TV Duel Against Joe Biden: There Is Great Respect For Predator Trump

Tuesday, September 29, 2020

By Roland Peters

An unfiltered test of the US presidential candidates is said to be the first televised matchup. The influence of the debates on the elections is unclear. But it could still unmask a lot.

Some are already telling Donald Trump’s presidency in a very abbreviated way: impeachment, crown, Supreme Court justice, possibly his tax papers, next one please. But his story is not that simple and it will not end either. Trump should make sure of that in Cleveland, among other places, when he takes on his Democratic challenger Joe Biden in the first television match on Wednesday night. It won’t be so much about content, but whether Biden can really deliver what he promises: to be a trusted alternative to Trump.

Trump’s chances of increasing his chances of winning the election are dwindling and time is running out. The first television duel starts at 3 am German time (ntv broadcasts live), lasts an hour and a half and should provide important information for the remaining weeks of the US elections. Does Trump act differently than usual? Could you run out of arguments in the face of the crisis? What character is Biden playing? Does the Democrat hang on, or does he go too deep without a teleprompter and seem too weak or even “sleepy” as Trump repeatedly taunts him? Even in debates between Democratic candidates, Biden had not always been the best figure.

These disputes are big television events that can normally only be reached by the Super Bowl. They both have the fascination that their outcome is only partially predictable. In past electoral campaigns, the first debates received the most attention. This time, television stations are expecting around 100 million viewers nationwide, up from 84 million in 2016. Almost three-quarters of all registered voters say they want to tune in to the duel between the two candidates. There should be a total of three of these shows, each featuring the lead journalist from a different station.

Will that affect the election? If you believe the pollsters, only up to a point: In the same Monmouth University poll, only three percent of voters say the debate is likely to influence their Nov. 3 decision. Ten percent say there is at least a certain chance of it happening. In another poll, 44 percent of voters said the debate was simply bloated for them. This fits in with other statistics that very few of them are actual swing voters. Most Americans are attached to either side.

Different perceptions

After the moderator’s questions, the two candidates each have two minutes to comment. “A Tolstoy period by news television standards,” writes the New York Times. Chris Wallace of Fox News will lead the first duel: “My job is to be as invisible as possible,” said the host of the conservative station. Four years ago, Wallace was widely praised for leading the Trump-Hillary Clinton debate. According to US broadcasters, the duels are supposed to be an “unfiltered test” of acuity, stability and the ability to convince the electorate.

So how will the two competitors treat each other? Trump has a media instinct that makes him look natural, which can be a huge asset to him. At the same time, the president is notorious for spewing half-truths or accusations, which his counterpart then has to deal with and which some might find repulsive. The moderator will be careful not to do fact checks, which could be to Trump’s advantage.

In Trump’s appearances against Clinton, for example, he spoke simply, his opponent threw numbers like a technocrat. Then the US media declared Clinton the winner of the debates. Trump still won the election. The businessman had struck a chord with enough voters by portraying his opponent as a representative of the political establishment in Washington, which for decades had trampled on the interests of American citizens with bad trade deals, too much immigration and the controversial Obamacare health insurance system. .

It is not without reason that Biden has so far intervened as little as possible in public debates and rather has only said and done the least. Simply not offering a target and being distracted from Trump’s political failure is obviously the motto.

Attack and dodge the enemy

Trump hardly discussed ideas in the duels with Clinton, instead attacking almost non-stop, even without speaking during a debate: Trump left his designated spot at the lectern and stood like a predator behind his competitor as she spoke. “He was practically breathing down the neck,” Clinton later recalled the situation. It was cold down her spine. But he has decided to ignore Trump.

Biden has shown several faces so far. He proved to be a respectful polemicist when he took the stage as Barack Obama’s runner-up against Sarah Palin around 2008. He had to discredit the star of the ultra-conservative “tea party” trend as too inexperienced and inappropriate, without appearing arrogant. Four years later, when he discussed it with runner-up Paul Ryan, Biden was much more aggressive. Against Trump, he will try not to get too defensive. The fear among Democrats is that, despite all the training, this first direct encounter with Trump will be a disaster for their candidate.

The effects this will have in the end can be debated for a long time. The American media has become much more cautious about announcing an expected outcome after its traumatic journalistic experience in 2016. The “New York Times,” for example, shows three percentages in its table on grief in particularly competitive states and Important: the result of 2016, the current values ​​of the survey and how these numbers would change with the same deviation as four years ago. You can also write in the same way: “Nothing is known exactly.” But a little more after the first duel.