By Jim Geraghty
Wednesday, September 30, 2020
Last night, I thought the first presidential debate of
the 2020 cycle was bad. This morning, after a night’s sleep and further
reflection, I think it was even worse than bad.
Assume, for a moment, that you think Joe Biden is well
past his prime, that he’s not as quick on his feet or as sharp as he used to
be, and that he wilts under pressure. Assume you believe that Biden’s “word
salad” moments are indicators of senility or some other serious mental problem
that will impede his ability to perform the duties of the presidency. Assume
you believe that Biden’s campaign calls all of these early “lids” because they
just don’t trust the candidate to perform and want to minimize the amount of
time that their man is in front of the cameras.
If you believe all that and you’re President Trump, why
on earth would you go into a debate and constantly try to talk over him and
minimize the amount of time Biden speaks? If you believe Biden’s biggest
liability is his mouth, why would you try to ensure the debate was 90 minutes
of crosstalk?
Trump effectively called a lid on Biden early in the
evening.
Then, if you think your opponent is going to try to duck
the debates, why would you hand him an excuse to withdraw from the next two
debates on a silver platter? (For what it’s worth, the Biden campaign says they
will participate in all the remaining debates.)
The debate was bad for Trump, not really all that good
for Biden, bad for moderator Chris Wallace, bad for the viewers at home, and
bad for our system of government. The only people who had a good night were the
far-right extremist Proud Boys.
In a year that has been a dumpster fire in so many ways,
this debate fit in perfectly.
There is a defense to be made of this administration’s
record, and
a critique of Joe Biden and his allies in the Democratic Party. But the
president’s hurricane of bluster and hectoring and heckling didn’t really make
those arguments. Part of the problem is that President Trump either can’t
remember particular facts and figures or can’t be bothered to try.
Which is more persuasive — something like this . . .
Since
2005, national greenhouse gas emissions have fallen by 10 percent, and
power sector emissions have fallen by 27 percent — even as our economy grew by
25 percent . . . From 2005 to 2018, total U.S. energy-related CO2 emissions
fell by 12 percent. In contrast, global energy-related emissions increased
nearly 24% from 2005 to 2018 . . . U.S. greenhouse gas emissions fell about 2
percent in 2019 . . . The
2019 drop was driven by a nearly 10 percent fall in emissions from the
power sector, the biggest decline in decades.
Or what the president said last night: “We have now the
lowest carbon — if you look at our numbers right now, we are doing
phenomenally.”
The president wasn’t wrong, but because he doesn’t care
about the details, he doesn’t cite the details, and it sounds like his usual
boasting.
But don’t take it from me. You can argue that the Michael
Beschlosses and Jon Meachums
of the world were always going to detest a Trump debate performance, although I
think their scathing post-debate denunciations of the president are their
genuine opinions and not played up for effect. Listen to these folks who are,
by no stretch of the imagination, pulling for Joe Biden:
“The problems the president had tonight can potentially
be fixed,” says Chris Christie, who is part of the Trump debate prep team, on
ABC.
The Wall Street Journal editorial board: “The
benign explanation for the President’s performance is that like other
incumbents in their first debates he was overconfident and underprepared. A
less benign view is that he grew flustered as the debate went on and lost his
cool and whatever focus he had at the start. He was so scattershot with his
answers that he rarely offered a sustained case for his own policies. When Mr.
Biden said Mr. Trump had called veterans ‘suckers’ and ‘losers,’ Mr. Trump
didn’t refute it but brought up Hunter Biden.”
The Boss: “The debate was pretty awful and I think the
most important, and perhaps only, takeaway is that Biden didn’t buckle. He got
flustered at times, did his share of interrupting, and was evasive on some key
questions. But the point of the president going Full Trump, as Dan puts it
below, was to make Biden crack and it didn’t happen. So Trump turned in a
performance that a lot of viewers will find unpresidential without getting the
upside. I doubt the debate will change the race much one way or the other, but
Biden benefits every day the trajectory of the race stays the same.”
Brit Hume: “If the winner was the person who displayed
the greatest force of personality, obviously, I think you would have to declare
Donald Trump the winner. I’m not sure . . . that people at home would find that
all that appealing. As for Vice President Biden, one of the big questions that
hung over him tonight was whether the age and the forgetfulness and the
confusion that has overtaken him at times would assert itself tonight. As far
as I could see, it did not. I thought he held up very well. He was largely
clear. At times, he was thrown off stride by the president’s interruptions, but
who wouldn’t have been? So, I don’t know how many minds were changed. I don’t
know if any minds were changed.”
