Have Presidential Debates jumped the shark?

or am I just jaded

Have you ever become enamored with a new show? Before streaming you would anticipate the weekly release of your latest obsession, and get together with friends and family to watch cliff hanger season finales. This would lead to anticipation, you would spend time speculating on character development and other plot twists that might occur. When the new season starts, you hungrily consume one after another until suddenly the magic stops. If the show came from a book, this happens when the writers move beyond the original material. Or maybe the show runner decided to move on or asked for too much money and was fired. Maybe the writers became ideologically possessed by the latest political trend, or perhaps simply there was no more story left to tell. Despite this, the popularity of the show demands another season, after all the studio and remaining cast want to continue making money. Then, just as soon as it began the show fades into oblivion, and when you binge the series years later you’re met with the same disappointment when it inevitably enters its decline.

I’ve been rummaging around my mind trying to find an angle on the recent presidential and vice presidential debate. Of course there have been some choice viral moments including “they’re eating the dogs, they’re eating the cats, they’re eating the pets” poetically put by Trump in his debate against Harris. Walz probably had the greatest flub in VP debate history when advocating for gun control said “I’ve become friends with school shooters.” Even so, there has been something missing, something sanitized about this season’s debates.

Whether you like it or not, you are creature of ritual and story. A fresh show in the modern landscape captures your attention and whether you feast on the whole season at once or make time in your schedule for new episodes. It becomes a ritual. When you have enough people invested in the same show? A subculture develops.

The spectacle of presidential debates has been a part of The Cult of American Democracy since the advent of mass forms of communications. The major political parties understand their importance so much they formed a nonprofit in 1987 to make sure the major party candidates would be able to perform for the American people. Only the most respectable news agencies with their highest rated anchors are chosen to play the part of “moderator” and anyone who is thinking about voting will tune in or catch the highlights.

The average voter is like a bandwagon sports fan, and the Presidential cycle is the championship series. They weren’t there for draft, or while the team was finding their rhythm in the preseason, but now they’re completely invested in their team winning. According to some people who talk about politics for a living, most people don’t start paying attention to the Presidential election until September.

As I write this, it’s October 2024 the polling is basically neck and neck and the betting markets are vacillating with the headlines. Everyone is waiting for an October surprise in a race that has included assassination attempts, soft coups, and legal warfare.

While most people are being caught up in the ritual of presidential politics, I think there more than the normal sentiment of “this is the most important election of our lifetimes.” On the one hand that could very well be true, but we won’t really know that until four years has passed and something else becomes more important. After Trump shattered the fourth wall of presidential debates in 2016 by winning by any rhetorical means necessary, more people have finally had to admit that so called “moderators” are biased, brashness is effective, and substance was never the point. For those committed to suspending their disbelief two paths have presented. Generally speaking the liberals would agree it’s critical that “journalists” fact check in real time and basically act like another debate participant, and the conservatives who are holding on to a system that never existed just wish things could go back to Romney and Obama exchanging pleasantries and acting respectable. In an effort to accommodate this, the debates have removed crowds and muted the participants when they step over the line.

The result hasn’t been a substantive debate because there never was going to be a substantive debate. Presidential debates aren’t about policy they’re about perception. Neither person is actually an expert, but both need to appear as if they are in command. So with the exception of watching an incoherent Biden blindly blithering to the end of a sentence, we’ve had all the ritual with none of the fun. It’s another signal that the rules based “liberal” order of American and global politics is reaching its final season. The question then becomes what will obsess the American people next.

For more on that, make sure you catch the next episode of Been Awake with LB