Ready, set, debate
Canoeing or kayaking, depending on the circumstances, is one of my favorite things to do on a warm bluebird day. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that last Saturday I found myself on the Mulberry River with a buddy from my Pizza Group.
The 75-mile-per-hour speed limit has done wonders for the Arkansas day trip.
At some point or another, we discussed the merits of the Mulberry vs. the Buffalo River. Both have tons to offer in terms of natural beauty (bluffs on the Buffalo can’t be beat), but I prefer the Mulberry. I’m no whitewater expert and my real goal is to just get outside, but the Mulberry has more rapids and rolls faster than the Buffalo.
On a day when I could have been perfectly content not giving a rip about politics on either river, it occurred to me as we rolled off the Pig Trail to I-40 that this Buff-Berry “debate,” if you could even call it a debate, would’ve been pointless if we hadn’t each paddled both rivers multiple times. A written, oral or even pictorial description just isn’t enough to justify a stance, even if it’s essentially a tie.
This brought me to thinking about the presidential debates. That’s quite a leap, and I probably should’ve just stayed on the river, but that’s just me. Guilty as charged.
Without question, this cycle’s earlier Republican primary debates were nothing more than a fool’s errand, considering Donald Trump was a no-show for all of them. But even his absence, and with the presence of our thoughtful and serious Asa Hutchinson, each turned into a circus of characters with approximately zero respect for the rules.
Democrats held no such debates, but that’s pretty normal for the party holding the presidency. If the shoe were on the other foot, we might see the same from the Republicans.
However, in just one more example of the United States being a tale of two realities, I was discussing the upcoming debate with another friend who was surprised to know they were happening at all, because “Joe Biden never debated Trump” in 2020.
What? Are you kidding me? I saw both 2020 debates with my own eyes. The friend’s response was, “Are you sure?”
What? Are you kidding me?
It’s undeniably true, no matter what your preferred news source wants you to believe. Check the record.
Both right- and left-leaning media have painted this matchup as one between a senile old man who’s somehow masterminding all kinds of nefariousness vs. an unhinged lunatic who either belongs in jail or a mental institution.
Former Trump spokesperson and current Biden supporter Anthony Scaramucci compares it to “Weekend at Bernie’s” vs. “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”
How these debates turn out is anyone’s guess, but the situation is not dissimilar to Biden’s State of the Union address where he did well enough for Trump to allege cocaine use. As ridiculous and revealing as that is, to the extent rank-and-file Republicans even watched the speech, what had to be most shocking for them was that Biden didn’t roll down the aisle of the House in a wheelchair, hooked to an IV, wearing granny glasses and a blanket across his lap.
That’s if they watched, and that’s a big if. It reminded me of earlier in Biden’s term when he made a speech about MAGA set under creepy red-tinged backlighting. Those who watched the speech heard Biden pointedly remind a national audience that MAGA does not represent all Republicans. In fact, that’s the only part of the speech I remember other than the weirdly apocalyptic-for-no-reason backdrop.
Those who understandably decided to opt for right-wing Cliff’s Notes in order to watch something infinitely more entertaining heard no such disclaimer by Biden. And that’s why actually watching these coming debates is important.
America lives in two different political realities where “alternative facts” have somehow risen to the credibility level of actual facts. Veracity has taken a back seat to volume, but this is not a debate in the wee hours after last call. It’s about the future of the republic, which means it’s necessary to eliminate the noise, literally and metaphorically.
There will be no audience in the first debate and microphones will be automatically cut off when response times expire. Each candidate will be—drumroll please—allowed to finish a thought.
Debate rules are nothing new, but today they’re especially necessary because what used to be called “decency” floated down the Jerry Springer river a long time ago.
Arguably most important is that unlike the SOTU, people will tune in to see how their candidate performs. In the process, they’ll be forced to see how the opposing candidate performs, unedited until it’s over, at which point the spin machines will shift into hyper-drive trying to make you believe you saw something you didn’t.
Make no mistake, it will not be good TV, but you owe it to yourself and the republic to watch it in its entirety. After that, I suggest you immediately change the channel to something less inclined towards group-think and less political . . . like Youtube videos of kayaking the Mulberry or Buffalo River.