Guy Benson: “Well, that was bad. Hard to organize
thoughts after that chaos, but bottom line: Biden’s overall goal was to look
like an acceptable alternative for voters who are exhausted by Trump & want
a change. I suspect he succeeded. He’s already leading. So he won the night.”
Erick Erickson: “Undecided voters this late in the game
typically break away from the incumbent for something different. I think both
Trump and Biden probably did give them an excuse to break towards Biden if any
of them bothered sticking around to the end. The upshot for the President is
the debate performances of both men probably left most undecided voters hurling
F-bombs, going to bed early, and deciding to stay home altogether. Maybe that
helps the GOP.”
Michael Goodwin of the New York Post: “The bulk of
the blame falls on Trump, who came with a clear plan and executed it
flawlessly. Unfortunately, it was a very bad plan. From the get-go, the
president was determined to rattle Joe Biden by being a persistent interrupter,
rarely letting the former vice president finish two consecutive sentences. On
occasion, his interjections were smart, but mostly, they made him look boorish
. . . I was surprised at Trump’s approach. It was an example of all tactics and
no strategy. He interrupted even when Biden was stumbling, which had the effect
of letting Biden off the hook and out of the rhetorical weeds.”
John Podhoretz in the New York Post: “The simple
fact of the matter is that Trump was incredibly unpleasant to watch, and Biden
wasn’t. It was painful and sordid and cringe-inducing, and that was almost
entirely Trump’s doing.
In fairness, some people thought the president won. Hugh
Hewitt declared, “Donald Trump would play this debate on an endless loop if he
could.”
Dissecting the ‘Proud
Boys’ Exchange
About 42 minutes into last night’s debate . . .
WALLACE: You have repeatedly
criticized the vice president for not specifically calling out Antifa and other
left-wing extremist groups. But are you willing tonight to condemn white
supremacists and militia group and to say that they need to stand down and not
add to the violence in a number of these cities as we saw in Kenosha, and as
we’ve seen in Portland.
TRUMP: Sure, I’m willing to do
that.
WALLACE: Are you prepared
specifically to do it?
TRUMP: I would say almost
everything I see is from the left wing, not from the right wing.
WALLACE: But what are you saying?
TRUMP: I’m willing to do anything.
I want to see peace!
WALLACE: Well, do it, sir.
BIDEN: Say it, do it, say it!
TRUMP: What do you want to call
them? Give me a name, give me a name, go ahead! Who do you want me to condemn?
WALLACE: White supremacist and
right-wing militia.
TRUMP: Proud Boys, stand back and
stand by. But I’ll tell you what, somebody’s got to do something about Antifa
and the left because this is not a right-wing problem, this is a left-wing.
BIDEN: His own FBI Director said
unlike white supremacist, Antifa is an idea not an organization-
TRUMP: Oh, you got to be kidding
me!
BIDEN: -not a militia! That’s what
his FBI Director said!
TRUMP: Well, then you know what,
he’s wrong.
WALLACE: We’re done, sir. Moving
onto the next . . .
First, notice Trump brought up the Proud Boys by name,
not his rival or the moderator.
Second, notice Trump’s bafflingly stubborn refusal to
say, “I denounce White supremacists and right-wing militias.” It’s as if Trump
thinks everyone won’t notice, or that the viewers at home will give him some
sort of credit for not going along with other people’s requests or demands.
Almost everyone else in politics would calculate that any value from not
denouncing white supremacists, right-wing militias, or the Proud Boys is more
than offset by the damage done among other voters who abhor those groups and
who will be repelled by a president who won’t denounce them by name. For some
reason, Trump seems to think he can lose all the soccer moms and make up the
margin among the extremes.
Third, notice Trump defenders will insist “stand back and
stand by” means “stand down.” But if Trump wanted to say “stand down,” he
should have said “stand down!” Say what you mean and mean what you say. The
common defense of Trump’s “very fine people on both sides” comment about
Charlottesville is that he meant to refer to the non-extreme Confederate statue
defenders, not the violent and anti-Semitic white nationalists, and his words
just came out in an awkward, unclear way that sounded like he was referring to
the white nationalists. Funny how Trump’s accidental word mix-ups consistently
create this impression that he doesn’t want to alienate these groups.
Fourth, notice that Biden seems to think that because
Antifa is an idea, not an organization, he’s not under any particular
obligation to denounce it.
ADDENDUM: Jay Cost with an astute and trenchant
observation: “Cable news has
profited off turning politics into a spectacle. And now they have the temerity
to bemoan it?”
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