Just going back to 2020 and 2016, regular media will key on the bizarre statements and behaviors Trump exhibits. Those were turnoffs for non-Trump supporters and little has changed since then. They certainly aren’t going to come away with “what a strong leader!” from that.
I’m much less sanguine about how much the needle changes from that, though. There are few truly ‘independent’ or ‘undecided’ voters, especially in the battlegrounds, and it really does seem to be more about turnout and enthusiasm than showing people anything new.
Yes, but because some journalists will accurately add that Biden also made mistakes and exaggerated, progressives will agree with Trump that mainstream media is the enemy.
What the debates need is a moderator like the one who handled the debate in which Bobert recently participated. Ask hard questions and don’t accept BS answers. I can dream, ya know.
It seems relevant to say that higher turnout in November would help Trump. Wait, what? Yes, gifted article:
Biden leads among those who vote the most. Trump leads among those who voted in neither 2016 nor 2020. Trump also leads among those who voted in 2020 election, but not primaries or midterms.
Take this with a grain of salt. Polls are meaningless predictors before June of the election year. I assume the least engaged will start to focus in late summer. Still, this election deserves fresh eyes.
Another reminder: the significance of the debate is measured in the vid clips that come afterwards, not the debate audience itself. It would be helpful for Biden to establish that he is still sharp (as everyone who has met him in person says) in contrast with Trump whose thinking has always been impressionistic at best.
Bein Meiselas does another video in which he talks about how Fox is laying the groundwork for Trump pulling out or to lower expectations for Trump’s performance.
What the debates need is to hand the job back to the League of Women Voters, something that neither party wants. Seriously, these debates are mostly spectacle. James Fallows:
Why it’s a waste of time : Over more than 30 years—I am thinking back to the Clinton/GW Bush/Ross Perot debates of 1992—“debates” have become more and more like classic “Miss America” contests. They have been about who comes across as “sincere” and “in touch,” more than anything else. No voter can remember anything a candidate says at these affairs—unless it’s a “gaffe.” What matters is how they come across.
…There is nothing Donald Trump could say that would be a trustworthy guide to his performance in office. And nothing Joe Biden could say that would outweigh what he has done, or the team he has chosen.
It’s just a show. Bread-and-circuses style.
Fallows was discussing an April 2024 statement from a bunch of news organizations saying they really wanted a debate. Fallows offered counter-plans:
How about, instead: a commitment to an hour-long one-on-one interview with each network’s anchor. (Biden would presumably agree; Trump, only with NewsMax.) Or, a commitment from candidates to abide by “official” election results, now most authoritatively from the AP? Or an official statement that previous election results have been valid — something no national figure other than Donald Trump would ever have challenged?
ETA: Biden prepped for Czarcasm’s scenario in 2020. “Will you shut up, man?”
That’s basically saying they’ve always been a waste of time - the League of Women Voters ran 3 Presidential debates ever and backed out when they realized they were a waste of their own time.
People have this high-minded notion of Presidential debates as a way of showing differences in positions and making a case for policy but they’ve almost never been that. Even the first one-off JFK/Nixon debate is remembered for how badly Nixon looked on TV, not for his actual policy positions.
I say go the other way. If people insist on having these dog and pony shows, embrace the beauty pageant nature of them. Or just get rid of them. They aren’t a real democratic “tradition” in any real policy sense anyway.
I had been leaning toward ‘Trump will make an excuse and won’t show’ but now agree with many that one week out, Trump runs the risk of looking like a Cowardly Loser no matter what excuse he offers. (Likely the ‘Biden is drugged and CNN has refused to make drug testing a requirement’ one.)
Assuming he shows: I’ve looked over the rules carefully. There is no rule that would keep Trump at his podium. He is perfectly free to walk over to Biden’s podium when that’s the one with a live mic, and just talk and talk and talk.
And that is what he will do.
And Jake Tapper and Dana Bash will say “PLEASE Mr. President, remain at your own podium” and Trump will say “You won’t let me talk and the American People have a right to hear what I have to say, so I’ll do what I have to do” and that will be that.
And the right will fall all over themselves with admiration for his Strength.
If Biden is at his mic and donald tries to push him away aren’t there secret service agents to keep this from happening? They both have them and those agents are not going to go to war over it.
I don’t believe that’s what he’ll do as I think Trump is aware that it will make him look like an unhinged maniac. He’d never admit it in public, but Trump knows he’s got to worry about attracting the normies instead of the deplorables who make up his core followers.
