Debating the Debate Among Your "Friends"

If you are a political junkie, I know exactly where you were last night! The Super Bowl of politics just had it's first playoff game, and it was great. There is no stage quite like a Presidential Debate.

Pesky pre-rumble formalities

Say what you like about Trump or Clinton as candidates (which I have done on this blog), I have enormous respect for anyone with the guts to get up there and put it on the line. Indeed, I am reminded of President Theodore Roosevelt's famous lines about simply being in the arena:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who point out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Theodore Roosevelt, "Citizenship in a Republic." Delivered at the Sorbonne, Paris, France, April 23, 1910.

That said, respect doesn't make me a fan. I still wish I had another option. What's bugging me today however, is the debate over the debate.

The Verdict

I think it's fair to say the judgement from last night is that Clinton kicked ass. That judgement is sometimes hard to discern given the media's penchant for giving equal time to bickering spin-doctors from both camps saying exactly what you expect them to (the mute button on my remote is getting a work out).

Last night's debate was close for about 30min as the two candidates offered up competing populist nonsense about trade. But thereafter, Clinton's superiority in debate, preparation, and substance steamrolled Trump, leaving him battered and bruised at the end of ninety-minutes. 

Indeed, Trump was terrible. He clearly believed in his own unconventional prowess as a candidate, a prowess that has obviously been reinforced by vanquishing his GOP competitors over the past year. Trump appeared nervous, out of his element, and struggled to stay on point all evening. As the split television screen allowed viewers to watch both simultaneously, Clinton repeatedly got under Trump's skin, dangling all sorts of bait that he mysteriously, and repeatedly took. The fact that Trump reportedly did no practice debates was yet another sign that he was out of his depth, that the GOP primary contest was nothing like the presidential campaign. Whereas having 16 other GOP candidates on stage with you, along with audience reaction to feed from, played to one-liners more than policy discussion in the primary campaign, the presidential debates are a far more serious part of the vetting process. It's one-on-one, no audience to feedback loop, and 90 minutes in which you are expected to deliver more substance than zingers. 

Instant polls, the pundit class, and most of the Twitter-sphere rendered it's verdict pretty fast. It was a definitive Clinton victory. She was the definitive picture of calm, cool, stately competence that we've come to expect. Do we like her? Not so much. But is she presidential? Check. Competent beyond challenge? Check. Well prepared? Check. Composed in face of Trump's bombast?  Check, check, check.

Hold Your Horses

What bothered me about the post-debate punditry was the sense of glee at Trump's lousy performance. I doubt he'll be that bad again, and may even take the odd bit of advice from his advisors before the next debate. Who knows, perhaps Jeb Bush was right; you can't insult your way into the White House, after all. Then again, Trump has defied all the conventions of presidential campaigns and moved within a whisker of the Oval Office.

The change in Trump everyone has been hoping for isn't coming.  Yet, for many of those commenting last night, this was it; Trump's reckoning, the moment where he had finally met his match, where is reality TV experience was no help in the reality he was experiencing on stage. Yet, as has been the case over much of the past year, I was again struck by how pained the commentators were to explain why Trump wasn't being trounced by his opponents. Indeed, Clinton herself has recently had a tough time explaining it. Yet, the verdict of last night's debate was portrayed as the moment when the curtain on Trump was finally pulled back, the public finally woke-up, smelled the coffee, and see the folly of their flirtation with Trump. Harrumph!!

Trump was terrible last night. Shallow, incoherent, thin-skinned, and spewing more dog-whistle politics; the birther and racial harmony questions were disastrous (see clip).

Clinton was impressive throughout, struggling only when questioned about her flip-flopping on trade policy and her handling of e-mail. But I don't think last night's debate is going to move the needle much. Trump supporters are not confined to the "basket of deplorables," as Hillary Clinton called them at a New York fundraiser a week ago. Indeed, some are simply fed up, and see in Trump a kind of wrecking ball of a figure that might just do enough damage that a genuine overhaul is required.

