By Stephen Macaulay

Although it would be surprising if anyone who is reading this has actually met Kamala Harris or Donald Trump in person, it would be more surprising if all of us don’t have some notions about both of them from having seen and heard tape from them over the years. It may be hard to remember the first time (the former skewering Biden during a debate; the latter on Saturday Night Live?), and subsequently our impressions of them are regularly refreshed as there is a veritable flood of coverage of both.

But here’s a little experiment that you can run for yourself and see whether it might not affect how you think of them:

Watch all or at least part of the September 10 debate with the sound off.

That’s right, no audio, just visual. A few minutes will do.

Now you might say that that is absurd. What is important is what they’re saying, not their appearances, right?

But given that according to CNN’s Daniel Dale, Trump lied more than 30 times (no, there is no baby execution after birth; illegal aliens are not eating pets in Ohio; global jails are not being emptied; China will not pay the tariffs for goods (just like Mexico didn’t pay for the Wall) etc., etc., etc.), what at least one of them was saying was by and large unsubstantiated nonsense, so what is the point of listening to that again?

Look at their demeanors on the split screen.

Trump is hunched and staring at some point in space that he seems angry to have in his vision. There is very little physical animation, almost as though he is gripping the podium sufficiently to leave fingermarks in its surface.

Harris runs through a range of looks, at one point smiling and at another point appearing empathetic. 

Where he is stiff, she is fluid.

Where she has a smile, he exhibits rictus.

He appears to be an angry old man, increasingly incensed by what he is hearing but through some incredible force of will or chiropractic concern unable to face the person who is making him agitated.

She appears to be, well, normal.

And here’s a question to ask yourself:

Which of the two would you want to be your doctor: some guy who seems as though what he learned in medical school was the final word on the subject and he’ll be goddamned if he’s going to change his opinion about that, regardless of what evidence shows (“I smoke two packs a day and I’m still kickin’!”), or someone who evinces an intelligence and openness to both the patient as a person as well as new medical findings?

The difference couldn’t be much clearer.