Much has been made of President Biden’s poor performance, but much less of President Trump’s strong one. Trump’s refusal to give any ground whatsoever on any issue whatsoever set the stage of the meltdown we all witnessed.
Let me start by saying two things. First, Presidential debates are not scored by Harvard rules. There is no judge that is theoretically measuring the participants against some objective standard for style and form. There is no winner at all in an objective sense, only viewers who absorb the proceedings in the context of the overall campaign, their knowledge and assessment of the state of the country and their own individual lives, their opinions of the candidates, and other factors. Further, what viewers do with this knowledge is entirely up to them, either by reinforcing their preconceived notions, causing them to reevaluate some aspect of these notions, or nothing at all. Putting this another way, there is no direct line between the outcome of a debate and how people actually vote, especially this far away from the election. Scholars insist debates rarely matter and if anything, the actual impact is likely to be much smaller than the time devoted to analyzing them. Second, President Trump’s communication style is as controversial as anything else about the man. There are some who simply don’t like it and never will, whatever he may say and however he may say it. While I might personally believe the perceived level of dislike is much higher than the actual, I think it’s fair to say that he could turn in a performance worthy of Cicero and many among us, especially in the chattering classes, would claim it was terrible for whatever reason. Last week, Donald Trump was most certainly Donald Trump. He might have been more measured and tempered, more calm, cool, and collected than he’s generally known for, but he was certainly Trumpian for lack of a better world, unleashing the usual superlatives to define his own performance and the requisite negatives to define his opponent’s. As such, there was no shortage of exaggeration – repeatedly defining himself and his policies as the “best” or the “greatest” – and the accompanying bombast in declaring President Biden the “worst” and “horrible.” Before the debate was even over, left-leaning fact checkers quite literally went to town parsing statements like this and others, finding them untrue while crucially forgetting that these are subjective terms. There is no universal standard for the “greatest economy” in history, for example. One certainly might disagree with the characterization, but these are opinions, not facts, and on a broader level, every politician in the history of the world sells their own awesomeness compared to the obvious incompetence if not malfeasance of their opponent. That Trump does so in more direct language, laying out the stakes as plainly as a used car salesman, is a feature of his appeal to his constituents, not a bug, whatever his detractors may claim. With these points in mind, there are several effective strategies the former President deployed last Thursday night that served to elevate his performance even beyond his demeanor, at least in my opinion, making this one of the best in his admittedly short political career and helping to set the stage for his opponent’s incredibly poor showing.
First, President Trump frames things differently than the typical politician. He doesn’t directly attempt to convince voters of his position, but rather presents his position and opinion as something “everybody” or some large group of individual people knows. He’s the messenger in this scenario, not the creator of the message. In his very first response, he framed his own economic performance this way, saying “We had the greatest economy in the history of our country. We had never done so well. Every – everybody was amazed by it. Other countries were copying us.” The same technique summarized his entire Administration and its management of the pandemic as “By the time we finished – so we did a great job. We got a lot of credit for the economy, a lot of credit for the military, and no wars and so many other things. Everything was rocking good.” When it came time to lambast his opponent, he continued in the same vein, “That’s why we had all the jobs. And the jobs went down and then they bounced back and he’s taking credit for bounceback jobs. You can’t do that. He also said he inherited 9 percent inflation. No, he inherited almost no inflation and it stayed that way for 14 months. And then it blew up under his leadership, because they spent money like a bunch of people that didn’t know what they were doing. And they don’t know what they were doing. It was the worst – probably the worst administration in history.” Later, he described it this way, “What’s happened to our country in the last four years is not to be believed. Foreign countries – I’m friends with a lot of people. They cannot believe what happened to the United States of America. We’re no longer respected. They don’t like us. We give them everything they want, and they – they think we’re stupid. They think we’re very stupid people. What we’re doing for other countries, and they do nothing for us. What this man has done is absolutely criminal.” When President Biden brought up the debunked story that Trump refused to visit a cemetery in France because the soldiers buried there were “suckers and losers,” he characterized the report as not worthy of believing because of where it originated, “It was in a third-rate magazine that’s failing, like many of these magazines.” Later, the topic of the support of our veterans and soldiers came up, “First of all, our veterans and our soldiers can’t stand this guy. They can’t stand him. They think he’s the worst commander in chief, if that’s what you call him, that we’ve ever had. They can’t stand him. So let’s get that straight.” The impact of his framing is difficult to quantify, but in comparison to President Biden, who repeatedly insisted on using “I” and “he,” as in, “I’ve never heard so much foolishness” the difference was marked and likely helped make Trump appear more credible to viewers.
