I don't know about goes in the "reasonable" column. Regardless, I question your methods.

All prices were set by the state in the Soviet Union; caps on prices of certain goods as Harris suggested is similar albeit slightly weaker. Many Americans consider such policies communist. Let's use Wikipedia's definition of communism, or you can propose one of your own.

Many Americans don't understand communism. In communism there is no private property, resources are distributed by the state as it sees fit. Price caps have nothing to do with communism, they're a measure to control a certain market in a capitalist economy, usually because it's working against public interest. A communist state wouldn't need such measures because it is already in full control of resource distribution.

A "fair" distribution of wealth is not important to me? I am concerned with my family and community's standard of living and policies that will raise it, not with the number of zeros in others' bank accounts.

Okay so even if the other option leads to fairer outcomes, you prefer this option because you think it leads to a better outcome for you personally. If you vote with only your own interests in mind, I can respect that.

I essentially wrote that I do not view wealth disparity as an inherent evil, and you chose to interpret my statement in the most negative possible light, that I care only for myself.

I believe this is a misunderstanding about what "fair" means. By "fairest" I don't mean everyone gets the exact same amount of wealth. I don't think wealth disparity is evil either, I think it's good and necessary. Whether the distribution is fair or not is more about the degree of that disparity. I think it's fair that a CEO makes more money than a waiter, but I don't think it's fair, for example, that workers on minimum wage often have to work more than one job to get by, while CEOs who make 300 times their salary have more money than they would ever need. I don't think this distribution of wealth is optimal when it comes to maximizing the standard of living of as many people as possible.

Using that definition of fair (a fair degree of disparity), maybe you can understand why I interpreted your statement the way I did. When you say that this is not important to you, in my mind you're saying you don't care about how unequal things are, as opposed to you saying you don't care that things are unequal. I then place the emphasis in your next statement, about your priority being the standard of living of your family and community, more on the "family and community" part and less on the standard of living part, because with your previous statement you've already made clear you don't care about the standard of living of the rest of society. When we read your first sentence as "I don't care that things are unequal", then we naturally place more emphasis on the standard of living part of your second sentence, because it's more relevant. We can read it as "I don't care about zeroes in bank accounts, I just want to maximize standard of living" (a statement I agree with, by the way). Do you see what I mean here?

Anyway, my original question was: Would you say the free market, when left alone, leads to the fairest possible distribution of wealth? If we're not on the same page about what fair means, we can replace "fairest" with "best". Best, then, when it comes to maximizing standards of living across the board. I think you already clarified that you agree some government intervention is necessary, so I'll ask a different question. Do you think the current distribution in the US is (close to) optimal, or do you think Nordic and Western European democracies (where, notably, minimum wage workers don't have to work multiple jobs) are closer to the optimal, and why?

I am fully aware of the context. As per the quote, Obama was asked to justify a tax increase when "in the 1980s, when the tax was increased to 28%, the revenues went down." He accepts the premise of the question, that increasing taxes would decrease revenues.

He clearly doesn't. That's obvious from his second answer. His first answer, he's just stating his position. There actually wasn't even a question, it's more of a "prompt". Obama ignores the part about revenues in the first answer and simply clarifies what he has said on the matter: That he would consider increasing capital gains tax because the current rate is lower than what secretaries pay, which he considers to be unfair.

Is your interpretation that he explained himself poorly here?

I think he, being a politician, was just focused on saying the things that he wants to get across to voters. Taking the time to clarify your position is important as a politician, obviously. He didn't want to go into the details about revenue increasing/decreasing because he didn't consider that to be worth the time. But yes, I do think he should have been more explicit about rejecting the ridiculous premise that increasing the tax rate would necessarily lower revenue. He did clearly reject it, though. If you somehow still think he didn't, and think he really believes that increasing taxes for nobody's benefit is good policy, then you should be able to find other statements of his to that effect.

Mine is that Obama views wealth disparity (of some degree) as inherently evil. Many radical leftists have this view---it is absolutely not a strawman.

