“Will you shut up, man?” It was hardly an oratory worthy of Abraham Lincoln, but Joe Biden’s main plea in the face of Donald Trump’s relentless interruptions and bickering provided a defining soundbite of the 2020 presidential debates.
The two will meet again Thursday for the first of two head-to-head debates for the 2024 campaign, under new rules designed to prevent things from degenerating as they did four years ago. The US president and the former president will meet in a TV studio without the presence of a partisan audience, which some saw as a key part of Trump’s incendiary approach. And to counter the repeated raids that so irritated Biden, the candidates’ microphones will be muted when they are not speaking.
But the debates are also the first in decades to be conducted entirely by commercial TV networks — including two commercial breaks — and without oversight from the Commission on Presidential Debates, the longstanding, independent, nonpartisan body that has long ruled power. debate rules. Some critics say they fear that commercializing the process could lead to less substantive, shorter responses, focused more on generating conflict and sound bites than informing voters.
The 2020 verbal volleys between Biden and Trump, led by Fox News moderator Chris Wallace, became so vicious that CNN host Dana Bash was asked live on air to describe the event as “a shitshow.” Earlier this year, both campaigns opted to bypass the Commission on Presidential Debates, which has overseen presidential debates since 1988, and on June 27, Bash and her CNN co-host Jake Tapper will have the opportunity to reinforce the efforts of Fox when they chair the first debate in Atlanta. A second debate will take place on September 10, organized by ABC.
No props or pre-written notes are allowed on stage. Candidates receive a pen, a notepad and a bottle of water.
The decisions to turn off a candidate’s microphone when it is the opponent’s turn to speak, and to exclude a partisan audience, were made in an effort to reduce the theatrical gladiatorial bloodsport element that has fueled recent debates threatened to overwhelm.
Some critics said the lack of oversight from the CPD, as well as the inclusion of two commercial breaks during the 90-minute event, undermined the nature of the debate.
“The introduction of commercial breaks will fundamentally change what makes a debate a debate because the candidates will be constantly able to stop and regroup,” said Clea Conner, CEO of Open to Debate, a research group that has been studying presidential debates for the past several decades. has followed. , told Politico.
“Even though there are only two commercial breaks this time, once we find them acceptable, it’s a classic slippery slope; how many will there be next time, and the time after that?
“[Candidates’] arguments will have to be shorter, truncated for the commercial clock, and will result in more outrageous interactions to increase ratings.” Without the presence of an independent broker like the CPD, she argued, this would lead to ‘pure political theatre’.
Open to Debate’s report on the deterioration of debate quality testifies to the need for drastic format changes from 2020, to halt a decline in moderator control and candidate decorum.
While there were only three interruptions in three debates during the 2004 election between George W. Bush and John Kerry — managed by the CPD — there were 76 in the first meeting between Trump and Biden in 2020, the group noted. However, the second debate saw only four interruptions after non-speakers’ microphones were muted following criticism of the chaos three weeks earlier.
Steven Fein, a professor of psychology at Williams College in Massachusetts who has studied the psychological dimension of presidential debates, said excluding a loudly cheering live audience was “rational” and “good for democracy.”
“[It] will significantly reduce the likelihood that the focus of the debate will not be on what is actually said, but on all the things surrounding it – the audience reaction and playing to the audience,” he said. “I think this changes what the candidates are likely to do.
“It also changes what the audience at home takes away from the debate, what they remember, what is on the news the next day – all based on the audience’s reaction. Because the audience’s reaction may or may not be valid.
However, he warned that commercial TV networks could jettison the new approach “because it makes for less exciting television.”
The candidate with more to lose in the controlled, calm environment is likely Trump, said Tammy Vigil, an associate professor of communications at Boston University.
“He tends to feed off the energy of a crowd,” she said. “He’ll lose some of his energy if he doesn’t have a crowd to feed off of. The other part that will likely change is that the candidates will be more likely to talk directly to the cameras.
“I think this will improve the overall feel of the debate for television viewers because it will feel like the candidates are speaking to them more directly.”