Similarly, President Trump rarely, if ever, accepts how the question is framed and positioned by the moderator. His response on abortion began by rejecting the conventional narrative that overturning Roe v. Wade was a bad thing. Instead, he claimed it was something everyone wanted all along. “51 years ago, you had Roe v. Wade, and everybody wanted to get it back to the states, everybody, without exception. Democrats, Republicans, liberals, conservatives, everybody wanted it back. Religious leaders. And what I did is I put three great Supreme Court justices on the court, and they happened to vote in favor of killing Roe v. Wade and moving it back to the states. This is something that everybody wanted.” Fact-checkers, perhaps needless to say, immediately took issue with this framing, as did President Biden himself, but it seemed clear to me that the President was referring to the often stated belief that Roe v. Wade was bad law, a belief that was held by none other than Ruth Bader Ginsberg. (For the record, President Biden noted this himself back in 1986, when he was a Senator, “There is an overwhelming, universal criticism by proponents of pro-choice and opponents of pro-choice that Roe v. Wade wasn’t very well-reasoned. Most constitutional scholars do not offer that as an example of whether they’re for or against abortion, a decision that is well-written and well-reasoned, not the conclusion..It’s not offered as a way to write a decision.”) Regardless, whether or not you take issue with the veracity of the statement, President Trump simply refused to accept that returning abortion to the states was necessarily a bad thing. “Now the states are working it out. If you look at Ohio, it was a decision that was – that was an end result that was a little bit more liberal than you would have thought. Kansas I would say the same thing. Texas is different. Florida is different. But they’re all making their own decisions right now. And right now, the states control it. That’s the vote of the people.” Ultimately, he concluded, “What happened is we brought it back to the states and the country is now coming together on this issue. It’s been a great thing.” It was difficult to tell given the confusion he exhibited throughout the debate, but President Biden seemed rather taken aback by this brazen defense of an achievement that is almost universally considered a negative for Republicans. He could only stammer, “It’s been a terrible thing what you’ve done. The fact is that the vast majority of constitutional scholars supported Roe when it was decided, supported Roe. And I was – that’s – this idea that they were all against it is just ridiculous.” Many would probably agree with the President and most in the mainstream media certainly would, but from the perspective of debate dynamics, President Trump’s refusal to accept the prevailing narrative certainly added to the enthusiasm of his supporters and likely prompted the few undecideds among us to stop and think for a moment, questioning whether what they have been told is accurate.
