The Biden/Trump debates: 'Bread and Circuses' Part Deux

The rematch nobody wants is coming to CNN and ABC this Summer and Fall

Presidential debates have long whetted the “Bread and Circus” appetites of the masses in American politics, at once serving up a blend of prime time panache and magisterial decorum. It all began in 1960 when a sweaty-lipped, though intellectually formidable Richard Nixon, ‘lost’ that inaugural debate to John F. Kennedy.

While the 1960 debate is remembered for being the first of its kind to be broadcast both on radio and what was still the nascent medium of television, the differing reactions of the audience are what came to define it. Radio listeners came away thinking Vice-President Nixon had bested Kennedy, at least in substantive terms. Meanwhile, the glaring lights of the studio smiled upon the then Massachusetts senator, whose charisma was made all the more radiant by the power of the ‘the tube.’ In the end, Kennedy seemed fresh-faced and alluring, while a stiff and five-o’clock shadowed Nixon looked less than TV ready.

The tradition of presidential debates is neither stipulated by the Constitution nor have they always been held quadrennially. Lyndon Johnson, who held a commanding lead over Barry Goldwater for much of the 1964 campaign opted not to debate. In 1968, a resurgent Nixon, still scarred by his narrow loss to Kennedy (and his debate PTSD) took a pass on debating Humphrey that year. Nixon didn’t debate his challenger, George McGovern, in 1972 either. Debates would return with the 1976 race between President Gerald Ford and former Governor of Georgia, Jimmy Carter.

The news that Biden and Trump have agreed to two debates— one in June hosted by CNN and the other in September hosted by ABC—is notable in that both campaigns are shunning the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates, which has organized every debate since 1988. A statement issued by the Biden campaign read:

"The debates should be conducted for the benefit of the American voters, watching on television and at home — not as entertainment for an in-person audience with raucous or disruptive partisans and donors, who consume valuable debate time with noisy spectacles of approval or jeering. As was the case with the original televised debates in 1960, a television studio with just the candidates and moderators is a better, more cost-efficient way to proceed: focused solely on the interests of

voters.”

For the record, the 1960 in-studio Kennedy-Nixon debates indeed had strict rules, with no interruptions by either candidate and no in-person audience. But it was the first of its kind, and the wide-ranging impact of television on our nation’s cultural and political psyche had yet to be fully felt.

For at least the past forty-five years, presidential debates have been best remembered for their gotcha moments, quippy retorts and mud-slinging zingers. In one of the Ford/Carter face offs, Ford’s clumsy attempt at appearing tough on Cold War era Russia led to him to absurdly assert : “There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe and there never will be under a Ford Administration.”

The first debate of the infamous 2000 race between Al Gore and George W. Bush was noteworthy for Gore’s endless exasperation with Bush, which turned Gore into a condescending caricature, sighing away at a simple, but folksily charming Bush. Gore repeatedly shook his head and seemed to be wearing too much makeup, and in criticizing Bush’s plan on Social Security, he ended up referring to his protective “lockbox” seven times. The former Vice-President, a policy wonk to be sure, no doubt cost himself votes in the heartland by ham-handedly coming off as the smirkiest guy in the room.

Pundits and pols have long argued about whether or not debates actually have an impact on the electorate’s choice for president, though one can certainly point to vice-presidential debates as sideshows with limited efficacy. Lloyd Bentsen’s immortal exchange with Dan Quayle :

“Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy, I knew Jack Kennedy, Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you are no Jack Kennedy,” didn’t stop the GOP Bush/Quayle ticket from winning a landslide 40 state win over the Democratic pairing of Dukakis/Bentsen in ’88.

But with the recent NYTimes/Sienna poll showing Biden trailing Trump in all swing states save Michigan, it’s worth rethinking how these two Trump/Biden debates may yet matter at the ballot box. Biden’s 45,000 electoral college victory in 2020 among three states is hardly comfortable footing for any incumbent, let alone one who faces strong economic headwinds and a decline in consumer confidence. The same Times poll reveals that more than half of all voters surveyed in five of the six swings states rate the nation’s economy as “poor.” Yes, the election is still 6 months away, but 2020 polls at this moment in time showed Biden regularly ahead by 4-5 points.

Which has me mindfully (and warily) thinking of the 1980 debate where an embattled incumbent (President Jimmy Carter) faced economic headwinds and geopolitical turmoil, and how that single debate between Carter and his challenger, then Governor Ronald Reagan, likely proved decisive. (To be sure, Trump is no Reagan, is a criminal defendant and a twice impeached ex president, but we live in aberrant times.) The single Carter/Reagan debate held in Cleveland that year, was memorable for Reagan’s direct pitch to voters : “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” Biden posed the equivalent question to voters in 2020 casting Trump as unhinged, lawless and incompetent in his handling of COVID-19.

But a seemingly indefatigable Trump is more than poised to ask the question again of his successor. If it’s been said that all presidential elections are referenda on the incumbent, then a frailer Biden than the one who vanquished Trump four years ago, may end up all the worse for wear after these debates.

The highly competitive race between Carter and Reagan was upended by the 1980 debate and Reagan’s adept performance. The polls greatly shifted in Reagan’s favor in the final week of the campaign, and he cruised to a 44 state victory over Carter, an electoral rout which sounds almost apocryphal in today’s riven nation. But the age of Trump has been nothing if consistent in its unpredictability.

And Trump’s evil, uncanny genius is his talent for diversion and distraction. Undoubtedly, Trump’s tactics would have found a wide audience in ancient Rome. The term “Bread and circuses” is credited to the Roman poet Juvenal who bemoaned the failure of citizens to grapple seriously with the fragility of republican government and abdicated the call to civic duty, as the Roman republic collapsed into an angry, autocratic empire. People would willingly forfeit their freedoms to a tyrant and abide injustices, Juvenal observed, if they were sufficiently mollified by meals and entertainment. A closer look at Juvenal’s words remain eerily resonant, even if the analogy of the ill-fated trajectory of the Roman empire to 2024 America is inexact:

“Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses.”