To anyone who really knows debate, it quickly became obvious that Donald Trump was in over his head Tuesday night. For one thing, Kamala Harris had clearly been well-coached and probably had the benefit of inside help, either by sophisticated electronics or prior familiarity with the questions.

No matter the method, her characteristic word-salads had been banished in favor of a hard-hitting attack that instantly put Trump on the defensive. Combined with the obvious bias of the ABC debate-munchkins (who in no sense were ‘moderators’) the on-set atmosphere amounted to a 3-on-1 slug-fest in which President Trump played the role of pinata. Even the fact-checking was ludicrous, five body-slams against Mr. Trump versus none at all for Ms. Harris; instead, she was allowed a series of long-debunked slanders of her opponent. Most annoying of all: Ms. Harris ubiquitous smile, rightly characterized by the New York Times as a weapon, showing off a quasi-presidential aplomb not previously in evidence. Comfortably basking in the glow of her ABC “News” confederates, Ms. Kamala knew she had nothing to fear. A day later, the whole affair seems more like an exceptionally well-executed ambush.

Because of a fairly deep knowledge of debate, I freely concede that these are classic rationales of the losing side – a point made frequently while coaching my West Point forensics teams. But now there are three important differences. First, performance in a debate may or may not lead to differences in either the polls or the all-important ballot box, people constantly comparing their situations to the media spin. Second, the world may look vastly different on Election Day, a point repeatedly made in this space. How would the election be affected, for example, by war, terrorism or the debt-related collapse of the US dollar?

But the third important difference is also the most formidable: It can now be argued that the American media, far from being the fierce defender of American liberties, has crossed over to the dark side, becoming a powerful new Darth Vader implacably advancing a broad leftist agenda. And not just once with the latest shenanigans from ABC but time after time, despite the passage of more than two decades since Bernard Goldberg published his pioneering book, Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How The Media Distort the News. https://www.amazon.com/Bias-Insider-Exposes-Media-Distort/dp/0895261901

A decade later, Tim Groseclose, now a professor of economics at George Mason University, published Left Turn, a bold treatise on the long-term effects of liberal media bias on the American mind.  Coining the term “slant quotient” to capture the effects of persistent exposure to liberal media, Grosclose found that enough slant would move the “political quotient” of the average voter “about 24 points leftward. The latter shift is approximately the difference between the average voter in Colorado or Iowa and the average voter in Rhode Island or Massachusetts.” https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jul/26/pernicious-effects-of-media-bias/

So there you have it, the dumbing-down of the American mind through persistent exposure to media bias! It not only produces leftist preferences but also an inability to see and recognize bias itself. Proof positive of this now generational trend: David Muir and his ABC colleagues hosing down the country as if Kamala had paid for the job herself. While the classical solution for what was then known as “newspaper bias” was simply more newspapers, how does government handle prejudice in a digital age? The airwaves are collectively owned by the American people but licensed to media organizations performing in the public good, mostly as determined by the FCC. Having tangled with that agency in the past, I can testify that the FCC has its own ideas about insuring “fairness” So where does that leave us with ABC?

Fox News analyst Mollie Hemingway is also the editor-in-chief of The Federalist. She and Federalist CEO Sean Davis called for ABC News to lose its broadcasting license and for its two presidential debate moderators to be “criminally charged.” for campaign finance fraud. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/fox-news-contributor-reposts-call-to-criminally-charge-abc-debate-moderators/ Nice idea, of course, and one that would certainly produce gratifying howls of liberal outrage as well as a memorable stop-sign on the progressive freeway. However, trusting the American judicial system with such a herculean task is at least optimistic. (OK, so my admiration for lawyers is under firm control.)

We are unlikely to see this generation-long trend reversed without direct action against public corporations like ABC, who must satisfy customers, sponsors, investors and boards of directors just to stay in business. With all that adult leadership, surely there are ample opportunities to underline our displeasure, possibly in ways Samuel Adams would applaud.

Colonel (Ret.) Ken Allard is a former West Point professor, Dean of the National War College and NBC News military analyst.