It's the Debate that Failed Last Night, Not Biden
Some Thoughts on Thursday's Presidential Debate
It's been two days since the Presidential debate on CNN. Biden tried to say decent, ethical things but delivered most of his words poorly; Trump spoke much more clearly but said vile things and lied just about every time he opened his mouth (lies which the CNN moderators failed to call out).
What are we to think about all of this?
I would say it's that debates shouldn't matter as much as they seem to. JFK looked better on TV than did Nixon, and a majority of people who saw the two on TV thought Kennedy won. A much smaller number of people heard the same debate on radio, and thought Nixon won. That event certainly demonstrated the importance of debates. But though JFK proved to be an excellent President, the fact that he won the debate was really no indication that JFK would do so well in office. The debates, in other words, were very valuable windows into the effects of media in politics, not indicators of the political character and acumen of the candidates.
It's plain logic that what a President does in office has nothing to do with the President's voice quality or appearance. FDR was in a wheelchair throughout his presidency. He connected to the American people in an age before television via his fireside chats on radios. Few people knew he was in a wheelchair. Most historians agree that he was our very best President, getting the United States out of the Great Depression, and guiding us and our allies to victory in the Second World War.
I've spent my professional life as a professor of media and an author talking about the importance of televised debates, how candidates look and sound on television. JFK won the debate with Nixon because because by 1960 more than 90-percent of Americans had television in their homes and JFK looked so good. Reagan prevailed over Mondale by making a savvy joke about not making the younger age of his opponent an issue. Obama faltered in his first debate with Romney but came back strong in their second nationally televised conversation. But maybe it's time to focus on what debates really are: a 90-minute performance on camera that has little to do with what the candidate did, is doing, or will do in office. The truth is that the skills needed to be an effective debater have nothing to do with the skills needed to be an effective President. Never did, never will. Maybe it's long since time that we recognized that.
Marshall McLuhan was the first to point out that JFK won the 1960 debates and then the election because he performed so well on television, in contrast to Nixon who was judged as winning the debates on their radio broadcasts that so few people listened to. McLuhan made this observation in Understanding Media (1964), whose breakthrough message was "the medium is the message". The view that Biden's poor performance in Thursday's debate means he's no longer fit to be President strikes me as an egregious case of mistaking the medium (the debate) for the message (Biden's been doing a superb job as President).
Or, to paraphrase Shelley, maybe it's the debate that failed on Thursday night, not Biden.
***
And Biden amply demonstrated his power to effectively communicate in a rip-roaring speech in North Carolina the day after the debate, on Friday, June 28th, afternoon. Again, a debate is a unique mode of communication, which not only has nothing to do with Presidential decision-making and other Chief Executive activity, but not much in common with speech-making, interviews, and other kinds of communication, either.
But also on Friday, June 28th, The New York Times' editorial board, lamenting Biden's weak performance in Thursday's Presidential debate, called on Joe Biden to leave the race. They didn't say a word about Biden's speech in North Carolina. What are we to make about such an unprecedented call from the editors of what used to be known as the newspaper of record? I would say this is just more evidence of the decline of a once-great newspaper. See my What's Wrong with The New York Times for an example this past Fall of what I'm talking about.
About the Creator
Paul Levinson
Novels The Silk Code, The Plot To Save Socrates, It's Real Life: An Alternate History of The Beatles; LPs Twice Upon A Rhyme & Welcome Up; nonfiction The Soft Edge & Digital McLuhan, translated into 15 languages. Prof, Fordham Univ.
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Comments (4)
I don’t watch debates. I know in the past, before internet, they were important. However, nowadays, I feel it’s a waste of time. I wasn’t in the mood to spend 90 minutes listening to two old men complain about the other like elementary school children. I get enough of that at work. Turns out, I was right not to watch it. I do agree with you on the debate has nothing to do with performance. I just wish more people understood that as well.
Our culture now is so focused on visuals we have trouble concentrating on real issues. The debates became a useless exercise in performance and jabs rather than debating policy and proposals.
"Ridin with Biden" We know about the debates. We know that being a skilled debater has nothing to do with performance as a President . However, it's the other people who look at appearances and superficial part of humans who are judging on performance . Trump played the strong man part, holding his nose in the air, moving his head from side to side, and most of all, lying with every breath he spoke. Biden was thinking to himself, " OMG ! "
This debate did nothing to change my position as for whom I will vote in November. I stand firmly with Biden. First of all he has accomplished more than most presidents. Some of his achievements are major achievements such as the Infrastructure Act. True many of the jobs created on his watch are jobs that were lost during the pandemic. But this is what we have to remember. If Biden were handling the situation the wrong way then we would not be seeing this huge number of jobs coming back after the pandemic. It would be a slow trickle instead of a big boom. But not only that it's not just the jobs that were lost there's a whole lot of good paying jobs. It is not just the retail and restaurant jobs. Because of the new infrastructure at there are many very good paying jobs being created right now. At jobs and the architecture industry, the design industry, the construction industry, they mapping industry. Also manufacturing jobs are being brought back to the United states. There's a lot of good stuff going on right now. Another thing we have to remember about this inflation, is that no matter who would have become president whether Biden or Trump, this inflation was going to happen. What we have to recognize about the inflation is the level of inflation that we experienced. The United States had one of the lowest levels of inflation compared to the rest of the world. Yes, this inflation was a global issue not just here in the united states, we need to remember that also. But due to Joe Biden's policies the inflation was much lower in the United States than it was in other parts of the world. I found one opportunity that Joe Biden best was when Donald Trump said that Joe never fires anybody. Joe Biden should have come back and said that he doesn't need to fire anybody because he has all competent people in his administration. Joe has surrounded himself with well experienced and competent people. He has all the tools at hand to complete the job of the presidency with success and he has been doing so. It is for these reasons and more that this debate meant nothing to me. It means nothing to me because I see the job he is doing and that he does have the experience to accomplish great things for our country. Plus I like the fact that he is a soft-spoken man I got he works toward keeping his conversation civil and intelligent.