A Debate Observation or Two
Policy is only a part of it.
Let me start with the main criticism of Harris’ performance last night: that she didn’t directly answer the questions asked in many cases. I certainly noted this with her first response, which was more an opening statement than anything else. Part of me wanted a direct rebuttal to the notion that the country was better off four years ago (which she got to later). But, clearly, she had some things she wanted to communicate to the public watching, and she took her time to do so.
That is just smart.
Reall, these things aren’t debates in any real sense and never have been. I have often called them “joint press conferences” and to some degree, they have that quality when two serious candidates are on the stage. But, of course, when facing Donald Trump, that description goes out the window.
Speaking of Donald Trump, he didn’t answer all the questions asked, either.
At any rate, the notion that complex policy issues can be summarized effectively in two-minute blocks is absurd and always has been.
What massive policy issue does anyone remember about any of these things? They have been, to use a term currently in vogues, always about the vibes.
Off the top of my head:
1960? Man, Nixon sure looks sweaty! Didn’t he even shave? That JFK sure is dreamy on TV!
1984? In the first debate, Reagan sure looks old and tired! But in the next one, he got off an awesome zinger against Mondale!! So, it’s all good.
1988: All I remember from that cycle is Lloyd Bentsen’s zinger against Quayle in the VO debate. It was one for the ages! But I would note, Quayle got to be the veep, not Bentsen.
2012: Obama seemed disinterested in the first debate. Oh no!
2016: Puppet? Not a puppet.
2024 (take 1): Biden is old!
And so forth.
From last night the things that are resonating are things like Trump’s slur that Haitian immigrants are eating people’s pets (more on that in another post).
I understand the desire for serious policy discussion. But that isn’t going to happen in this context. Indeed, save for general outlines, campaigns aren’t as much about complex policy discussions as I would like to be the case.
It is as if we reduce done general policy directions to two groups that have symbols and labels and choose one.
Also: given the US system of separated powers and the various exigencies of US bicameral, a president really doesn’t know what exact policy agenda they can pursue until all the pieces are in place post-election and even then, they only have two years before a likely reset of those conditions.
If we want a system wherein a party leader can campaign on specific policy goals that they likely can implement, we need to change to a parliamentary system.
The debate last night was not about detailed policy disagreements and never was going to be. It was about trying to show the public the leadership options at their disposal and hitting on mostly general policy preferences along the way.
And, I would note, it is the candidate’s job to know when to use their limited time trying to adhere to the rules of the debate and when not to. Harris, in particular, had to take her shot when she could, as this was likely her last and only chance to reach a certain segment of the electorate (whether as viewers in the moment or via sound bite later).
But I will say, there are some big-ticket policy items on the table. One candidate is promising mass deportations that will be violent and disruptive. Another candidate is promising to uphold the right of women to make their own medical choices.
I would note, too, that one candidate couldn’t even bring himself to state that it is important that Ukraine win the war. He also listed Victor Orban as a character reference.
So, yes, there was some policy in there. But it just may not have been in the answers to specific questions at the exact moment the moderators wanted the responses.
The debate really showed how brilliant the Harris team’s strategy of not doing interviews with the media has been. Before the debate it would have been non-stop “how do you think the debate with Trump will go? Will he win like he did over Biden? What are you going to wear for the debate?” Now she can be interviewed like the conquering hero. Really think this is the election where the media as a whole are going to have to re-think how they do their jobs with politicians. And props to ABC, Muir and Davis did a very good job.
QFE.
These debates are tired and largley useless. They sort of exemplify all that’s wrong with how we choose leaders, and how our politics have turned into embarassing spectacle, an endless silly season of infotainment.
If we were more sober, we’d choose our representatives based on results, resume, and vision — not optics, feels, leg tingles, and zingers. It is what it is, sad as it is. These kinds of complaints obviously fall on deaf ears.
While I’m not sure this (or any debate) will swing truly undecided people, I believe they can have an influential role in a Get Out The Vote election.
Harris’s excellent performance will continue to energize her base and voters. This was a significant hurdle for her to clear, especially after Biden’s disastrous debate. Trump’s performance will also remind anyone-but-Trump Republicans and Independents why it’s important to vote against him.
All of that should increase voting turnout for Harris.
At the same time, the image of a defeated Trump claiming he “won” that debate will not help energize his voters. And if he turns down a second debate (which if Harris is smart, she should offer to do it on Fox News) that’s only going to add to those concerns. All of that threatens to impede the turnout of his voters (in particular, those folks who didn’t turn out in 2020).
