Well, that was an unholy mess. Donald Trump came in planning to do nothing but try to drag Joe Biden down to his level and turn everyone watching off of voting at all, and he worked harder at it than he’s probably worked at anything in the last four years.
Moderator Chris Wallace fought to get Trump under control, but couldn’t succeed for more than about two minutes at a time in the face of Trump’s relentless barrage of lies, insults, and petulance. At times the debate devolved into Trump arguing with Wallace, the moderator, with Wallace looking and sounding very irritated at times. Since Wallace is a Fox News host, it's an interesting question how that will have come off for Trump’s base, which presumably couldn’t reflexively dismiss Wallace as hostile fake news.
The moderators of the next two debates must truly have been despairing as they watched. Either that or putting in calls demanding a mute button they could personally control on the candidates’ microphones.
Biden, for his part, had a series of strong moments when he turned his focus to the camera and addressed viewers directly on issues like health care, COVID-19, and the economy. And he did well with incredulous facial expressions and disbelieving laughter, as well as a few times when he spoke for us all by, for instance, saying “Will you shut up, man?”
For sure Biden outperformed the low low expectations Trump spent months setting up for him, at least before Trump realized the problem and started screaming about drug tests. In the few moments Wallace got Trump under control enough for brief moments in which Biden could answer, he was disciplined, empathetic, and generally on message.
If Biden also too often took the bait and responded to Trump’s taunts, getting dragged into petty crosstalk where the only winner could be the guy who wants people disgusted with the whole process—and he did—it’s hard to imagine how any of us would have done in the face of this nonstop verbal assault. Biden will need to develop almost superhuman restraint for the next debates.
What this debate made clear, though, is that there should not be any more presidential debates in 2020. Donald Trump’s only plan is to make these as ugly as he can, to make voters loathe the political process and be more likely to fall for his attempts to delegitimize the elections. This night was bad for the United States and bad for democracy and we shouldn’t allow it to be repeated.
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