Abolish Debates Once and for All
Even if the candidates weren’t shouting over each other, did we really gain anything?
Almost everyone seems to think last night’s debate was so much better than the first. To me, that’s a bit like saying having a stroke is much better than suffering a heart attack. It’s not. Even if it’s less painfully dramatic to watch, the damage is the same — or, in this case, actually worse.
A less unhinged president speaking lies in a calm voice is not fundamentally an improvement over a totally unhinged president shouting lies out of turn. It simply camouflages the inadequacy of his arguments under the veneer of a well-established format. Indeed, the debate structure itself enables and legitimizes the untethering of civic discourse from on-the-ground reality. This can’t go on. Blame the moderators all you want, but the form itself is untenable. Or at least it’s been rendered obsolete by a combination of television values and intentional spoilsporting.
Merely turning on the TV felt a bit like subjecting myself to a late season of Jerry Springer or The Apprentice — when the thrill of getting to see something horrifically vulgar no longer titillates. The nerve endings capable of responding to it are fried to a crisp. The bizarre reality show that has been masquerading as a democratic process for the past four years now feels less like must-see TV than an obligatory vigil.
Trump knew this. His televised town hall last week lost in the Nielsen ratings to Biden’s, even though he was on more channels. And so he had to change his game and play grown-up for the television viewers, even if only for an hour or so, to prove he could do it.
The debate organizers played along, using a mute switch to ensure Trump waited his turn. But it’s not as if a mute button meant his schoolyard antics would be exchanged for reasoned discourse. We didn’t trade Celebrity Deathmatch for PBS Frontline. No, we got a slightly more presidential Trump, but it was still Trump. He hit Biden with…
