By Luca Filigenzi, Local News Editor
With the last two national debates having dominated the headlines, for better or for worse, a certain realization dawned upon me: presidential debates are entirely pointless. Don’t get me wrong, debates, when done right, are an amazing platform for learning about the other side and formalizing your own thoughts. The presidential election should be the absolute peak of this: two brilliant individuals portraying their thoughts on how to fix the country. But this has not been the case for nearly a decade. What we have now is a sort of malaise, in which people have resigned themselves, never being convinced by policy or debate.
Before explaining everything wrong with the modern presidential debates, I’d like to talk a bit about its history. For a long part of American history, presidential candidates didn’t even campaign for themselves, let alone debate their opponents. That was left to their most ardent supporters. But then, along came the invention of TV: a way for millions of voters to see their candidates’ views firsthand.
The famous series of debates between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy for the 1960 election has the gold standard for famously changing election results based on a debate. Things were quiet for a bit, but every election year since 1976, the two major party candidates have met on stage. Sometimes even a third candidate would appear, such as in 1980 or 1992.
What all these debates had in common was that they genuinely affected how people voted, convinced undecided people and even potentially drew some voters over from the other camp, which is just not what we see today. Ever since 2012, debates have merely served as a way of proverbial patting the backs of both parties’ candidates. No one will switch sides after a debate. It doesn’t matter who wins the debate. I believe this to be a symptom of America’s political devolution, as seen in our electoral maps since 2000 when fewer and fewer people have been willing to change their minds.
Look at the 2024 presidential debate between former President Trump and Vice President Harris. As a person who watched the debate with both Republicans and Democrats, both sides exuded the same theme: “My candidate won. The other one wasn’t even trying.” Same for 2020 and 2016, and I predict it will likely be the case in 2028.
To look back at an example from decades prior, in 1984 Republican Ronald Reagan was running for a second term against former Vice President Walter Mondale. There are two debates that people remember from that election: the one where Reagan lost and the one where he defeated Mondale. Both are examples of how a debate could sway the opinions of Americans on a specific candidate.
President Obama and Former Governor Romney took part in three debates, which Luca Filigenzi argues was more effective in learning about the candidates than more recent debates.
In the first one, Reagan’s age was a major concern as he stumbled over words and occasionally lost his train of thought, especially when compared to the relatively younger Mondale. Reagan’s momentum suddenly halted, and many Republicans and Independents were wary of his age. However, at the second debate, Reagan had a massive comeback in the form of his famous “age an issue” quip. It was over after that. Mondale himself admitted later on that this was the moment he knew he had lost.
So how about today? Well, appealing to the American political audience (and I use that term intentionally because politics has become a show) has become more ingrained in the characteristics of politicians as opposed to their policies, which heavily affects the importance of debates. Not to say that character was never important, it’s one of the reasons why Reagan was so popular. But, when the time came to talk about actual policies, he could back it up.
Recent presidential debates have become complaining competitions, switching from a platform to upgrade oneself to a platform to degrade your opponent with personal attacks. This can be tied to America’s shifting desires from politicians, as evidenced by election results. Voters have moved from supporting the most intelligent and least scandalous candidates to the ones who can grab attention the most.
Therein lies the true difference in the current failure of presidential debates as opposed to the past: the level of intelligence in policy has utterly vanished. 2012 is the last example I can think of when both candidates focused more on policy rather than throwing personal attacks at their opponent.
The gradual transition in American politics from a form of thought expansion into a tabloid-esque, festering hub of gossip has taken debates as another victim in its path of delegitimizing political rhetoric.