by Richard Cameron

The Bizarre National Media Story Line About The Harris Trump Presidential Debate

You know, sometimes it’s best not to think about certain things too much. The reason is because once you do, you begin to see aspects of it that, when all the parts and pieces are examined, lead you to conclude that the thing you are analyzing is preposterous on its face and that having recognized that, you now find yourself out of step with the view of the majority of society, or what has been accurately described to one degree or another, the “great, unwashed masses.”  You might even resort to the term, “the proletariat.”  In any event, consider me as dubious about presidential debates as I have proven to be about mass media “Horse Race Journalism” and its most prominent feature – election polling.

I’ve been considering the relevance, validity and significance of presidential debates for a span of time and I have arrived at a couple of basic conclusions.  One, is that in comparison to properly conducted and legitimate debates with standardized rules and criteria, presidential debates bear scant resemblance.  What they do resemble more so, is an unscripted professional wrestling bout.

The other, and more important takeaway from my reflection on them, is that they are silly, irrelevant and manipulative, but because our society is hidebound to tradition and slow to discard useless conventions, we continue to place significance in them that they do not deserve.  As Michael Ian Black, writing in the Daily Beast, describes them, “presidential debates are strange electoral tangents. Their usefulness has probably run its course in terms of helping voters compare and contrast candidates on policy. Their utility now is much closer to the utility of YouTube.”   We have been conned into believing that the victor of the ephemeral jousting match is thus qualified to become the Emperor of the realm.

Let me start with that briefly. The last debate we all witnessed, as you know, was between President Joe Biden and former, impeached, convicted felon president Donald Trump.  Biden had a bad night, suffering the effects of fatigue and the common cold and was off his game to an extent. Immediately, the avalanche of negativity from the legacy media and its offspring, came rolling down in massive waves. “Joe Biden had a terrible night.” “Biden seemed lost and confused and incoherent.”  I’m not quoting anything particular here, just paraphrasing the most common storylines.

In sum, the election was over at that point according to these pundits and talking heads. The campaign, after that “disaster of a debate performance” by Biden, was really just a necessary exercise in futility. The die was cast.  Of course, the set up for this had been in the works with the papers, the cables and alphabets for several months – incessantly harping about the public perception that President Biden was much too old to serve another term effectively. They pounded and pounded and pounded it and the debate was really just the culmination of it and the “Aha!” moment, the foregone conclusion of all the nay saying and poorly disguised inferences.  What transpired was the fulfillment of a prophecy that was orchestrated in its inevitability.

And let me say, the point here is not to relitigate all of this, so much as it is to illustrate the nature of how the mass media exploits its role in covering presidential elections.  Joe gracefully and timely, excused himself, gentleman that he is, and as they say, passed the baton to Vice President Harris.  He earned the debt of gratitude we afforded him.

So here we are, once again, in fevered anticipation of a debate that Donald Trump did his part to amplify the drama quotient by keeping the media and by extension, the country, in suspense as to his intentions. “Will he or won’t he?”  “Trump sends signals that he may decline to participate in the debate.”  Trump gets massively more political mileage out of the controversy he creates and that the media caters to, than Kamala and her campaign does.

I have been consistent in my contention that the Times and CNN and WaPo and the rest of the broadcast and cable networks, are using every device at their disposal, to shoehorn Donald Trump into another term in the White House.  It’s all about the Benjamins – tax holidays, a slimmed down regulatory environment and a means of monetizing the viral, daily attacks on the Constitution and his objective of eclipsing the traditional role of the presidency, and replacing it with a version comparable to all of the national dictators he admires. As far as the corporate heads of these entertainment / media industrial complexes are concerned, “there’s still quite a bit of Gold in them thar hills.”

I maintain, that presidential “debates” are not debates, so much as they are choreographed and Carney barked, political Kabuki Theatre, intended as a shiny object to divert your attention  from the reality of what this election means and what the actual consequences are for America’s future, not to mention the critical substance of the issues as opposed to facile talking points regurgitated artfully or otherwise.  Among the key objections I have regarding the shit show atmosphere of the debates, is that they really distort the substance of what the role of the office of President actually consists of.

We are sold a bill of goods with regard to the emphasis on charisma and the performative capabilities of the players on the proverbial stage.  You can have the most qualified person imaginable, who is willing to take on the commitment and the solemn responsibility of the office and if he or she is not perceived as magnetic, mesmerizing, commanding, full of personality, quick with a quip or a recital of policy  – which may not be reflective of the truth or in the best interests of each and every citizen – the perception rules and substance takes a back seat.

