Well, what a difference a week can make. Sometimes, when I sit down to write, I have only a vague idea of what I should say. Sometimes, I only have a foggy notion even what the subject should be. Sometimes, there’s a struggle between having to say something and having something to say.
So let’s start with that debate. President Biden’s weak performance has garnered the lion’s share of the attention, while ex-president Trump misrepresented and downright lied about everything from claiming that Democrats favor abortion even following live birth (“We’ll kill the baby“), that Nancy Pelosi was to blame for and had accepted responsibility for January 6, and that he was the one who capped insulin costs for seniors. (It was the Inflation Reduction Act of 2023 that did.) But Trump making reckless, rapid fire, assertions is hardly news when Biden’s faltering sixty second response to two minutes of uninterrupted, dare I say, malarkey made him look at best ineffectual, and at worst old.
The pundits were on it immediately. Sean Hannity putting the spotlight on Biden’s inadequate performance was to be expected. Even the left-leaning pundits wanted in on this action, feverishly reporting that their phones were blowing up with their contacts already assessing that Biden needed to step aside to let someone else take the Democratic nomination. These folks admitted that who they were hearing from was a hodgepodge of political types—operatives, strategists, consultants, and the like—rather than “civilians.” It would be fair to presume that these political “professionals,” almost certainly the majority of them, were not working on the Biden campaign, which might have just a little bit (a whole lot?) to do with why a change in candidate might be at least worth considering. After all, it’s an ill wind that blows no good.
One of the advantages of living in the after halftime portion of life (hell, admit it, it’s fourth quarter) is one doesn’t expend the energy to jump on a bandwagon du jour until some of the dust it is stirring up is settled. Without mentioning any names, I waited to tune in to a commentor who holds a cooler, and older, head to see what he would have to say about the debate.
As expected, he gave me something to ponder. Last week’s debate was watched by roughly 50 million people, something less than a third of the approximately 157 million who voted in the 2020 presidential election. Going back to 1980, when almost 81 million people watched the first heads-up debate between Carter and Reagan, he pointed out that number was well over 90% (over 94% by my calculation) of those that ended up voting in that election.
Now what I thought about was this. Why such a huge discrepancy? Well, the Carter/Reagan debate was weeks before the election. The average voter is less engaged with the daily ups and downs of presidential elections at this point in the cycle. Plus, assuming there are over 100 million people who will vote in November who did not watch—a fair assumption, to be sure—the majority of them already know for whom they will vote, whether for Biden or for Trump. So why would they bother?
I can’t speak for anyone else, but there are exactly three reasons I watched the whole blasted thing. First of all, I’m a political junkie and have been ever since I wore a peanut on a strand of yarn around my neck in support of Carter in 1976. Secondly, I write this column. I am tempted to add, “I watched, so you don’t have to.” But that would be totally self-serving and egotistical, although my detractors might say that would be totally in character.
But the most important reason I did is because watching a debate, or anything that is going to be news after it happens, presents an opportunity. Everyone gets to decide how to spend their time and what their priorities should be. But watching a debate, particularly this one, gives us a ringside seat for something important. Not how presidential politics work or for gathering needed information that might influence how, or even if, we vote.
This one provided little, if any, new information about these two candidates. They’re both old, and it showed. One has no problem articulating his deliberate misrepresentations, and one has a problem articulating the truth. Not exactly breaking news.
It’s what the media did with it that is rather fascinating. Individuals who I would bet hard money will vote for Biden, if it comes to that, dived in deep and started pushing a narrative of replacing him on the ballot. Even the New York Times got a piece of that action. Because it’s a good story, and it gets the “civilians” to click, watch, and even do some old-fashioned buying of newspapers.
Now tell me again how the Supreme Court is ruining this country. I’m all ears.
