Just because President Biden had a bad night doesn't mean former President Donald Trump performed well. It was not a competitive night.
The candidates sparred over golf (Trump accused Biden of lying about his handicap and suggested he “stop acting like a kid”). When asked how to make child care more affordable, Trump replied that he fired a general (former Chief of Staff Gen. John Kelly) after overhearing him call a deceased veteran a “stupid loser,” and blamed Biden for not firing anyone. “First of all, I don't have sex with porn stars,” as well as other memorable lines include “We had water. It was the best we've ever had” (Trump) and “By the way, we introduced the idea of the computer chip to so many people” (Biden).
The difference between the candidates is clear even in microcosm. One spouts lies and boasts nonsense with confidence. because That's totally unfair, and the other person interrupted himself and continued, weakly stating some half-remembered policy point.
Both candidates are record-breakingly old, historically unpopular, and highly unlikely to win past presidential elections. As the incumbent, President Biden will defend his record and Those worried about his age didn't think he could hold the reins for another four years. Donald Trump needed to assure undecided voters that he wasn't going to reject the results of another election, dismantle NATO or sign a federal abortion ban.
Both failed, but the difference in response stems from the fact that Trump's flaws are priced in, given how much voters know about him. Biden's flaws are not.
There are a number of reasons for this (including incumbency, which is always an election challenge), but the main one is that the president's public-facing attitude stands in almost perfect contrast to that of his opponent. Early in 2020, I argued that Biden would win a hotly contested Democratic primary on the strength of his underdog attitude. do not have Reaction: Whereas Trump craved the spotlight, held rallies and spent every waking moment angry and tweeting, Biden shunned appearances and interviews. He rarely attacked his fellow Democratic candidates, and their attacks were equally unhelpful.
Some speculated at the time that the Biden campaign was covering for him (the few interviews he gave were a bit odd). But whatever the reason, Biden's approach gave weary voters at the time something they craved: permission to tune out. That helped him get elected. Whether it helped his presidency is a more complicated question. Biden's unwillingness and ability to command attention, for example, makes it harder to sell the public on his accomplishments.
The bottom line is that voters haven't seen much of the president — they didn't want to see him, and he didn't want to be seen — so last night's debate was, among other things, a reintroduction to the president to a sizable portion of the country.
It ended up being very bad.
Biden needed to project energy, but spoke in a raspy, almost whispered voice. He needed to appear focused, but his train of thought was lost. A much-cited moment early in the debate, when he rambled on, seemingly without knowing what he was talking about, starting with taxes and ending with the phrase “we won Medicare,” was painful to watch. Many of his attacks were feeble, more “whining” than “felon.” This is television, where style trumps substance, so Biden's slack-jawed, blank-faced look for much of the debate was as shocking to viewers as his mediocre performance.
But the content wasn't much better either. The president misrepresented some of his most notable policy achievements. His answer on abortion was odd. And rather than out-rhetorically out-Trump, offering his own narrative, or characterizing his opponent as a threat to democracy, he often fell into the trap of embracing his framing. For example, rather than pointing out that women are being prosecuted for miscarriages and deaths, Roe v. Wade In response to claims that court decisions are being overturned and children are being forced to be born, he responded (in response to Trump's absurd claim that “all legal scholars wanted that” to be overturned) that for 51 years, “constitutional scholars have been saying that's the right path.”
It was this one that Biden chose to challenge while several bigger lies were left unchecked.
Now, it's not easy to argue with Donald Trump. Not because he's a good debater (as that skill has traditionally been understood), but because he's familiarized the world with his rhetorical strategies, which go far beyond “lying” and amount to a kind of verbal DDoS attack. Uninterested in the truth, he often resorts to kettle logic, presenting multiple versions of a position and letting his audience choose the one they like best. (For those who don't know, the kettle logic is the story of a man who borrowed a kettle from his neighbor and returned it broken. The borrower's argument was that the kettle was already broken when he borrowed it, but not broken when he returned it, and moreover, he never borrowed it in the first place.)
That shouldn't work, but Trump has demonstrated that not only can it work, but that the strategy is really hard to counter effectively in real time.
For example, last night, Trump He blamed Nancy Pelosi for the events of January 6th.It's a crazy story, but it happened. He claimed she was in charge, and went on to boast that he felt “they” were coming to the Capitol and that he had offered the Mayor or Pelosi (not sure how many) 10,000 troops to deal with them. Here's part of the speech:
“And the mayor of Washington said no in writing. The mayor said no in writing. I offered $10,000, because there was nothing for me to do. They asked me to give a speech. I knew what was going on. Everybody was saying they'd be there on January 6th. They're going to be there. And I said, 'Look, a lot of people are coming. You could feel it. You could feel it.' And I said, 'They should have the National Guard or something.' And I offered her. And she's now admitting that she said no. It was the same day. She's… I don't know, I don't think she's going to be very happy about it. [Pelosi’s] My daughter didn't, because she became a liar. She said, 'I take full responsibility for January 6th.'”
After blasting Pelosi for foolishly refusing a far-sighted offer of military aid to deal with the rioters (of course, there is no record of such an offer), he attacked Joe Biden for destroying the rioters' livelihoods.
“What did they do to innocent people? You should be ashamed of what you have done, how you have destroyed so many lives.” At another point, he suggested the rioters were “led by the police”.
It would be hard to concisely point out in the one minute we are given how these three explanations contradict each other (do we start with Pelosi? Do we start with the military?) And even if we did, it wouldn't matter: Trump doesn't really care what he's saying and would have already moved on because he knows it's not true.
To effectively counter this technique would require a combination of quick thinking, verbal dexterity, good stagecraft, and humor (without being accused of pedantry). It would also require total control of your own narrative and the ability to quickly change course and get the public to hear what you really want to say. This is not a fair ask, but Biden nearly did it in 2020.
This time they did not, and the American people witnessed the most brutal television program in political history: brutal to hear and brutal to see. Spectacle It is made up of two different ineptitudes, and it is no comfort to know that one poses a much greater threat than the other.
There is no real hope that either candidate can unite the country. But on a funereal debate stage with no audience, no fact-checking and barely any moderation by CNN's Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, the two men together laid out risks facing the country that are far more dire than either could assert alone.
