FIRST DEBATE WAS NOT REPRESENTATIVE OF A REAL DEMOCRACY

 

…Due to the president, it was a wasted 90 minutes

 

Trump was pure Trump, while Biden tried to communicate to the American public

Absolutely, no one alive has ever seen a presidential debate like Tuesday night’s shout fest between President Trump and former vice president Joe Biden.  It was 90 minutes of disgusting interruptions and personal insults. It was an insult to the American public, and it was embarrassing as being from the supposed head of the free world as well.  What is worse is that it was a sad example of the state of our American democracy only five weeks before our election.

I have to say, the debate probably did marginally offer more help for Biden, at a moment when Trump seriously needed to change the shape and direction of his campaign.  But that’s not what the American people will remember.  Even partisans that were already locked into their choices, they were probably disgusted at what they witnessed. One can only imagine what the next two debates between the two men will look like, if the two participants agree to show up.

For decades, general-election debates have provided Americans with an opportunity to measure the candidates in an open forum, with moderators aiming to stay out of the way when possible. They have always included showmanship and sharp exchanges, but it was always with the boundaries of what people expect of their presidents. All of that went into the toilet Tuesday night.

The tone of the debate was established by Trump in the opening minutes, and it never changed to the end of the evening. The president constantly ignored moderator Chris Wallace’s repeated pleas to maintain order.  Trump took every opportunity and more to verbally hector Biden, throw his rival off balance as he took up as much space as possible. This was the same Trump who lives on Twitter.  It was not, someone who occupies the highest office in the land.

Biden was advised to maintain his cool, but he constantly looked peevish at Trump’s behavior, responding at times with well-prepared rejoinders, but he also did it with dismissive verbal broadsides.  Exasperated at one point, he shot back at the president, “Will you shut up, man?”  Biden cleared the low bar of expectations that the Trump campaign had inexplicably set for him, but neither hardly delivered what you would call a shining performance.

The dreary debate fittingly ended as it began, in a moment that foreshadowed a divisive end to the election.  As expected, Trump pressed his argument, without evidence, that mail ballots are rife with fraud and the election therefore will be invalid.

Trump declined to say that he would ask his supporters to stay calm until a final count had been validated.  Instead Trump indicated that he plans to rile up his backers to challenge and contest the vote counting everywhere possible.  He said he would accept the outcome only if he believed the election had been fair, which if he loses, he will say, “it was rigged”.

Biden said he would accept the outcome and predicted that Trump would too, once the votes were counted.  But no matter the winner, perhaps Biden was being a lot too optimistic.

The reality TV star president knows only one speed on a debate stage: “To attack, to bully his opponent and to ignore the rules.” For Fox’s Wallace, a tough and skilled interviewer, the debate was a total nightmare.

“Mr. President! Mr. President,” he exclaimed at one point as Trump refused to stay silent when Biden was answering a question. “Gentlemen!” he said at another moment as the two sparred loudly about Trump’s attack on Biden’s son Hunter.

Rare were the moments when the two actually discussed their differences calmly and clearly in a debate that ranged across several topics.  They included: the coronavirus pandemic, the Supreme Court, the economy, racial justice and violence in American cities.  More often, rather than engaging in exchanges that even bordered on civil, Trump talked over and past Biden.  As it continued, Biden had to try and talk over Trump.  Then it just got ridiculous.

Judging the debate by traditional standards gives the evening a lot more credit than it deserves. For most people, this was totally unwatchable.  For some, it probably was a “grab-the-remote, change-the-channel moment.”   The debate was what has been a forum that in past election years has served the country well.  What two more debates like this will accomplish is hard to imagine, other than to heighten tensions in a country already on edge.

Biden came ready to make his points and at times was far more focused in doing so than was the president. In an opening question about the Supreme Court vacancy created by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, he touched on the Affordable Care Act, abortion, public health and the 200,000 deaths from Covid-19. He was forced to repeatedly brand Trump as a liar who didn’t know what he was talking about.

This time, Trump played a different game, one of attack and belittling.  He hit Biden hard, particularly on law and order in the one moment when he seemed to have a prepared and consistent line of criticism.  One that his supporters were probably applauding.  He tried repeatedly to hang the socialist label around his rival.  Biden, then, perhaps to the disappointment of some on the left, he seemed to run away from a suggestion that he is part of the liberal wing of the party.

At times, each declined to answer direct questions about their positions and policy proposals. Biden wouldn’t say whether he would support expanding the Supreme Court if he won the election and Democrats captured the Senate. Trump wouldn’t answer a direct question about whether, as the New York Times reported, he paid just $750 in federal income taxes for 2016 and 2017.

Trump needed this debate more than did Biden, given the current shape of the race.  Four years ago, he came to the first debate with the polls narrowing and in a year when there was more movement in his contest with Hillary Clinton.

This year there has been only modest movement in the polls, with Biden steadily leading by an average of nine points before the two national conventions.  This is according to a Washington Post average of polls.  Biden is now leading by eight points.

What is more troubling for Trump has been his inability to break across a barrier that would move his support into the high 40s.  He has been stuck in poll averages somewhere around 43% since the late spring, while Biden has been around 50% or above since the beginning of last summer.

Trump’s challenge was to change the race from a referendum on his presidency into a clear choice between him and Biden. That is the goal of any incumbent president.  But it is especially for this president, who has used his office to make himself front and center in every way he can.  But today, he is hurting politically.

Instead Trump is choosing in a way that could cost him dearly.  Biden may have missed some opportunities, but his only real goal for the debate was to do nothing to change the race.  On that minimal goal, he did succeed.  However, that’s not what will be remembered about that night.  Instead it will be the degree of how much democracy itself has suffered, and it could suffer more as the caustic election plays out to its final conclusion.

This has been properly called the most important election in generations.  Some even say the most important in the life of this country.  But that’s not what people who tuned in saw.  Partisans will call winners and losers as they see them, and those judgments will of course, be predictable.

Collectively, this was not a night when this country could be proud of any claim for victory.

Instead, it was quite the opposite and it was an embarrassing night for a supposed leading democratic nation.

It doesn’t appear that the next two debates will be any better.

Copyright G. Ater 2020