Los Angeles Times

Virginia Heffernan: The debates were balm for Trump-battered psyches

Something spooky happened at the debates last week in Miami.

It was palpable on Wednesday and Thursday night, as the 20 most plausible candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination, in two batches, matched wits on the most vexing matters of modern times.

The spookiness was like a wind whistling through the podiums. It was uncanny, and until I could put my finger on it, it was easier to concentrate on a much more familiar debate byproduct: showdowns.

On Wednesday, Julian Castro, former mayor of San Antonio, elegantly

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles Times3 min readCrime & Violence
Editorial: The Supreme Court Cannot Allow Homelessness To Be A Crime
If you are homeless and have nowhere to go — neither a temporary shelter bed nor a permanent home — can you be fined or, worse, jailed for sleeping on a sidewalk? Or is that cruel and unusual punishment? That’s the question that the Supreme Court wre
Los Angeles Times5 min read
Gaza Protests Roil Universities From California To New York; Tensions Grow At Humboldt, Berkeley
LOS ANGELES — Officials shut down the campus of Cal Poly Humboldt on Monday night after masked pro-Palestinian protesters occupied an administrative building and barricaded the entrance as Gaza-related demonstrations roiled campuses across the nation
Los Angeles Times8 min read
Bit By A Billionaire's Dog? Or A Case Of Extortion? A Legal Saga From An LA Dog Park
LOS ANGELES -- A dog-bites-woman story usually isn't much of a story at all. But an incident in one of L.A.'s wealthiest enclaves has become something else entirely. What began in a Brentwood park on a summer day in 2022, when a dog owned by billiona

Related Books & Audiobooks