this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2024
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He's right, the real story should be how badly CNN shit the bed with how they handled this debate. They basically let Trump run wild, didn't challenge or correct him.
And all rveryone can talk about was how energetic trump was, and how Biden "stumbled" etc. The coverage is way more appalling than the actual debate. Hell even in Canada the media is running stories about how Biden 'lost' the debate and "time to panic!" Despite Trump making no sense and lying 100% of the time.
What in the fuck is happening here?
What happened is that Biden and his team completely screwed up. They called for this debate and agreed to its terms, which included the fact that the moderator team would not be fact checking Trump in order to avoid accusations of bias.
These terms shifted the onus of calling Trump out on his biggest lies to Biden himself, who would have known that Trump would try to gish-gallop his way through the debate and avoid discussing policy because that's precisely what he did in 2020. The fact that Biden failed spectacularly to counter Trump in any meaningful way is the reason why he lost the debate.
The worst moment of the debate was when the moderators asked Trump about Roe and Trump doubled down on the extremely unpopular stance. Instead of seizing on the single greatest advantage the democrats have during this election, Biden instead decided to make an appeal to racism which I can only imagine was an attempt to capture some of Trump's racist supporters which I could have advised is the dumbest possible strategy for a democrat to employ unless they're running against a democrat to the left of them. He changed the topic from ending federal protections for abortions to one of the Republican's favorite stories of the time a single undocumented person committed rape, and they like the way Trump tells that story way better. Changed the conversation from protecting women to who can make life harder for immigrants, and Trump wins that competition despite the Biden administration's efforts.
Yeah, that was the single biggest Biden blunder of the evening, IMO. I was dumbfounded.
That's not how structured debates (Policy, Public Forum, Lincoln-Douglas, etc) work. Judges don't tell a team their facts are wrong, the other team does. Judges decide which of the teams had better argumentation. If you spout lies and I don't call you on it, as the opposing team, I will probably lose.
But let's say we accept that this is barely a structured debate, and the structure that was there sucked anyways, so hey- maybe it's was really a speech event (like Big Question, Extemporaneous, Humorous Interpretation, etc). That makes it even clearer why people are reacting like this, because those are not about facts at all, they're all about performance (as in 'acting').
My own view is that presidential debates are more akin to throwing the candidates in a gladiatorial arena and seeing whoever comes out least bloody. And that was always going to be Trump. Biden and his team are to blame for this, because it never should have taken place.
I find the judge symbolism interesting and compelling, but moderators are not judges. They're not making a judgement in place of the citizens by the end.
Rather than only letting two people debate, they could ask for clarifications. If you see them as press, and as representing the citizens, you may even think they have to to fulfill the press code and their responsibility.
They love the drama, that's what's happening.
On the CNN side, my biggest complaint was the mics were not indeed cut at the end of each persons time. If I was undecided, I wouldn't want to listen to two old men bicker, I'd want to actually hear their opinions and viewpoints.
They let it slip to some back and forth with both mics active at the same time on occasion. If they can't manage that, then they shouldn't get to host any presidential debates in the future. Luckily the next and last debate for this election is not them; we'll see how ABC does.