The Art of Exhaustion

This photo from eight years ago was the first thing that popped into my mind when the debate was over.

Driving nonstop across the country with a newborn afflicted by colic would be less exhausting than what we just experienced.

I’m going to give you some of my takeaways from the first presidential debate here in a moment. I’ll provide you with some stats, observations, and a dash of nuance. Here in a moment.

I need another minute or two to just lay here, and mentally recharge from the exhausting, embarrassing, and disheartening carnival of chaos I just sat through.

It’s strange how something so shockingly awful to the senses can simultaneously do nothing to surprise the intellect. The whole ordeal reminded me of something that happened a few nights ago, when I found myself thrown into the regional semifinals of Talking Past Each Other, a longstanding Facebook competition you’re undoubtedly familiar with. Our competitor hailing from the Left had made objectively false inferences, and then used those inferences to (eventually) support a slightly more nuanced and accurate criticism of the tax code.

Our contender from the Right wasted no time in meeting the challenge head-on, by spending more time being a complete jackass than addressing the easily debunked falsehoods stated by his opponent.

Upon entering the fray, I quickly found myself hammering both of them for doubling and tripling down on their respective idiocy, be it dishonesty and lies from one side, or polarizing hyperbole and ad hominem from the other. It didn’t take me long to realize that I was wasting my time trying to get them to be decent to each other, so I finally excused myself from the conversation:

“Unbelievable. You two deserve the fractured, toxic America you’re creating. The rest of us don’t. I’m done. Hopefully all our ash heaps will be in the same neighborhood, so I can see the next riveting season of ‘I know you are, but what am I?’”

For several minutes, things went silent. I even started to hope some introspection might be taking place. But this was Facebook, and those hopes were quickly dashed as the suicidal contest of tribalism with no possible winners resumed once more.

Prior to my exasperated exit once it had all deteriorated, one of the first forays I made into this online exercise in futility was to propose the following:

“Hyper partisan garbage nonsense like this post, and your reply are why we are where we are. It can’t continue. Be better. If we want better from our politicians, we have to be better to each other. Edit: said with love, to all relevant parties.”

There’s no doubt I could have worded this better, but you understand the point. It’s a point I’ve been trying to make for a while now: our political class is a funhouse mirror, held up to the worst parts of our society, reflecting back an even uglier image than the original. They are how they are, because we are how we are.

This interaction proved to be an excellent primer for first presidential debate. President Trump and Vice President Biden were no different than my friends on Facebook. One lied repeatedly, but didn’t interrupt as much. The other often wasn’t wrong, but no one was listening. A gift of truth that’s been wrapped in petulant immaturity will often go unopened.

I did some quick arithmetic on the highest viewed YouTube streams for the debate (as of this writing), and came up with approximately 16 million viewers. Again, this is only counting the top 9 or 10 live streams. 16 million is a lot. For reference, the highly anticipated Chief’s-Ravens Monday Night Football game the evening prior drew about 14 million viewers.

Large numbers of people watched this debate, for an even larger number of reasons. One of those reasons is simple: they were undecided as to who to vote for. NBC News ran an article recently about how little the debates matter, dismissing the 29% of voters who said the debates were important to them. Twenty-nine percent? How close do you think the election will be? Five percent? Ten? Can we at least agree that the margin will be below twenty-nine percent?

This debate mattered, also because 47% of Biden voters said they’d never consider voting for Trump, while only 38% of the president’s likely voters said the same thing about Vice President Biden. Yes, most people indeed have their minds made up about their voting preferences. Most, but not all. Those are who this debate was for, and their conclusion was a bleak one.

All Joe Biden needed to do was show up and not die. That’s it. Those on the fence about Biden just needed to be able to confidently tell themselves he’s not as far gone as many (including myself) have implied. Mr. Biden passed this test with little difficulty.

President Trump, on the other hand, had a rare opportunity: speak to millions of people who are only accustomed to seeing his daily characterizations by the legacy media. He had a chance to show he wasn’t the chaotic, boorish bully they’ve spent four years portraying him as. This was an easy task. An easy task that the President failed dismally.

I fell asleep after writing everything you just read. It was somewhere around 3 AM, and I was exhausted. Almost twelve hours later, I’m still exhausted. I imagine you are, too. As I said, the President failed last night. Many Conservatives rightly point out that Joe Biden telling the President of the United States to “shut up” wasn’t a display of maturity. No, it wasn’t. It was a display of tired exasperation. Whatever you think about Joe Biden, he was channeling what many of us at home were feeling in that moment. He was channeling our exhaustion. Like my Conservative friend on Facebook, he might have been a jerk, but he wasn’t wrong. I wanted the President to shut up, too.