Third, President Trump cleverly tied immigration, which is currently at the top of voter’s lists of concerns and one of his opponents biggest weaknesses, to other issues affecting the country, from Social Security to jobs. Incredibly, he was aided in this by his opponent himself, when President Biden bizarrely segwayed from abortion to immigration entirely on his own, President Trump was more than ready to punce. “There have been many young women murdered by the same people he allows to come across our border. We have a border that’s the most dangerous place anywhere in the world – considered the most dangerous place anywhere in the world. And he opened it up, and these killers are coming into our country, and they are raping and killing women. And it’s a terrible thing. As far as the abortion’s concerned, it is now back with the states. The states are voting and in many cases, they – it’s, frankly, a very liberal decision. In many cases, it’s the opposite.” Earlier in the debate, he directly connected immigration to Social Security and Medicare, “Well, he’s right: He did beat Medicaid (ph). He beat it to death. And he’s destroying Medicare, because all of these people are coming in, they’re putting them on Medicare, they’re putting them on Social Security. They’re going to destroy Social Security. This man is going to single-handedly destroy Social Security. These millions and millions of people coming in, they’re trying to put them on Social Security. He will wipe out Social Security. He will wipe out Medicare. So he was right in the way he finished that sentence, and it’s a shame.” He connected it to terrorism, “He decided to open up our border, open up our country to people that are from prisons, people that are from mental institutions, insane asylum, terrorists. We have the largest number of terrorists coming into our country right now. All terrorists, all over the world – not just in South America, all over the world. They come from the Middle East, everywhere. All over the world, they’re pouring in. And this guy just left it open.” Next, was crime and mortality, “Now we have the worst border in history. There’s never been anything like it. And people are dying all over the place, including the people that are coming up in caravans.” From crime he continued to the state of civilization itself, “And because of his ridiculous, insane and very stupid policies, people are coming in and they’re killing our citizens at a level that we’ve never seen. We call it migrant crime. I call it Biden migrant crime. They’re killing our citizens at a level that we’ve never seen before. And you’re reading it like these three incredible young girls over the last few days. One of them, I just spoke to the mother, and we just had the funeral for this girl, 12 years old. This is horrible what’s taken place. What’s taken place in our country, we’re literally an uncivilized country now. He doesn’t want it to be. He just doesn’t know. He opened the borders nobody’s ever seen anything like. And we have to get a lot of these people out and we have to get them out fast, because they’re going to destroy our country.” Later, he tied it to the economic prospects of minorities, moving from inflation directly to immigration. “I gave him a country with no, essentially no inflation. It was perfect. It was so good. All he had to do is leave it alone. He destroyed it with his green new scam and all of the other – all this money that’s being thrown out the window. He caused inflation. As sure as you’re sitting there, the fact is that his big kill on the black people is the millions of people that he’s allowed to come in through the border. They’re taking black jobs now and it could be 18. It could be 19 and even 20 million people. They’re taking black jobs and they’re taking Hispanic jobs and you haven’t seen it yet, but you’re going to see something that’s going to be the worst in our history.”
Finally, President Trump was well-prepared with responses to questions he knew would likely come up. When Jake Tapper asked him point blank, “Can you clarify exactly what it means about you feeling you have every right to go after your political opponents?” He responded instantly with “Well, I said my retribution is going to be success. We’re going to make this country successful again, because right now it’s a failing nation. My retribution’s going to be success.” When he was asked about January 6th, “What do you say to voters who believe that you violated that oath through your actions and inaction on January 6th and worry that you’ll do it again?” He was ready with, “Well, I don’t think too many believe that. And let me tell you about January 6th, on January 6th, we had a great border, nobody coming through, very few. On January 6th, we were energy independent. On January 6th, we had the lowest taxes ever, we had the lowest regulations ever. On January 6th, we were respected all over the world. All over the world we were respected, and then he comes in, and we’re now laughed at, we’re like a bunch of stupid people. What happened to the United States’ reputation under this man’s leadership is horrible, including weaponization, which I’m sure at some point you’ll be talking about, where he goes after his political opponent because he can’t beat him fair and square.” Once again, detractors will undoubtedly take issue with these and other responses, but in the context of a presidential debate being ready for the tough questions, if only to deflect them to the points you prefer to focus on, matters, as did all of these rhetorical techniques. Much has been made of President Biden’s poor performance while much less has been made of President Trump’s strong one, but in my opinion at least, the two are not mutually exclusive. President Biden was likely surprised at his opponent’s refusal to give any ground whatsoever on any issue whatsoever, confusing him far more than he’d planned and setting the stage of the meltdown we all witnessed. That President Trump has done that after being hit with some $600 million in civil fines, convicted of 34 felonies, and facing three other sets of charges at both the federal and state level only make it more remarkable. Whether you love him or hate him, this is simply a man who will not back down under any circumstances, exhibiting unheard of reliance and a willingness to speak his mind that perhaps has no parallel in American history.
Confessions of a Conservative Atheist 