@Matt Bernius:
Cannot disagree more. 100 reasons, but just one: Fox News hosts immediately went to “Harris was given the questions”. You know who immediately jumps to “the other guys were cheating”? Guys who know they are going to cheat. Every potential debate host from Fox knows that if they don’t put their thumb on the scale for Trump their career will be over – their bosses will be pissed and the Fox audience will despise them. And falling out of favor in the Fox verse is the end of the line. it has been obvious for a long while that there is no career path available to go from Fox to another network, for even the biggest and most “normal” stars.
Harris is in an awkward situation. The economy, by any objective standard, is fwcking wonderful. But everybody “feelz” it’s bad and refuses to believe otherwise. It doesn’t help that inflation is so over even Jay Powell may admit it, but most people think ending inflation means prices go down, which ain’t gonna happen. (Unless we elect Trump and he actually does what he says, resulting in a massive recession.) Harris is better off to sidestep.
@Not the IT Dept.: Right. I’m not hopeful the debate will change a lot of voter’s minds. I am hoping it will lock in the apparent shift in the media narrative toward honest reporting on Trump. Better nine years late than never. Such a change in the narrative may change some minds, or at least suppress GOP turnout.
@MarkedMan: I don’t think it would matter if they did give Trump the questions. The man is one big walking button to be pressed. He can’t stand the thought of being seen as weak or lesser in any way. As long as they aired the debate live, Harris could lead Trump around like a matador leads a bull.
@Matt Bernius: I believe directly probably not convincing but the “acid bath” approach on doubts relative to Trump, getting the journalistic focus on his incoherence – the changes on the enviro I think can help protect your margins
Of course it is all about those Swing States, and that small free float, and nada mas.
Some studied use of Memes as the acid bath on the Trump doubts – not the Lefties Trump hatred points (to remove doubt I have no disagreement on the foundations there, it is really only the matter of selling your product outside the pre-sold – as even the slimmest conversions of new customers can make or break).
Trump is a past-the-sale-date bad tasting burger… to a Fast Food audience not the already convinced Hummas & Quinona audiences.
@Not the IT Dept.: I think I quite agree, there was no upside to media (even now while hardly holding you lot’s sentiment’s on the media I would say it is prudent to be minimalist.
@DK: Soviet New Man dreams spring ever eternal.
Humans will remain humans.
They will not turn into philosopher king electorates – so live with reality. Idealised intellectual modes are not ever going to ever occur. Beni Adam Beni Adam.
Another for your list: Didn’t Al Gore sigh one too many times in a debate, dooming him? Clearly unfit for office after that.
@Kevin: True, but don’t underestimate the power of the hosts in cutting her off and leading Trump to a safer area
@Lounsbury:
Hogwash. Plenty of our peer nations have managed to avoid turning their elections into reality TV episodes, and last I checked, their voters are also humans—not philosopher kings. If they can pick leaders without treating the process like an episode of American Idol, , why can’t we?
I’m not buying the excuse that Americans are doomed to settle for mediocrity. We don’t need to be pulling off some magic trick or transforming into a nation of sages. Honestly, all we need to do is put down the cultural crack pipe, stop obsessing over soundbites, and get serious for a hot minute. It’s not that hard—other countries are doing it just fine without losing their grip on reality.
It’s a question that the Harris team had to know would be asked, and the answer is obvious:
Four years ago, there were refrigerator trucks being used as morgues and the economy was in complete free fall. Four years ago, President Trump was saying people should putting bleach inside themselves (injection? suppository? eating?). Four years ago, people were scrambling to get toilet paper. Four years ago, Donald Trump was on stage with Covid and nearly died.
I don’t know why Harris (and her team) decided the right approach would be to sidestep on this. Perhaps they have an even lower expectation of Americans’ ability to handle any nuance than I do.
We are way better off than 4 years ago. We are not better off than 8. We’ve come a long way towards fixing things — inflation hurt, but it has slowed, and the jobs are coming back, but there’s more to be done. Harris should be proud of the work she and Biden have done, as America is bouncing back better than Europe, and we are bringing manufacturing jobs back. Some things still hurt, but we’re fixing them.
You can get that into a two minute answer. And in the rebuttal get to the insane antivaxxer conspiracy theories on the right and that you were more likely to die from Covid if you had a Republican governor.
But, the Harris team went with sidestepping. They might be right. They’re probably able to make a better educated guess as to what is the right approach for most people than I am.
It was not the right approach for me, but I am not a swing voter in a swing state.