If you really think Obama views wealth disparity as inherently evil, you don't know him at all, which is unfortunately unsurprising. Thinking wealth disparity is inherently evil is an actual communist take, and communism, as I said earlier, has been off the table for decades. It's absolutely bonkers to think that Obama is a communist. Here's the first link that comes up when you google "Obama on capitalism": https://abcnews.go.com/Business/obama-d ... d=42614080

it is important to remember that capitalism has been the greatest driver of prosperity and opportunity the world has ever seen.

This guy clearly believes in the free market.

In 2019, CNN reported that "Harris appeared to tell CNN in January she would eliminate private insurers as a necessary part of implementing Medicare for All." Obviously, that is not her stated position now during the presidential campaign, but it speaks to what she might attempt if elected.

From what I gather, she used to be for medicare for all but isn't anymore. But yeah, this is all just politics. She's saying what will get her votes. Everyone knows any option that seeks to eliminate private insurance is completely unrealistic anyway.

Again, what would you do? I don't mean to ask you for a detailed policy proposal, just a choice between the let's say three options that a new president would have: Government takes its hands off of health care completely, or it incrementally builds on existing legislation, or it starts over with something new. I favor option 2, for what it's worth.

Imo, health care is one of the most important areas governments need to intervene in, because there's a lot of inelastic demand and there is the fundamental misaligned incentive for health care providers which is that for them to make more money, they want people to be unhealthy.

[Goodspeed]

I haven't watched the debate yet, but it was apparently mildly good for Kamala according to polymarket. Annoyingly, this graph doesn't have a y-axis. The jump is from 46% to 49%

[Cometk]

it's important to note that communism is less a question of distribution than it is one of ownership.

anyway, i don't think the biden and consequent harris administration give too much of a hoot about the free market, especially in the face of climate crisis, when they impose sharp tariffs on chinese steel, EVs, and solar panels

[Cometk]

they care a lot about the free market when venezuela nationalizes its oil industry tho

[iNcog]

Hide yo dogs, hide yo cats. haha

[iNcog]

shit I just realized I lost the prediction about the debate mentioning clinton :(

[Goodspeed]

He didn't?
Nice

[fightinfrenchman]

He also never mentioned Kamala's name

[Dolan]

The media project an image that Kamala dominated or won the debate, but the mood among undecided voters seems to be that they're just as clueless on what Harris is about as before.
There's a tendency at these debates for candidates to focus on the theatrics to make sure they win the perceptions contest, but this takes away from the time they spend on the actual issues, leaving voters frustrated that they have no idea what a candidate plans on doing fr.
Trump's own example when the question arose on the issue of healthcare: he started rambling and saying he has some 'concepts' and his team are still working on it.
You can also probably count Kamala's concrete policy proposals on one hand: the family subsidy, the small business financial support, the federal law for abortion, and a few defensive promises that she won't ban guns or fracking.
I think it would be a mistake to confuse the media's image of Harris winning or dominating the debate with what the voters actually think.
There are some, for example, who think Trump is a rotten imbecile, but they'll vote for him anyway because life was more affordable during his term.

[fightinfrenchman]

The media project an image that Kamala dominated or won the debate, but the mood among undecided voters seems to be that they're just as clueless on what Harris is about as before.

How do you know this?

[Dolan]

The media project an image that Kamala dominated or won the debate, but the mood among undecided voters seems to be that they're just as clueless on what Harris is about as before.

How do you know this?

Reuters did some interviewing with US voters and found out that it's a very mixed image: a lot of them disliked that candidates were focused too much on winning through emotional appeal and not enough on explaining very concrete policy, others decided they would vote with Trump despite not liking him, and others said Kamala was too vague and they still don't know enough about her to make a decision.
But then, voters can be fickle. If you serve them one hour and a half of concentrated policy discussions, they'll complain the debate was boring and too technical. If you give them circus they'll ask 'where's the policy'.