Chaos in Cleveland

T he 90 minutes of “debate” between President Donald Trump and former vice president Joe Biden cannot be told as a cohesive story, or reduced to a few bottom lines. It was too fast and too disorganized. Almost anyone watching would have just picked up impressions along the way. I’ve grouped mine into piles for the moderator and for each candidate.

Chris Wallace was overwhelmed by Trump out of the gate. He could not establish control, and his attempts to do so increasingly became editorial comments on the proceedings. But if some viewers were mad that he interrupted Trump unequally, that’s because Trump himself was trying to command and overwhelm both his opponent and the moderator. Still, I can’t remember laughing harder than after the moment Chris Wallace tried to re-establish order and calm . . . and then immediately introduced the topic of “Race.” It was one of the greatest comic pratfalls in history.

Joe Biden was slow to start. He was neither particularly sharp nor dull-witted. Some portion of viewers will interpret his quieter performance as possessing more dignity. Others will feel he was weak and got himself steamrolled (I got several texts worrying about this from people who aren’t warm to Trump.) Biden’s best moments were when he spoke calmly and directly to the camera, particularly at the end in his encouragement to the people to vote and not to be fearful of the process.

There was so much stray talk that sometimes you just picked out a line that made a mark. Biden’s strong lines: “You [the people] don’t panic. He panicked.” Even “I am the Democratic Party!” was strong. In a previous age, it would seem megalomaniacal; in the Trumpian age, merely leaderly. There is no stable mental model of an undecided voter. But how that voter perceives Joe’s protestations matters a great deal. “It’s hard to get any word in with this clown,” Biden said. Does that seem weak, or just truthful?

Biden’s worst moments were the evasions. Biden was asked point-blank to state his positions on the filibuster and court-packing. He said that the American people should express themselves by voting. Well, Joe, what are they voting for?  Biden said that if he expressed his position, that would be the news story. Well, yeah, no kidding. It’s very possible Joe Biden will be president of the United States. That’s a good reason to have news stories about his views on packing the Supreme Court.

For Trump, where are the jokes and laughs?  Trump seemed like a worse blowhard than usual tonight and therefore came across to me as more insecure. But I like orderly debate. Maybe others will see his constant interruptions as energetic and swaggering. He also hurt his own Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, by admitting he wanted her on the bench because he expects the Court would have to look at the election.

Trump’s best moments were pointing to the ways in which Biden’s political case against the Trump presidency is incoherent. Biden blames Trump entirely for the 2020 recession, but favors a stronger lockdown approach. Except when he didn’t favor stronger measures at the start of the pandemic.

By far Trump’s most self-defeating habit in these debates is to refer to stories rather than tell them. He speaks as if he’s talking to people who, like himself, spend hours a day watching Fox News and have a shared folklore of scandal stories that can be referred to in shorthand. He refers to events, like ballots found in a wastepaper basket, but doesn’t tell the story of where they happened, or why they matter.

Trump’s final section on electoral integrity is going to drive people in the media utterly insane. But his warning about the erosion of election night, and the hasty introduction of a new process — “This is not going to end well” — felt like precisely the kind of gnomic Trump prophecy that turns out to be true. Maybe not this year, but I think I agree in the long term that he’s right.

The next two debates will be better. They almost have to be.