I’ve seen only one really good political debate: the 2006 Massachusetts gubernatorial debate. The candidates were Republican Kerry Healey, lieutenant governor to Mitt Romney who had decided to run for president; Democrat Deval Patrick, who would go on to win; an independent who, IIRC, was the state treasurer; and a social worker who was the Green Party candidate. Each of them was civil, intelligent, and prepared. They each had a key issue: for Patrick, it was “an economy that works for everyone”; for Healey, it was fiscal responsibility; for the independent, it was ethics and transparency; and for the Green candidate, it was lifting up those in poverty. And wonder of wonders, they each spoke knowledgeably about the policies they’d pursue to realize their key issue.
The next day, pundits were declaring the people of Massachusetts as the winners and fantasizing about some sort of shared governorship where each of the candidates could focus on their key issue—or at the very least, the winner making the other three a part of their administration. It’s the only time in my life I’ve ever heard that.
ETA: to echo DK’s point, rational elections are possible even in the United States.
My husband was at a school board meeting. When he came home, he asked about the debate. I replied that it was depressing.
I wondered about my response, and have decided that the debate format makes it impossible to communicate meaningfully about policy, so that explained my disappointment in some of Harris’s answers. But overall, my sadness was that, to me, it is so clear that Trump is a narcissist who loves dictators, has no respect for the rule of law, is a bigot, and would never willingly spend time with the 99% of his MAGA supporters. So, when I turned off the coverage, I suspected that nothing had changed in outcome of the election. The only bright spot was that Harris, with the exception of Buttigieg, is the only one who has been able to use Trump’s deficits against him.
@DK: Since I live in such peer nations, your charming idealisation is amusing to me.
Change your electoral structure and you will perhaps have some modest changes, but despite American stereotypes, European elections are not in fact high-faluttin reflexions on policy in respect to the general electorates.
People are people and most normal human beings are not politically obsessed. That is what it is, neither right nor wrong.
Intellos always think that what they desire to consume is what the wider world does. They are always wrong. (and the same goes for other subject obsessives like the football fans and the like)
@Monala: I have to admit, 2006 now seems like a lifetime ago…
@Lounsbury: I was going to say: Britain made Liz Truss PM. For a little while. That kind of ends the whole “philosopher-kings” argument.
And yes, I would like to see shorter campaigns, too.
@MarkedMan: You don’t think prosecutor Harris has ever faced a hostile judge in court?
@Monala:
Shared offices were common in ancient times, and a feature of the Roman republic. Pretty much each magistracy had at least two people sharing it, some had several (Aediles in particular, as they funded infrastructure and games out of their own pockets). Sparta employed two kings and a council of citizens over 60.
This broke down even before Augustus made the republic an empire, even if the lower offices still existed and pretended to exercise their functions (they did only with the consent of the emperor).
More recently the French attempted something like this with the Directory*. Five men shared executive authority, and one was replaced each year. This fell swiftly when Napoleon became a Director and lost no time in staging a coup.
And yet, out of fashion as shared governance is, in Brazil for the last election, several people ran for congressional seats in teams. That is, one person’s name was on the ballot, but they stated in their campaign material the duties of the office would be shared among three or four people. One concentrated on the actual work in congress, say, another with the next election campaign, another to attend to constituents, etc.
I’ve no idea is any of these legislative teams won a set, or how they’ve worked out if any did.
*I always picture five men in powdered wigs reading the yellow pages when I use that word in its historical context.
@Kathy: fascinating! I’d love to hear how that worked out, too.
@Jay L Gischer: Yes and the idiot Kwasi…. And Mr Farage remains in play. Of course the preceding and rather popular buffonery of Boris (although unlike Truss, Kwasi or Farage, he is not congenitally dim)….
Closer to me, I can most assure you, there is nothing particularly policy enlightening nor coherent in the campaigning discours that Mme Le Pen and M. Bardella engage in. Or in my Benelux friends with M Wilders.
I am an intello myself (lest you think my poking at you all comes from some idea that I am different, except in some policy areas of course), abstractly of course I would want to have substance debates… except this is like wishing the Mass Market Movies transform themselves into the films that ARTE shows…. they will not. People are people – they have other life priorities and foci, so rather than dreaming of Soviet New Men (in whatever political colour, not to deceive oneself into thinking it is merely a Left thing however convenient the Soviet New Man shorhand).
@Gustopher: A significant remaining problem for you lot is the professioinal class Left remains rooted in a modern version of the old-school “False Consciousness” excuse making narrative.
