I am going to push back on this a little because it’s important to understand what the debates mean in terms of shaping perceptions and actually changing voting behavior.
Let’s start with the obvious: my exact math might be wrong, right at this moment, but about 45-48% of the people who vote are probably determined to vote for Biden no matter what. About 42-45% of the people who plan to vote are equally determined to vote for Trump no matter what. We’re talking about right now, not election day. Both candidates will probably add about 2-3% of ‘leaners’ who will come home on election day. But we’re talking about upwards of 5 to 10% of people who haven’t decided what they’re going to do. Some might vote third party. Some might come home to their parties or party preferences. Some might not vote at all. There’s still a lot up for grabs. About 90% of the voters who watched last night’s debate aren’t changing their positions at all; they’re just cheering their guy on.
It’s that 5-10% of viewers that I worry about. And let me say it now: Trump will actually get at least some of these voters. He might not get but 2 or 3 out of these ten to actually come vote for him, but he will get some of that vote. But that’s not the most dangerous consequence of these ‘debates.’
Trump can ‘win’ by turning the entire thing into a shit show and forcing some exasperated voters to not vote at all. That’s the strategy he’s using here. He’s not trying to make himself look better; he’s trying to make Biden look worse, so that by the end of the 2nd or 3rd debate, undecided voters are so fed up with the debates that they decide ‘They both suck.’
Remember, if they both suck, that benefits Trump more than Biden. It’s another, more sophisticated form of voter suppression: make the voters unenthusiastic about either candidate so that only the hardliners show up to vote. That’s also why Donald Trump refused to disavow white supremacists because he was speaking their language last night, and the white supremacists told everyone on twitter that they got his message loud and clear, and that Trump can absolutely count on their support.
Biden could lose if he continues with these debates and with this format. He can, and should, offer to continue but only with a change in rules. Right now, there’s near universal, bipartisan agreement that the debate was a sleaze fest. Biden would be well within his rights in the eyes of many to demand a higher standard of debate format, and he must demand that before the next two debates. If he doesn’t insist on changes, on cutting off Trump’s mic and on fact checks, and if he walks into the next two debates and get bombarded with more sleaze, this only benefits Trump. It benefits Trump if Biden fights back because then Biden is making himself look less presidential, and it benefits Trump if Biden sits there with his head down and looks weak.
Here’s another danger: Notice how Trump tried to push Biden into disagreeing with Sanders’ progressives? Whether it worked this time or not, I don’t know, but this won’t be the last time Trump tries this tactic. He wants Biden to start clarifying where he stands with respect to the progressive wing of the party, and the danger is that he could start pushing Biden into making statements that make young Millennial and digital natives doubt Biden’s street cred. In a different time, I’d say “Tough, debates are about showing your mettle and letting people know where you stand.” But Trump is a pathological liar and a bully, and there’s just too much at stake to let him get away with derailing the debate and further gaslighting the public.
I think the pundits couldn’t be more wrong on this. Biden won’t win these types of debates; his image will gradually suffer as a result, and what we’ll be left with are the most fervent supporters, who will undoubtedly be Trump’s legion of anti-tax authoritarians and white Christian nationalists.
Biden has to demand that any new debates have an entirely different format that involves cutting the mic and giving time for some legitimate answers. These debates aren’t just bad for the candidates, they’re bad for the democracy. People at home walk away feeling like there’s nothing of substance that comes from hearing the candidates talk - something that erodes the strength of democracy and plays further into the hands of authoritarians like Trump and the modern GOP. As if using the debates as a platform to tell the American people that he fully intends to discredit the elections wasn’t bad enough, the entire debate event was a sham shit show. If Biden agrees to more of these, then he’s just making his own thorny little bed.