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The first Trump-Biden debate may not move a vote, but it sure says a lot about the health of democracy in America. About what happens when one of the two contenders, the one who sits in the highest office, plays on a field that goes to great lengths to make it impractical, and the effects of the deepening gap between conventional storytelling, gray and rational, and designed chaos.
For Christian Rocca, Linkiesta director and expert on American politics, “it was a humiliating spectacle for everyone: for those who attended, for those who moderated, certainly also for Biden and for America. We have seen the lowest moment in American politics in recent history. It was not a debate: Although there were rules approved by both candidates, Trump never let Biden or the host speak. This is nothing new: Trump did this even four years ago, but then Hillary Clinton managed to fix it several times. Certainly she now enjoys a position of greater strength, being already in the White House, but there is no doubt that Biden has not been able to stop this mass of lies, smears, smears, lies. It is objectively difficult to build a debate this way, but Biden seemed very old and struggling with words. The only time it was effective was when he said “But why don’t you shut up” and “You have no dignity”: there was simply no opportunity for debate. I really don’t know if I should have the other two debates, since Trump doesn’t respect any rules. After all, it is Trump who must recover, at least according to the polls. “
For a rational reader – I myth that perhaps it is time to put aside – the analysis is clear: on the one hand there was a madman unleashed, on the other a normal person, although old and a little in distress. From this point of view, Trump’s performance may have spooked some undecided, but on the other hand Biden has not shown the vigor necessary to be the leader of the United States.
The metaphor of football, as always, gives the idea. “There were two penalties that were taken with an empty goal, but they did not enter,” says Rocca. “A president who has not paid taxes for 11 out of 18 years, who is not a billionaire but plays the role of a billionaire, who has undoubtedly eluded the tax authorities while giving money to his family, whose companies are on the verge of bankruptcy and has debts of 420 million … this was all an empty penalty that was not scored, because there was no way to do it. His response was “Fake news, I paid millions of dollars in taxes”: how can you object to someone who says The opposite of the truth? The other objective that Biden has failed – but not because of his own demerits – is in managing the pandemic: 200 thousand deaths, having underestimated the virus, reluctance to mask … But I repeat that Biden did not he scored because he couldn’t play, in soccer terms there was the impracticality of the field ”.
The operation of making the field impractical starts from afar and, coincidentally, occurs on the screens of PCs and smartphones that four years ago were decisive in guiding the result of the vote. The contrast between the media considered as establishment and the social galaxy that culminates in conspiracy phenomena like QAnon is increasingly stark. “They are two worlds that do not speak”, reflects Rocca. “This phenomenon already existed four years ago: it was one of the reasons why Trump won and no one in the liberal-democratic or center-left world has blinked. It was all under the radar because it was built around social media engineering – all these conspiracy theories only circulated in Trump’s bubble of potential voters and the rest of the world either didn’t notice or underestimate it. The case of PizzaGate, one of the main strengths of QAnon, is a textbook: the legend tells the story of Hillary Clinton and her team who, in a basement of a Washington pizzeria, would have performed who knows what satanic rites with a background pedophiles. This rumor, dismissed as an online rarity by the mainstream world, has actually circulated a lot on social media and on forums. Only later was it found to have a real impact on voting.
It is information built to reach those who can believe it, in accordance with the basic principle of social networks: the precise targeting of the objective to be achieved. Four years ago the phenomenon was more hidden, today the game is obvious because even the mainstream media have noticed it, so phenomena like QAnon end up on the cover or in the news. However, there is an extremely important side effect: by telling these theories, the mainstream media ends up spreading and feeding them. Now we know about the virus, but we don’t have the antibodies yet, and we end up spreading it even further, fueling what is a true epidemic.
“It’s no longer about Democrats and Republicans, but about rationality versus irrationality,” continues Rocca. “It is a problem shared by the entire Western world, where a large part of the population is willing to believe anything. If these theories are later dismantled by the same bodies found guilty or complicit, there is a risk that the ‘verb’ will become more and more powerful. It also happens with us. We have a party, the 5 stars, which was born as a software that tried to understand what the prevailing sentiment was in the network and based on that it took a position. Now he is not in very good health because he has governed and has entered the field of play. The great strength of Trump is that he managed to stay on the sidelines: he won the elections saying that Obama was not born in the United States; He spent 4 years in the White House and still manages to take on the role of the great debunker. It remains to be seen how he comes out of the polls, but in his game he has already proven to be a master.
For Paolo Magri, director of the Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI) and professor of International Relations at Bocconi University, the debate was “the plastic representation of an angry America divided in chaos”.
More than what has been said – Magri observes – the two abysses on the health of American democracy that the president has made us glimpse through his silences matter. “Trump deliberately failed to say two essential things: 1) that he will recognize the electoral result and guarantee a peaceful transition of power; 2) condemning white supremacism. More than what was said, this meeting weighed – for the health of a beacon of liberal democracy – what Trump managed to achieve. not tell. By not saying those four fundamental words – “I condemn white supremacism” – the president has shown that he does not want to ideologically and programmatically repudiate a mine that threatens the rights system in the United States. “In the web of crises gripping the United States , the position of the commander-in-chief is still that of one who takes the world by the shoulders, but woe to change the channel, it would be the easiest way to get to the sequel to PizzaGate.
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