Two Bad Debaters

By Noah Rothman

Monday, September 09, 2024

 

On the eve of what might be the only debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, it is easy to forget that general-election debates have historically not mattered much. The June 27 debate in which Joe Biden melted into a doddery puddle before our very eyes is the exception that proves the rule. Given the proximity to November’s vote, the closeness of the election, and the commitment among partisans to their respective candidates, Tuesday’s debate is unlikely to alter the political landscape.

 

That’s a safe bet given how mediocre both Harris and Trump are as debaters. Their mediocrity is, however, distinctive.

 

Trump starts off strong. Indeed, I believe that it wasn’t just Biden’s rambling, disjointed answer to a question about the national debt, which culminated in the president’s inexplicably declaring that we had “finally beat Medicare,” that set the tone for the rest of the debate. It was also Trump’s searing rebuttal that did Biden in. “I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence,” Trump replied after a smartly timed beat. “I don’t think he knows what he said either.” That was one of several moments in that encounter in which Trump rattled off one or two sharp, dismissive, or record-correcting sentences that landed perfectly.

 

Yet the discipline Trump displays at the outset of his remarks soon dissolves into the fog of his own muddled thinking. Within a sentence or two, Trump retreats into the shorthand decipherable only to the MAGA faithful. He rails against “third-rate” venues that criticize him without naming them. He cites “Russia, Russia, Russia,” as though you’re supposed to understand that that bullet-point distills years of controversy and investigations into the former president’s supposed collusion with foreign assets. That was “was made up, just like the 51 intelligence agents are made up, just like the new thing with the 16 economists are talking,” Trump continued . . . Huh? Only those who follow electoral politics at a granular level understood the open letters Trump touched on, and who knows if they have the requisite command of the facts necessary to contextualize them.

 

Trump doesn’t make arguments. He makes references. And although Trump is a skilled rhetorical pugilist with a showman’s affect, he loses his audience when he retreats into his grievances and the shorthand that he uses to describe them.

 

Harris has the opposite problem. When speaking extemporaneously, she sets off in the directionless pursuit of a thought worthy of expression. The vice president so often sounds like a flighty, new-age, self-help guru because she has embarked on a journey of discovery, the ultimate destination being a cogent statement somewhere over the horizon. She usually gets there, but she can do a lot of damage to her own brand in the interim.

 

That bad habit is why Democratic debate watchers in 2019 were treated to sentences such as “So part of how I believe we’re going to win this election is, it is going to be because we are focused on the future, we are focused on the challenges that are presented today and not trying to bring back yesterday to solve tomorrow,” in response to a question as straightforward as “How would you pay for that?”

 

Harris has another vulnerability, albeit one that masquerades as a strength. In 2019, she thrilled Democratic audiences when she accused Joe Biden of cozying up with southern segregationists and opposing forced busing programs. Her attack implied that Biden had racial hostility in his heart. But when she was later pressed to make her implicit accusation explicit, Harris declined. In much the same way that she could never substantiate the allegations she leveled against Brett Kavanaugh in his confirmation hearings, Harris has no follow-through. Ultimately, in the days that follow her attacks, the sting wears off because she either cannot or will not prosecute her own charge.

 

After his strong start, Trump reliably rockets off into orbit, leaving his audiences to ponder his meaning. After her weak start, Harris eventually finds her way to comprehensibility, but not before undermining her self-set image as a skilled prosecutor. We can expect to see both tendencies on display tomorrow night.