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| Joe Biden |
Snapshot #1: Former President Donald Trump said:
“[Biden] allowed millions of people to come in here from prisons, jails and mental institutions.”That was totally false, and the fact-checking website PolitiFact.com wisely awarded Trump its dreaded “Pants on Fire” rating. The number of criminals involved ranks in the thousands at the most; many of them were promptly caught, and only a fraction of them crossed the southern border to get to the United States. (There are many other ways to get here.) Whether Trump was lying or engaging in hyperbole, he
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| Donald Trump |
simply spoke irresponsibly.
Snapshot #2: Asked about abortion, Biden, rambling aimlessly, said:
“I supported Roe v. Wade, which had three trimesters. First time is between a woman and a doctor. Second time is between the doctor and an extreme situation. And a third time is between the doctor – I mean, it’d be between the woman and the state.Furthermore, video shows that while Biden struggled to corral his drifting thoughts, he looked away from the camera, mumbled so that he could barely be heard, and seemed to drift away for a moment or two.
“The idea that the politicians – that the founders wanted the politicians to be the ones making decisions about women’s health is ridiculous. That’s the last – no politician should be making that decision.”
Two Ways to Judge the Debate?
So, back to our question: who won last night’s debate? Like most debate specialists, I mostly think about issues and proof. Like the philosophy student that I was, I say that it all depends on how you define terms. Biden clearly won on the issues. No contest. But who won the character test? That is trickier.
Almost everything Trump said was untrue if not incoherent. Trump claimed that he had presided over an excellent economy and that Biden wants to abort children after they’ve been born. Both points are false, and there is obviously no such thing as post-birth abortion. In contrast, Biden often spoke truthfully. Does any of that matter? For Biden looked weak and sounded hoarse. That leads to the real point of presidential debating! To “win” a presidential debate means only one thing: to win the election. The American voters make the final judgment. There is no other judge. Cable news pundits do not judge the debate. I do not judge the debate. Only the voters judge the debate.
How Do the Voters Choose?
Yes, Biden won the issues, but voters are not choosing issues. We voters are choosing a leader. When voters ignore the issues (as they usually do), they’re not necessarily making a mistake. The issues can be surprisingly irrelevant. When George W. Bush and Al Gore debated during the 2000 campaign, the key issue was Social Security. However, the unexpected key issue of Bush’s presidency was international terrorism, which the debates barely mentioned. When we chose between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in 2016, no one expected the coronavirus to become issue number one. When we choose a president, we want somebody who can handle whatever unexpected nightmares the world throws at us. The debates are not issue tests. They are character tests. We are not choosing an issue. We are choosing a leader.
Unfortunately, Trump and Biden both failed the leadership test. Trump told endless lies. Biden responded, correctly, that Trump was spewing “malarkey.” Unfortunately, Biden often paused, not for effect, but out of seeming confusion. He failed to make eye contact with the camera, lost his train of thought, and spoke in a scratchy voice. It was more than his usual harmless stuttering. He looked weak. He sounded weak. He rambled. He neither looked nor sounded like someone who could lead the world through its next crisis.
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| Abraham Lincoln, "Honest Abe" |
What about the lying? Fact checking is wonderful if people take it seriously. During last night’s debate, Biden certainly did better with the fact checkers. On PolitiFact.com, Trump received 1 “Pants on Fire” rating, 3 ratings of “Mostly False,” and 12 ratings of “False.” Trump received not a single rating of “True,” “Mostly True,” or “Half True.” Biden’s statements received 1 rating of “True,” 3 ratings of “Mostly True,” 3 of “Half True,” 1 of “Mostly False,” and 2 of “False.” Factcheck.org gave a similar analysis. Although neither man demonstrated the level of matchless accuracy that I would like to associate with the American presidency, Trump’s unrelenting dishonesty pricks the conscience. (Yes, I wish we had a better choice than these two: a compulsive liar versus an occasional liar? What would Abraham Lincoln say?)
This leaves the voters with a terrible choice. Do we want to turn the leadership of the free world and the nuclear codes over to a relentless liar who cannot be trusted to fulfill the simplest responsibilities? Or, instead, do we want to choose a man who is so feeble that he might collapse in a tense situation? If we are honest with ourselves, we will never find a satisfactory answer to those questions. There is no satisfactory answer.
The Debate Leaves Us Swirling in Uncertainty
While we seek answers, however, we need to remember that the debate is merely one snapshot. Biden has given many sharp, alert speeches. For example, in his 2023 State of the Union Address, Biden effortlessly out-argued Republican hecklers on the spot.
There is no objective way to judge a debate, which involves influencing perceptions as much as it entails logic. It is often said that Richard Nixon lost the 1960 presidential debate because he looked pale and ungroomed on television, and that people who heard the debate on radio thought he was equal to Kennedy. Similarly, I got a much more favorable impression of Biden when I read the transcript of the debate that I did when listening to him. The fact remains that a debater must project confidence. (I once lost a college debate because I looked flustered – the judge’s word was “shaken” – while giving the right answers. It can happen to anyone.)
Overall, last night raised questions about both candidates. Why did Biden look and sound weak last night? Is he falling to dementia, as Republicans want us to believe? Or was he just knocked down by a respiratory illness? Did the White House physician give him too much cold medicine? Did an allergy attack keep him up at night? The public needs to know whether Biden’s problems are temporary or enduring. In contrast, Trump lied, not occasionally, but constantly. He has a long history of lying. He will be a liar forever. He will tell lies on his deathbed. His tombstone will probably be inscribed with lies.
I end by counseling the voting public: kindly view this debate as a snapshot, not as a final image. The public already knows what it needs to know about Trump. Trump is utterly dishonest, and his supporters have made their peace about that. For that matter, so have the media pundits, who have long quit caring about Trump’s unrelenting deceptions. But what about Biden? We need to know more about Biden. Until we do, our key question – who won the debate? – remains shrouded in the mist.
by William D. Harpine
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P.S. Biden’s public schedule was essentially empty for several days before the debate. Did he use that time to practice? Or did his advisors give him a chance to recover from a secret illness? If it was the latter, they made a poor choice. It would be far better to call in sick and postpone the debate than to show up dysfunctional. But who knows? Nobody in the White House is talking.
Research Note: Did Nixon make a better impression on radio listeners than on television listeners in the 1960 debate? Theodore White seemed to make that point. It's entirely unclear that this is true. Before the television era, the Lincoln-Douglas debates mostly reached the public via newspaper transcripts.
Copyright © 2024, William D. Harpine
Photos of Joe Biden and Donald Trump, official White House photos, via Wikimedia Commons
Photo of Abraham Lincoln, 1863, Moses Parker Rice, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
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