The debate of the century
Tonight’s debate between former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden was pure entertainment. It was the kind of performative spectacle Americans now expect from political leaders.
That’s why the news media hyped this debate as if it were a boxing match between two geriatric heavyweights. News anchors made famed fight promoter Don King look shy as they promoted this as the debate of the century – with “zingers” that should land like knockout blows.
Sure enough, both men hurled a few. But none landed like Ronald Reagan’s famous zinger against Democratic challenger Walter Mondale in 1984:
I want you to know that also I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.
No doubt Trump will rue agreeing to CNN’s rules designed to ensure civil exchanges. In the spirit of the Marquis of Queensbury, CNN banned the studio audience and muted mics to avoid interruptions and cross-talk.
Of course, everyone knows CNN only proposed these rules to prevent 78-year-old Trump from behaving like a two-year-old gladiator. It worked, but it blocked the disruptive zingers that enabled him to dominate previous debates.
Incidentally, even real boxers have enough manners and mutual respect to tap gloves before going at it and invariably hug after their fight. So, it was a national shame to see these two US presidents begin and end their debate without even acknowledging each other, let alone shaking hands.
Debates do not test presidential fitness
I’ve argued for years that debates are as useful for testing presidential fitness as reality TV shows are for finding true love. The title of my commentary on the first debate between MAGA Trump and Scranton Joe during the 2020 presidential campaign conveys my abiding cynicism: “Presidential Debate: Biden vs. Trump Was Much Ado About Nothing (aka a Sh!tshow)” on September 20, 2020.
Moreover, political commentators can’t cite a single time a debate clinched the election for the eventual winner. John Kerry had the best debate performance in 2004 since JFK in 1960. Yet, the gaffe-prone dunce George W. Bush defeated him handily. Conversely, Barack Obama had the worst debate performance in 2012 since Richard Nixon in 1960. Yet, he defeated Mitt Romney from central casting with ease.
Presidential debates merely provide fodder for self-promoting, click-baiting TV commentators to engage in idle-minded punditry.
As suspenseful as watching paint dry
Tonight, we watched two old political actors doing their best to remember their lines. But viral clips of them flubbing those lines have sapped any entertainment value.
Simply put, both men have said and often flubbed everything we heard tonight a thousand times. So, to make news, it would have taken an unusual brain fart like Rick Perry’s infamous “oops“ during the 2012 presidential campaign.
The media reported Perry’s gaffe as the most newsworthy part of that debate. He had a momentary lapse in naming the three agencies he wanted to “do away with.” But it’s absurd to think that had anything to do with his fitness to serve as president.
Mercifully, neither of these old geezers farted on stage. More to the point, the chance of any president doing so offstage is zero. That’s because teams of advisors shadow presidents, armed with information and strategy. No president will ever face the isolation and pressure these debates simulate.
Undecideds and double-haters
The media made much ado about the undecideds and double-haters tuning in to decide. They wish both parties had nominated younger candidates. Duh.
Frankly, the media are giving them too much coverage. In any case, they should caption all interviews with them: “Too dumb to vote.”
After all, this is hardly a choice between “the lesser of two evils.” Yes, both are old men. But the differences between their characters and visions for America are like night and day. Trump infamously induced evangelicals to abandon all religious principles to support him. But character still matters.
The incomparably decent and genial Biden is running on a record acclaimed as the most accomplished and consequential of any first-term president since LBJ. Moreover, he stands as America’s only hope of continuing as the world’s beacon of democracy.
Whereas adjudged rapist and accused insurrectionist Trump is running on a record designed to not only make the rich richer but turn America into a Russian-style autocracy. That any patriotic American wants to vote for him smacks of fatalistic cult worship.
Stupefying ignorance binds undecideds and double-haters. Interviews invariably feature them looking dumber than the Americans Jimmy Kimmel features on his street segments. For example, they know nothing about Biden’s accomplishments but insist they can’t vote for him based solely on Republican “cheap fakes” showing him as a doddering old fool.
But kudos to Biden for having the presence of mind, sense of humor, and good sense to at least attempt self-effacing jokes about old age. Trump is clearly too insecure to do so, and that alone should disqualify him.
The dark cloud of presidential immunity
The moderators flubbed questions on the dark cloud hanging over this debate: the looming Supreme Court decision on Trump’s claim of absolute presidential immunity. They should have posed this as the first question to Trump:
- Mr. Trump, if the Supreme Court grants the absolute presidential immunity you seek, do you understand that President Biden could immediately order the FBI to arrest you on charges of treason and for inciting more political violence like January 6, and that he could refuse to concede and transfer power if you actually win the presidential election this November?”
This critical question would have framed his debate performance by addressing the unprecedented nature of Trump’s candidacy and the dangers it portends.
Apropos of which, Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts constituted another dark cloud. Biden duly argued that Trump’s legal troubles make him unfit to serve as president. Trump vented his familiar grievances, claiming his indictments are part of a witch hunt by the Biden justice department.
But there’s no denying the damning spectacle of a sitting president debating a former president who is now a convicted felon. It reflects the dystopian state of American politics. Indeed, Trump had already broken so many norms that most Republicans seem to welcome the prospect of voting for a convicted felon.
Who won?
Trump won this debate. And he did so primarily by ignoring the questions and delivering the big lies he’s been spewing on the campaign trail with clarity and confidence (as any con man would). And he clinched it when he got Biden to join him in the gutter, bickering about who has the better golf game — as if anybody gives a shit.
Biden lost this debate. And he did so primarily because every answer he gave, no matter how knowledgeable and credible, sounded feeble and incomprehensible. Suppose you didn’t know you were watching a live debate. Because, ironically, the Biden on screen seemed like the result of MAGA operatives cutting splicing videos to make him look like a doddering old fool.
But nobody should be surprised that, well before the debate was over, Trump’s spinmeisters were already all over social media propagating that image of Biden. Still, cue the calls among honchos in the Democratic Party for Biden to step aside. Which is why Biden will live to regret not heading my call to retire, gracefully, instead of launching a reelection campaign.
Everyone credits Rep. James Clyburn with saving Biden’s floundering presidential campaign in 2020. It now falls to him to save the Democratic Party from Biden. He must prevail upon Biden to do the right thing and retire, ASAP.
That said, I cannot overstate the manifest folly of voters tuning in to this debate to help them decide who they’ll vote for. A presidential debate is no place to learn about the candidates’ positions on major issues like abortion, immigration, inflation, NATO, and the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.
After all, Trump and Biden have made so many public statements on these issues that any sentient being should be able to cite them like nursery rhymes.