The reality as Andy has raised again and again is that the aggregate date hides much variation – and now recent econometric data has begun to illustrate that under the national aggregates there are significant geo and socio-economic variation and it would appear the Trumpy leaning geographic areas actually had worse inflationary experiences (appear, data will be revised and such things are always muddy)
(in UK and Europe we have also seen such data, the national aggregates disguise both geographical and socio-class discrepencies in how inflations were experienced, and rather shed light on the structure of populist reaction – simply telling populations are wrong in their understanding based on abstraction and aggregates is analytically naive and politically unwise).
Bourgousie uni-edcuated Left- ‘Mansplaining’ to people their impressions of their economic situation are wrong and they are dupes of Fox News is at once politically autistic, and second, factually superficial.
The further reality is that Biden adminsitration did indeed contribute in some policy error with fiscal stimulus beyond what was prudent given the 2nd stimulus effort (passed with real legislative skill one should say) came at a time when professional economists were sounding alarms at the signs of significant emerging inflationary issues from not-transient issues – a modest and at time understandable error which to be clear is not saying Biden et al were incompetent, one has to make judgment calls. I have respect for their quiet post-recalibration (a contrast to what one would expect with Trump)
So the Harris challenge is she needs to threat that needle – a bit of populism and pandering should be tolerated and welcomed, she can be counted on not to be an irrational stubborn bungler.
@Lounsbury: Charming? Heh. Well, thank you. Can’t say I try to be. Must be my natural joie de vivre.
It’s not idealization: we have peers whose elections are not so polluted by media-saturated, 24/7 sensationalism. These nations exist in our earthy reality—not in some imaginary, pitch-perfect, problem-free Eden I never claimed existed in Europe or anywhere. Their electoral processes need not be flawless to aquit themselves better than U.S. politics.
American elections have improved dramatically in the past; they can again. We can aim higher than Twitter trolling flame wars. And we don’t need everyone to morph into Yoda-like sages — or into political junkies following current events like football fans obsessing over draft picks and box scores — to make it happen.
The bar isn’t set as high as your strawmanlike unattainable ideal. Countries manage elections without turning them into a childish reality TV slog. Yes, we can, too. At least the US can. Don’t know about the UK, never been a British subject. But I’ve been American for decades, and no so long as to be outdated. I get the intricacies of our current culture.
@Monala:
There ins’t much data. Here’s the piece I read originally
And one in NatGeo, of all places, about how one works at a city council level.
Did not watch the whole thing, as fortunately feel no obligation to do so.
But the clips and comments (from BBC “neutral” types) indicate Trump is out there.
Manages to make Liz Truss look like the epitome of sober rationality.
As at least she did have a coherent policy, even if had the teensy drawback of being daft, in the overall context.
But at least it sort of made sense in “internal logic” terms.
Wheras Trump on policies is just …. a fog of nonsensical non-sequiturs.
Trump was obviously, yet amazingly, unprepared to deal with even the questions that were certain to come up, except by either incoherent evasion, or by doubling down on crazed claims of imagined success.
And cats, and dogs.
He just cannot help jumping on bait that’s screamingly obvious he should avoid.
Utterly, utterly, stupid.
@Lounsbury:
FWIW, I agree completely that the only effective attacks on Trump are to (1) laugh at him, and (2) note with sorrow how old and tired and not-quite-with-it he has gotten.
The fact that he’s a dangerous fascist doesn’t resonate with enough people, for some reason. The fact that he’s an incompetent businessman, a lousy reader, and a moron has already convinced everyone it’s going to convince. The fact that he’s a Russian stooge with no backbone isn’t going to be believed by anyone who doesn’t already know it. The fact that he only tells the truth accidentally, if at all, likewise. But those “swing voters” might still be convinced that he’s as dotty as Uncle Bob who yells at clouds, and easily flustered to boot…
@Matt Bernius:
If Harris was smart, she would definitely not do it on Fox. The items Marked said are true – but wait, there’s more.
Kamala would be fighting BOTH the moderators and Trump. Moderators would be cutting Kamala off mid-answer and moving to the next question once they sensed she was cooking him, moderators would be giving Trump “the last word” every time to allow him even more tags on that minute’s gish gallop, moderators would be employing obviously fake 4chan memes as “facts” in the service of fact-checking Kamala because she has the temerity to challenge the God-King.
This combines with the perception of neutrality that Fox receives from the swing voters to make me think independents do not accurately understand the Fox slant and so would give Trump the win.
Fox News is bad faith — always has been, always will be. Avoid at all costs.
It’s also important to understand why Fox has been given the patina of a “normal” network rather than the R propaganda arm they’ve been from the jump.. people from the “other” networks [incorrectly] think they have a chance of getting a job at Fox someday and so don’t want to badmouth a future job prospect.