Before the "mainstream" media (what ever that is) marks September 26th as the beginning of the end for Trump, recall how many "beginnings of the end" there have been with Trump? As a reminder, here's the first of them:

 

The Death of Truth

There has been some debate about whether postmodernism might be connected to Donald Trump's appeal--some of it surprisingly mainstream--where his loose interpretation of truth is concerned. That's a topic for another time, but in my view only the tiniest of contributing factors. 

The reason the pundit class's glee at Trump's poor debate performance bugs me is that it's likely to fuel another misread of what's really going on. Americans are not going to "wake up" and smell the coffee. Trump hasn't cast some sort of temporary spell on his supporters wherein they suspend all reason. Trump isn't the architect what is going on around the United States. He is a byproduct of it. Win or lose, Donald Trump, "Trumpism," and the conditions that facilitated their rise are not going away soon. 

In several recent blog posts, I have tried to flesh out some my thinking about the rise of Trump. In some respects, what Trump is peddling is a familiar brand of populist economic nationalism (see also) stoked with cultural insecurity (see also, post and post). Yet, it's taking place in a period of a worrisome decline in public confidence in the integrity of their political institutions, or those in elected office charged with leading them. 

Moreover, while the idea of a 24 hour news cycle compressing our public discourse is nothing new, social media has further compressed that time horizon and coarsened our public debate in ways that are unhelpful. The Internet is destroying the traditional newspaper. Investigative and local journalism are dying, replaced by the proliferation of "citizen journalism" (these days, just about anyone with a phone will do). Some call it the democratization of the news. I fear the onslaught of information at our finger tips is actually making it tougher for citizens to sort fact from fiction-- so much so the veracity of one's claims no longer matters  Fact checkers, be damned!!!!

Please "Like Me," be my "Friend"

As much as social media (Twitter, Facebook, etc) "connects" us, it does so in ways that are both superficial and unaccountable. Perhaps I am reflecting my age, but as a venue for informed public discourse, Twitter is pointless. It seemingly frees people of their inhibitions, gives license to the most base of impulses (@realDonaldTrump is a case in point), and does so within echo chambers populated with only the like-minded. Depressingly, the Twitter and Instagram posts of celebrities occupy more and more air-time on news casts. We get "feeds" of things on our devices that we choose. Yet, those choices inherently shut out voices we might disagree with, while at the same reinforcing a mono-culture within our respective social media silos that is not as conducive to understanding as social media proponents would have us believe.

We lament the way in which America's two-party dominant system reinforces and incentivizes a kind of mindless partisanship. Democrats hang out with and listen mainly to other Democrats. Republicans do the same with other Republicans. Like partisan lemmings, they even watch their respective 24hr news networks. Is social media not doing much the same?

I can't take credit for all of these ideas. Indeed, The Economist recently had a fabulous set of pieces on these issues (linked here). They point to pivotal events such as Watergate, Iran-Contra Affair, the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, the 2008 Financial Crisis, and trade liberalization generally as undercutting the public's faith their institutions and what they are being told about them. The testimony of Wells Fargo boss, John Stumpf, on Capitol Hill last week didn't help (Elizabeth Warren rightly embarrassed him). 

Fact checkers in the U.K. and United States have been working overtime, to little avail. Pointing out falsehoods didn't persuade enough U.K. voters that the "leave" camp were selling them a false bill of goods. There was a time when receiving "Four Pinocchio's" in the Washington Post for floating a howler of a lie was a mark of shame. It increasingly seems to be a badge of honor. 

My point is not to be a Luddite and decry the ills of technology, a la the Unabomber Manifesto (if you don't know what that is, Google it). Instead, my point is that as well as last night's debate went for Clinton, it may not matter given the political environment we are in. 

The reasons why have far less to do with Trump than the conditions that brought him to life. I recognize TV punditry needs to declare "winners and losers," especially on debate night. But I'd also like a deeper discussion about why someone like Donald Trump is resonating with voters at all. Instead, a gobsmacked political class (including Fox News) keeps waiting for the inevitable day Trump implodes so some adults can re-take the stage. 

Trump got his butt kicked on stage last night. But, buckle up. Win or lose in November, the Pandora's Box that produced Trump isn't going anywhere.