Even by the standard of Presidential non-debates, this one stood out. It was as much a debate as the end of Caddyshack, where the bad guy’s supporters are hissing “Noonan, Noonan” as Danny is trying to make the putt.
That, of course, was Trump’s strategy— to rattle Biden enough so that he would lose his train of thought and look befuddled and to say the wrong things. And it might have worked if done sparingly.
But if you spend the whole evening breaking the rules and being an obvious jerk it usually doesn’t work, and even backfires. And even the Biden “gaffes” that the press will duly report aren’t really that terrible— hey, you seemed like you approved of a Green New Deal that much of your own party, and especially younger voters, are psyched about! The horror!…
My read was that Biden came out of the endless interruptions with lots of good lines that will play well as sound bites, and also happen to be true. For those who think that Trump dominated the debate, it’s worth noting that basically the whole thing came to a standstill repeatedly when Biden wasn’t taking the policy initiative. By any conventional standards, he looked like the President, and Donald Trump did not.
Historically the American public as a whole doesn’t respond well to politicians who register as mean and angry. Petulant people who have only one gear don’t wear very well. Trump had an air of confidence in the 2016 debates that he lacked this time, and he was helped then by the many contenders on stage. He doesn’t wear well in large doses, as the COVID-19 task force meetings showed.
Now things have changed greatly in the age of Trump, but to my eyes the glowering and the lack of humor and meanness seemed more like a desperate man cornered than someone projecting strength. At the very least it is hard to believe that a majority of the small sliver of undecided voters would look at Trump and say “Hey, we’ve been missing something here— that’s our guy!”
In my books and I’m speculating in many other households, even among Trump supporters I know, Biden’s standing up for his family in response to insults won’t be held against him. It’s another one of those things that a guy can do and in some ways is expected to do— Mike Dukakis’ robotic response, for instance, when asked a hypothetical about the murder of his wife during the campaign went over very poorly many cycles ago.
I also think that Trump’s snobbery and disparaging of Biden’s education didn’t go over very well: in terms of the evening going completely off the rails, that may have been the tipping point. When your mission is painting the opposition as out-of-touch liberal elites that kind of elitism is a strange choice...it hasn’t hurt Trump much before but it was unusually blatant tonight, especially when levelled at someone who comes across— and who continued to come across— as decent and competent.
The most revealing contrast came both near and at the end— when both men were asked why they would be the best President, Biden said essentially that he would be a unifier and Trump gloated over the judges that he was able to appoint because of McConnell’s stonewalling. A bad contrast for Trump, in my view.
And at the very end it was less the refusal to accept the outcome itself than the unhinged Trump rant that followed which left a final impression— though Biden should of course, as at a few other points, let well enough alone and stuck to a single, affirmative sentence. But easier said than done when you aren’t literally being put under siege by a malevolent foe.
Give generously tonight to Biden/Harris and GOTV— that is the best response.