So, as we all know, the first presidential debate of the 2020 elections, happened on Tuesday, September 29th. I was super excited about this debate and was so ready to see how it turned out. Well, most of you know how it turned out. It wasn’t that great. But, what if there were hidden aspects of the debate. We mainly just saw a lot of bickering but, what if there was a strategy. What if the plan was to make this debate seem terrible? Let’s find out.
You can find the debate anywhere on youtube and online, but I will put the link at the bottom.
So, let me start off by saying, first and foremost, that the 2020 first presidential debate was terrible. It seemed terrible and wasn’t very good. I know that there may be a trick to it, and there may be something else under what happened, maybe a plan behind all this, but, I have to say, the result wasn’t that great. I have to say though, after reviewing some of the previous debates from each of them, presidential and VP debates, I saw that they are actually better in the debates than they were in what we saw on Tuesday. Take former Vice President Biden- Mr. Biden- for example. During the debate, we saw that he was faltering, repeating himself, stuttering, and wasn’t very clear with what he said. He was often repeating himself like he didn’t have his thoughts clearly assembled or like his thoughts were falling apart. Plus, he was often talking about how President Trump did something wrong or didn’t do anything as well when answering the questions. instead of answering what he would do, he often replied- often- what President Trump hasn’t yet done or how badly he’s done something on that topic. But, if we see some previous debates, like the VP debates in 2008 or in 2012, we see that they are a lot better, and it is much, much more different than the one on Tuesday.
( Link: 2008 VP debate)
I’m going to use the 2008 VP debate as my first example. In this one, Mr. Biden goes first to answer the first question, and his answer is very clear. It is very concise, clear, simple, proves his answer, and supports President Obama in every way. His thoughts are all collected and complete. To me, it looks like he may be talking to the moderator, as his eyes are sort of off to the side as if he is looking over there, but, when he speaks, it feels like he’s speaking to the people in the audience. Perhaps he was speaking to the people, and was looking to the audience on the right, or WAS speaking to the moderator. Either way, his voice was well heard. When the other candidate was speaking, he was listening, mulling over what she was saying and her answer. Something you might say is, well, maybe Mr. Biden started to get more comfortable with the debates after winning the 2008 election and started speaking like he did in 2020 one. Perhaps he started to get cocky after this election. Not exactly.
( Link: 2012 VP debate)
Check out the 2012 VP debate. Yes, he has sightly changed his attitude and way he reacts or facial expression when listening to the other candidate, but how he speaks is the same. Even though I may talk more about how they each spoke, I want to include facial expression and body language a little in this. It may be pretty minor, but it is pretty important. If you notice, in the 2020 debate, Mr. Biden was often smiling and sort of laughing at President Trump’s replies or response to the question. This also can be seen in the 2012 debate. In the 2012 debate, we see that he started to “loosen” up I guess, or started to lose the solemn blank face with precessing thoughts and changing it to a smiling, more emotion-filled face that can be seen while processing the information. The 2008 debate may be his first debate or first debate for a position, so he may not know what he should do. His expression was solemn and still during the first debate and is a bit expressionless, but what if later he decided to change that? That could be a possibility. We can also see, and hear, that in this debate as well, Mr. Biden is very clear and concise with his words. His thoughts are collected and together and he isn’t stuttering at all.
Let’s move on. We can’t keep talking about Mr. Biden. We still have Mr. Trump to talk about and very little time to finish this post. I only have one video I’m going to use for this because, this is the first presidential debate of 2016, for him, and a look into how Mr. Trump debates. I may add another clip for a video later, but right now, I only have one video pulled up.
So, when we saw the 2020 debate, we saw that Mr. Trump was speaking over Mr. Biden, not letting him speak, and often arguing with the moderator. Is this the same as the 2016 debate? Mmm, not really. In the 2016 debate, he was actually much different. For some time. At the start of the first, 2-3 questions, Mrs. Clinton was speaking about how she viewed Mr. Trump’s plans and his strategies and his plans of growing the economy. She calls it, ” Trumpdump trickle down”. This is what I heard from the video, it may not be the exact thing she did, but it is what I heard. Anyway, when she said this, we saw that Mr. Trump slightly smiled. He was thoughtful and respectfully listening to what she said, and even though he may or may not have approved or liked what she said, he kept quiet and showed a simple expression to show what he thought, instead of telling what he thought. During his response, he stated what he thought from his answer and his response. But then later, you can slightly see, that he wanted to say what he was thinking. He wanted to interrupt and say a response to what she said. He even did that in between, but only slightly. ut then, it changes. We start to see a lot of what happened during the 2020 debate, here. President Trump kept speaking over Mrs. Clinton when it was her time to speak, he was talking bad about some of the things President Clinton has done during his terms, and it is ok to have opinions, but he was sort of stating it like it wasn’t his opinion. In my opinion, I think President Trump isn’t that great of a debater. He just wants to get his point through and make himself seem right and the other candidate isn’t.
Moving on, I want to talk about possible strategies these two candidates had in mind. ( I mean the candidates in the 2020 elections. We’re back in the future after touring the past.) I have a possible idea of the plan Mr. Biden may have had, that comes from West Wing. Beware spoilers. Anyway, in West Wing, when Matt Santos is running for president and chooses Leo to be his VP, Leo is getting ready for the VP debate. Leo is known to be really good at debates, and someone with a great political mind. He is phenomenal at debates and nails them, but when practicing, he isn’t that great. If you want to see the clip, you can see West Wing on Netflix, and the scene is from season 7, episode 10- running mates. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that Leo could have been setting a low expectation for the debate. A low expectation that he isn’t giving good answers, but in the end, wows them and turns out to be amazing. Same thing here. We saw that Mr. Biden is really good at debates, but wasn’t that great during Tuesday’s. What if his strategy is to make it seem that he isn’t that great, but during the next debate blows us away and shows that he is good? What if the plan was to lower the expectations and standards because he knew that there would be high expectations after seeing Mr. Trump’s debates in 2016, and how well Mr. Biden does during debates? What if he lowers/lowered the expectations so that in the end, he can twist the tables and wow everyone? Think about it, if the expectations are low and you don’t expect something great, wouldn’t you be amazed if, in the end, it was? What if that was the plan? But, then again, in West Wing, Leo was getting old and weaker. I say this with respect but, what if Mr. Biden has started to get worse or lose his skills of debating from old age? You never know.
Let’s think about Mr. Trump’s plan as well or his possible plan. The whole time, we saw Mr. Trump “attacking”/ not letting Mr. Biden speak. Probably, he would have watched past debates from Mr. Biden and got a strategy to attack Mr. Biden, so he loses his guard and doesn’t do well? Or, what if it was also, to make the debate seem bad? I’m really into the whole, make the debate seem bad theory at the moment and it is really funny, just reading over and seeing, make it seem bad, lower standards, over and over again. But, it’s because it seems like a valid plan. Especially, when you think about how it could be Mr. Trump’s plan. Attacking Mr. Biden to lower Mr. Biden’s response or confidence, to make him seem like he isn’t a worthy candidate? Could that be a plan?
Anyway, to end this blog, I hope you all got a new perspective on the 2020 debate. I know I did along the way and learned A LOT about both candidates and some of their styles of talking and their body language and facial expressions. I wish I could write more and talk more about the topic but it has been a long, 3 hours and 46 minutes, and typing opinions and watching political videos of great excitement and thrill is very exhausting so, I’ll have to say bye, and I hope to see you in the next post.