No holds barred
This week, amidst a heated political climate, the round of traditional US Presidential debates began. To say that anyone expected a peaceful and standard debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden would be a lie. Indeed, what everyone expected was the same chaos that was witnessed during the Trump-Clinton debate in 2016, a political slugfest that does not shy away from making low blows when needed. What was the variable factor in all this was how Joe Biden would cope against Trump's relentless attempts to control the debate and generally depending on who you ask, he managed to hold his ground and even attack back when the opportunity presented itself.
The theme of the debate overall seemed to be Trump near persistently interrupting any and all attempts to move the debate forward, talking over the moderator Chris Wallace as much as he did over Joe Biden himself. Many times Trump attempted to argue with Wallace regarding his questions, interrupting him frequently to make his point. Both Wallace and Biden had a visibly difficult time of interrupting Trump and asking him to follow the set rules for the debate. While there were some policy points discussed in loose detail, the debate, by and large, was one of the most lacking of its kind in actual substance and information regarding the wider policy concerns of both candidates. Though candidates have ample time to make their agenda clear even before the debate, such an event provides space for a substantial investigation behind the rhetoric. This is the essence of the Presidential debates. Attacking the other person is part of the process but it isn't the objective. This is what was missing from this debate. Even Wallace himself seemed to have given up making sense of the full 90-minute debate that escalated until it was difficult to follow. Trump, of course, carries a large part of the blame for derailing the debate but Biden did not help things. While Trump rode out the debate with a near-continuous outpouring of rhetoric, Biden chose to simply play by countering. He appealed to the American people to see the truth, attempted to drag out Trump's public shortfalls and even his well-publicised gaffes like recommending the injection of hand sanitisers. But maybe this is how you fight Trump, not with policies and figures but with rhetoric, clever quips and 'heartfelt feelings'. After all, having a politically correct debate did not pan out for Hillary back in 2016, Biden may have learned this lesson.
All the same, while Chris Wallace did attempt to redirect the debate towards meaningful questions like the Coronavirus response or economic recovery, such attempts soon fell apart as Trump made his signature boasts without giving facts and Biden countered by appealing to the public and insulting Trump. As observers pointed out, only two sections of the debate actually garnered any meaningful attention. First, Trump addressed the New York Times report regarding his tax releases by repeating that he pays millions in taxes. Then, he pivoted by mentioning that he doesn't want to pay tax and mentioned that smart private investors likewise manage to dodge taxes wherever possible. He even turned the conversation around on Biden by mentioning that it was the Obama administration that let such tax loopholes remain. The second section that grabbed attention for all the wrong reasons for Trump's latest failure to denounce white supremacists. Chris Wallace repeatedly offered the US President the opportunity to condemn the far-right. Trump used the opportunity to offer up a bizarre message to one of these far-right groups, the Proud Boys, who he stated should " stand by and stand-back". As expected, regardless of whatever his message actually meant, Proud Boys chose to see it as a sign of support and has already added the phrase to their t-shirts. Experts have stated that such ambiguous messages that can be interpreted as affirmatory are naturally dangerous and reckless in the extreme.
Overall, this debate was a disappointment on most counts. An easy indicator of this is how US stock investors barely took note of the whole thing. Presidential debates usually result in large movements on the stock market as investors use the policy stances they discern from the candidates to make investment shifts. It is also unfortunate to note that while both candidates put on the appearance of simpering confidence, the debate essentially boiled down to one claiming to be the best President ever and another claiming that the former is the worst President ever in US history. Veteran journalists have expressed the absurdity of such a debate in the face of their experience covering other such debates and how such a political dogfight is an embarrassment to the nation. Still, this was just the first of three debates and one can hope that aggressive routines of name-calling and interrupting will eventually give way to real debate. But then again, expectations of the way things should be are rarely met in our politically lopsided times.