The most telling qualification for the nation’s highest office is not in front of a camera or a microphone – it is in the daily performance of the multitude of decisions and responsibilities pertaining to the business of leading. Do they consult cabinet members and their staff, ask relevant questions and listen attentively to the advice they are given in the domestic, national security and intelligence briefings and arrive at the best course of action to take – not just for their friends, but for everyone, whether they be the majority or the minority, the working class, the middle class or the oligarch class?  Do they have personal discipline and acquired wisdom?  Problem solving acumen?  Ability to discern between subordinates who are dedicated to serve, or are they instead focused on exacting personal loyalty at all costs? Is the presidency a fulfillment of a personal agenda, or are they there to serve and make their mark on history in the most benign manner possible?

You don’t learn that from a 90 minute debate. You also don’t really get anything of substance about the issues being touched upon. What you instead get, is “sound and fury, signifying nothing” other than superficialities. Did he execute a well timed Bon Mot? Did she hit him with an accusation he had no artful response to? Who seized the moment?  How absurd and trivial this all is when you really apply critical thinking to it.  Is ‘winning the debate’  the ticket you are awarded to convert into votes?

But we’re all – or most of us are,  going to watch the debate anyway. It’s like you don’t look away from a grisly car accident or a public brawl. I like to predict things based on logic, data and probabilities. Sometimes all you have is data and the data in certain instances, is not so much data really, as it is subjective inferences derived from a collation of measurements that are of questionable accuracy and are more or less fungible. And two things are lacking that prevent me from predicting the direction of this country going forward.

One is the infinite capacity of the American people to be situated in the very shallowest depths of awareness of facts and what the implications of those facts should be – and that’s providing they have any grasp of facts to begin with. The other is that eligible voters, generally and to an extent that is troubling –  have allowed themselves to be distracted by breads, circuses and superficial impressions.  Our tendency is to seek out media personalities based on tribal identities and culturally synoptic values and then rely on them to dispense to us our opinions rather than be troubled to form them ourselves based on verifiable facts.

This is why I cannot forecast what direction we will take as a nation. Will we move forward or backward?  Will our inability to see things that are real, from a common perspective produce an inertia that defies solutions that require our sober and critical attention?  I can tell you one thing in any event. You are not going to learn anything from Tuesday night’s debate that you have not already perceived up to now.

If you are at present, convinced that Donald Trump is a con man, a malignant narcissist with the dark triad of personality disorder, a convicted felon, a Manchurian ex-president, a misogynist and the most moronic public figure ever seen in at least two American centuries, you will remain so and nothing Trump does or says will convince you otherwise, nor should it. He is what he is and lacks the facility to bamboozle anyone other than people who have their own illusions and motivations for nodding their heads in agreement with whatever he says. Patented cult of personality and embrace of demagogues.

Most of the audience, if nothing else, will recognize Trump as the classic comedy trope of the arrested development, blowhard, bragging, failed insult comedian, who resorts to fabricated anecdotes that the irresponsible media never calls him out to name specifics regarding. The buffoon, who is amusing up to a point, but if given too much screen time, becomes tiresome and predictable in the buffoonery.

Conversely, if you have evaluated Kamala Harris and found her qualifications, fitness for office, intelligence and sincere intent to preserve, protect and defend our accumulated canon of the rule of law to be authentic (within the confines of the ordinary game of politics), it’s highly unlikely that she will do or say anything that will contradict your existing perceptions.

There remains some unknown number of not “likely voters”, but prospective voters who still haven’t arrived at a conclusion. Those may, but again may not, influence the ultimate result of the election. The debate itself will not influence them so much as the collective zeitgeist, defective or not, dried in cement in the aftermath of the (so called) debate.

As to what we are more likely than not, going to see on Tuesday night, I’m not going to get much into the weeds on that, other than to mention that you will see classic Trump. He’ll make things up that won’t survive fact checks, outright lie, exaggerate beyond comprehension, attempt to belittle the opponent with personal observations that ironically all apply to himself and he’ll wrap virtually all his claims with fabulism, such as “she did the worst job handling the border crisis of any vice president in history. We’ve never seen anything like it. All the experts I’ve spoken with, agree on that.”

It’s more difficult to predict which approach Vice President Harris will take with him, because there are equally attractive options. She could stay classy or sling shit back in his face. A custom blend of the two would be optimum.

The other thing I am confident in predicting, will be that the network moderators will play softball with Trump, but interrogate Harris in similar fashion to the parents of a young man who has brought his prospective fiancée over to the house to meet mom and dad and they dutifully cross examine her to determine if she is suitable for their little boy. Harris will be facing minefields not only from Trump himself, but from the interrogators masquerading as moderators.

I’d like to be proven wrong on that.

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