The Fall of Democracy
On the dismal presidential debate and the state of our union
The first presidential debate of the 2024 election cycle was a one of a long series of disappointing moments in what feels like the inexorable fall of democracy. The two candidates, President Joe Biden and former president Donald J. Trump, 81 and 78 respectively, offered a damning indictment of the present state of American democracy. That these two men are the best candidates their parties can muster is a disgrace.
Debates are actually a relatively new phenomenon. The first general presidential debate was held in 1960, between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. It would be sixteen years until the next debate. Now, debates are de rigueur in national, state, and sometimes even local elections. The lower the political stakes, the more interesting the debate is likely to be. But debates do little to change voters’ minds. When there are only two viable candidates in a race, it is unlikely that a debate performance will reveal anything new about who the candidates are and what they stand for.
In a more perfect union, a debate would be a valuable opportunity for voters to learn more about candidates, their values, policies, and visions for America. But debates these days are artificial and choreographed. Each candidate’s team negotiates to create debate conditions that will highlight a candidate’s strengths and minimize their weaknesses. Before the debate, most candidates prepare exhaustively because there are so few opportunities to speak so directly (theoretically) to so many voters. By the time they appear on the debate stage, candidates have a script and they stick to it, to the detriment of democracy. Once in a while, there will be an organic, interesting moment. Once in a while, a candidate will commit a memorable gaffe or go off script and reveal a version of themselves that more resembles who they actually are. More often than not, debates are little more than pageantry and political peacocking.
For whatever reason, Biden’s campaign asked for this debate which means they set themselves up for failure. The moderators, CNN journalists Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, may as well have not even been there. They did nothing to foster an interesting or relevant discussion between the candidates. Instead, they asked bland, softball questions and were rigorous timekeepers as if the most important thing was adhering to time limits instead of holding the candidates to account by being actual journalists. When Trump lied, which was the only consistent thing he did, they were silent. And after, pundits tried to justify the moderators’ silence with CNN talking points about how the moderators’ job was not to fact check but facilitate.
This inadequate justification reveals just how flawed the debate process currently is. A debate should be the vigorous exchange of political ideas. It might even be contentious. But nothing and no one are served by allowing blatant lies to be presented as truth to such a significant audience. That isn’t democracy. That isn’t impartiality. That is laziness or journalistic malpractice or, perhaps, both.