This Thursday brings the first of two scheduled debates between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. If you ask me who will be feeling more pain at the end of the night - Biden, Trump, or the American people - I'm going to guess the American people.
I can't remember thinking of a debate quite like I'm thinking about this one. These are super intense events that candidates traditionally spend weeks preparing for. Like boxers, they usually retreat to isolated debate prep camps to practice in front of TV cameras with aides portraying the opponent and the moderator. The footage from these sessions is pored over to identify strong answers worth repeating, bad answers to avoid, neat turns of phrase, endearing/annoying mannerisms. In 2000, when my dad was running for Vice President, I was a part of such a preparation. We held it in Kentucky near Centre College where his debate with Dick Cheney would be. It was grueling but productive.
I don't think anyone is expecting a deep or thoughtful contest of ideas between these two candidates. The time limits imposed on answers creates a need for focus and cogency which neither candidate comes by easily. This is probably, however, a bigger challenge for Biden - both because he is especially prone to lose focus and wander and because he is judged more along the lines of how normal politicians (and humans) are judged. Trump may also lose focus and wander, but that's just a part of who he is and has always been. It doesn't signal any cognitive issue but rather a (now familiar) personality issue. He talks about whatever the heck he wants to talk about however the heck he wants to talk about it. Most often, his answers glancingly relate to the topic at hand; sometimes he hits the target squarely. His supporters love him; everyone else knows what to expect - some level of “unhinged” which is either somewhat, very, or not at all entertaining depending on your politics; and some level of saliency which similarly varies based on the politics of the particular beholder.
The microphone of the non-speaker will be muted during the allotted response time of the speaker (the debate will allow two minute responses and one minute rebuttals). It is thought that the Biden team requested this rule, which was in place to some extent in the candidates’ second debate four years ago, in order to shut Trump up while Biden is trying to get an answer out. You probably recall that this was a major problem in their first debate in 2020. However, that debate, despite the anger and testiness it elicited from Biden, probably made Trump look far worse, like a guy who wouldn't wait his turn, like a particularly obnoxious kid on a playground. In their second debate in 2020, with the microphones occasionally muted, Trump did much better. This probably explains why his side was willing to agree to the muting; they realize that outside his most fervent supporters, people get tired of Trump if he repeatedly comes across as, well, an asshole.
The candidates will be standing at lecterns, and there will be two moderators, Jake Tapper and Dana Bash (I'm a fan of both). And for the first time since the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon debate, there will be no live audience. This, too, is thought to impair Trump, who loves playing to an audience, and benefit Biden by reducing distraction. Again, however, it may benefit Trump as well by discouraging his often crowd-fueled forays into the bizarre or extreme.
So much of all this points to the depressing dynamic that underlies this clash. Americans already have a very good idea about who the candidates are and where the candidates stand. What we don't know on any given day is how mentally “with it" Biden will be and how unhinged/offensive Trump will be. And getting a sense of this is important to us even though the very large majority of us already know who we will vote for. It's not exactly like watching a car crash; it's more like imagining what a car crash might look like and how likely it would be with one driver versus the other. I think this is relevant to most of us even if the candidate we don't like gets elected.
Oddly, this might make for better television than your average presidential debate - both better and more broadly accessible. You don't need to be a policy wonk to completely zap into the most relevant aspect of the event because it's not about policy. It's about making a judgment about capacity on the one hand versus temperament on the other. You don't need a PhD for this; you don't even need a GED. You just need your eyes and your ears and your sense of the human race based on living in the world for however long you've been doing that.
It’s not a sign of health for our politics, but it might make for strangely compelling TV. So…enjoy?
Good summary of what to expect Matt
I am voting for RFK jr
- if a majority of voting Americans could watch just this podcast alone
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsL3eCWsEz8
RFK jr will be our next president