The truth is, Joe Biden’s answers last night were bad. Remarkably bad. If President Trump hadn’t behaved in the manner he did, this would have been clear to most people watching- especially undecided voters. But the President didn’t allow this to happen. One reason for this was the way in which the President “prepared.” Whenever he was asked about it, President Trump said that the rallies he was holding, and the interviews he was doing, were his preparation. He synthesized these two environments, and that synthesis is what we saw last night.

Consider the rally. You’re talking to people who agree with you. There might be substance to what you’re saying, but it’s tailored for those who agree with you. Think back on President Trump’s answer regarding his record. He spent a large portion of the time talking about all the judges he had successfully nominated. Really? This is less perplexing when you consider the rally context. President Trump is used to discussing his record in a way that excites those already inclined to celebrate these accomplishments, not those who need to be sold on the idea that the President has been good for them. To borrow from a favored metaphor, the President assumed the role of a preacher speaking to his congregants, not of an evangelist speaking to those he wishes to convert.

Now, consider the interviews and press conferences. The President has done enough of these, that he actually has a pretty solid grasp of data points, facts, and arguments to make his various cases. However, these are often radically adversarial environments. Thus the President is accustomed to the pugilism, but not to the power dynamics. When he’s holding a press conference, he can respond however he wants to a bad-faith question. He can ignore it, call on someone else, etc. The mic gets turned off for those who he doesn’t want to hear from anymore. He gets the final word. He can push back, and hard. This is not how a debate works. He and Vice President Biden are on level playing field. The President treated Chris Wallace the moderator the same as he would treat Jim Acosta the hack.

For the record, I think Wallace did an atrocious job of moderating last night. However, I believe much of that came in response to the first 15 minutes of the night, when the President refused to adhere to any basic levels of decorum as he interrupted both Biden and Wallace every chance he got. Frankly, I think the beginning of the debate quickly unified Wallace and Mr. Biden in mutual exhaustion. When Biden said “shut up, man,” I think Biden was channeling Wallace’s feelings in that moment, too. If it were a movie, you could imagine a scene after the debate where Biden and Wallace go out for a beer, bonding over their respective frustration.

There’s a strange frustration in seeing President Trump be the one who lied less, had the strongest points on policy, and did the most real-time fact-checking, and still come out the obvious loser. But, here we are.

An 1852 biography of Napoleon Bonaparte provides the following insight:

“Then, gentlemen,” said Napoleon, “Let us wait a little; when your enemy is executing a false movement, never interrupt him.”

President Trump seems to have internalized the exact opposite of these wise words. As I said, Joe Biden had atrocious answers. He lied repeatedly, and obfuscated on the rest. It was awful. However, this reality was never allowed to crystallize. Dave Rubin has often said his interview style utilizes the idea that “If you give someone enough rope, and they’ll eventually hang themselves.” President Trump tossed Joe Biden rope all night. Just as Biden would began to tie the noose, the President would push Biden over, yank the rope out of his hands, and put the noose around his own neck, instead. The amount of missed opportunities we saw last night were staggeringly frustrating.

I spent much of last night and today listening to various commentators breaking down the debate. I was trying to get a sense of whether or not my immediate intuition after it was over had been incorrect. I never received this disconfirmation. With that in mind, here are a few of my final thoughts on how this disaster will impact the next 30+ days:

1. President Trump did not grow his coalition last night. He likely pushed many people into Biden’s camp. Plainly put, he is now less likely to win than he was before the debate took place.
2. Fewer people will tune in to the next debate. Most undecided voters will make their decision based on last night. See #1 for the specifics.
3. President Trump just self-destructed in the easiest of the three debates. There is already talk of how the format will be changed for the next two, as a means of reigning in the President. He will not handle this well, and this response will further entrench the opinion he solidified last night.
4. The President had a fair shot going into last night’s debate. The odds weren’t stacked against him in real-time, until his tantrums alienated the moderator. If there are any more debates between him and Vice President Biden, the odds will now be solidly stacked against the President during the debate itself. Changes in procedure specifically targeting the President, increasingly hostile moderators, and fewer viewers are just some of the things we’ll see next.
5. The President did this to himself. He had the facts. He had the policies. He had the record. But he lacked the discipline to communicate those things in a meaningful and effective way. Blame the media, blame the Democrats, blame Coronavirus, blame whoever you want. But when Joe Biden is sworn in as the 46th President of the United States, the blame for Donald Trump serving only one term as President will ultimately fall squarely on his own shoulders.