The Debate Was “Folly”—but Ask What It Accomplished

Over years of commenting on political and cultural events and trends, I have been forced to fallback, from time to time, on the advice: “Ask of a folly only what it accomplishes.”

Where the play is for very high stakes, and the players have every reason to know what they are doing, seeming folly disguises motivations.

It is profound advice. Because day-to-day little league folly often is … only folly. But where the play is for very high stakes, and the players have every reason to know what they are doing, seeming folly disguises motivations.

And so, the first presidential debate last night. Folly. The headline in Breitbart News was “Food Fight in Cleveland. Bonkers!”

The New York Times headlined: “Trump Hectoring Upends Debate …” And: “Debate Prompts Shock, Despair, and, in China, Glee.”

One wit said: “Trump doesn’t need a COVID shot, he needs a rabies shot.”

Immediately after the candidates left the stage, the PBS commentator sputtered something like “I still can’t believe it! I still can’t …” He then began to blame President Trump, but finally added, in an incredulous tone, “and Biden, too.  He called the president a ‘clown’ and he said, ‘Shut up!’—more than once.”

It was President Trump, of course, who committed the seeming folly. Why?

So far, the two people I asked personally said they left in the middle of debate. “Schoolyard antics.” “I can’t stand this.”

So what did this folly, enacted before hundreds of millions of viewers worldwide, accomplish? It was President Trump, of course, who committed the seeming folly. Why?

For four years now, Mr. Trump’s enemies (not just opponents) in politics, the media, academe, and Hollywood have incessantly attacked him. Often with baseless accusations (racist, white supremacist; well, Biden called him a racist, too, and, in a provocative question, Wallace pretended that the president controls white supremacists). Attacks progressing through allegation after allegation, each taken up by a chorus of voices, and never ending. Repeated literally millions of times, these allegations engendered among Americans two broad responses:

1. Fear, anger, indignation, obsessive outrage—in the extreme, “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” Whatever the discomfort of these feelings, people seem to flock nightly to the news, and daily to newspapers, for another fix.
2. Resentment, disbelief, protest, and finally a complete collapse of trust in the voices raised daily in escalating attacks on the president—nothing too extreme or vile to allege.

Wasn’t Democratic candidate Joe Biden’s approach in the debate predictable? It would be one attack after another on President Trump: the outworn canard that he called white supremacists “fine people,” the charge that he contributed to 200,000 U.S. pandemic deaths, the charge that he “paid less in taxes than a school teacher,” the charge that he deprived masses of people of their health care, the charge that he refused to blame climate change for the wildfires, the charge that he was undercutting credibility of the coming election …

Those who do not cling solely to CNN and the New York Times know that these charges have been strongly rebutted—not to say, refuted—again and again. It has not mattered; they are repeated, never modified, never corrected.

The first debate would be Biden’s stage for bringing them together, repeating them one more time for millions of viewers just before the election. And, as we know, it is notoriously difficult in a minute or two to answer an accusation like “You contributed to the deaths of 200,000 Americans.” How do you more than deny it–again?

My guess at the motivation of the “folly”? President Trump was not going to let Biden repeat those charges, one after another, to this huge audience. Nor, later, let Chris Wallace repeat them. (Trump said he guessed he was debating Wallace, too.) He later tweeted that the debate was “two on one, but still fun.” At least someone enjoyed it.

Trump simply interrupted—immediately, loudly, and unrelentingly—whenever Biden began reciting a charge. Trump could not be stopped. The media are saying that “Wallace lost control.”

That was the intention. Who really heard what Biden was saying? Or what Trump was saying? What Trump mostly did was turn the accusations around on Biden. Biden criticized Trump’s earliest steps to slow the pandemic. Biden could not say “law and order.” Biden began to say of Trump “Your whole family …” and Trump interrupted with a blistering attack on Biden’s son’s financial dealings.

And so it went from start to finish. When Trump did let Biden speak uninterrupted, it was because Biden was saying “no fossil fuel plants by 2035,” that he doesn’t support the Green New Deal (contradicting Biden’s own website), and other potentially self-damaging remarks.

There also was a secondary accomplishment of Trump’s folly, I believe. By mercilessly hectoring Biden, Trump was relying on the widespread view that Biden frequently becomes flustered, misspeaks, gets his facts wrong. That kind of slip in a debate is considered a disaster. But Biden did not falter (Except when he said “We can get to net zero, in terms of energy production, by 2035. [1:45.27-34]”

Biden was goaded, however, into a level of discourse new in presidential debates, calling the sitting president “a clown” and snapping “Will you shut up?”

He was goaded, however, into a level of discourse new in presidential debates, calling the sitting president “a clown” and snapping “Will you shut up?”

Trump did not call Biden any names or tell anyone to shut up.

Folly. The New York Times calls for Biden to withdraw from the debates. Biden’s campaign manager instantly said, “No.”

Who won?

Not surprising, a headline story in Breitbart by John Nolte said: “… the corrupt national media want the two remaining presidential debates canceled because they know Trump won and Biden lost.”

In support of that call, Nolte says that Trump got Biden to repudiate the Green New Deal, which will hurt him with the left; that Trump got Biden to say he would repeal the Trump middle-class tax cut; and that Biden was pushed into dismissing Bernie Sanders and potentially losing the enthusiasm of Sanders supporters.

Nolte concludes: “Finally, Trump did a brilliant job sounding the alarm about the coming catastrophe and left-wing corruption involved with mail-in voting.

“Trump won.

“It wasn’t pretty, but Trump won.”

Even as the morning after the debate went on, additional well-known Democratic voices urged Biden to nix the debates.

I have not seen any leading Republicans, or specifically any Trump supporters, call for Trump to cancel the next two debates.

Ask of a folly only what it accomplishes.

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About the Author: Walter Donway

Walter Donway contributes to Savvy Street on political economy, science, and trends in fiction, film, and culture. Walter Donway’s most recent book is Donald Trump and His Enemies: How the Media Put Trump in Office (Romantic Revolution Books: New York, September 2017). His Amazon profile can be found here