I have written that political debates have outgrown their utility, and I stand by that.
They are now more about theater than substance. They are more about making moments than making points. The cameras and the commentators wait for the zingers and the flubs, the clippable, quotable passage, the 10 seconds that stand out for their dramatic effect rather than for their deeper meaning.
Debates have been bastardized beyond belief.
And debate prep has followed suit: Candidates are trained to remember and regurgitate attack lines — and ignore the rules.
What’s the worst that can happen? You can be admonished, but only briefly, because every minute of admonishment detracts from precious live TV time.
So there is no incentive to be an honorable actor other than to avoid appearing to viewers like a bully and bulldozer, and unfortunately, that works in a Donald Trump era.
Republicans now want a fighter above all, even if the fighter is of questionable character and of loose allegiance to the truth. Aggression is attractive. You may be wrong, but if you’re loud, it returns you to right.
Friday night’s debate between Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., and his Republican challenger, Herschel Walker, was no different. It was a stage play loosely based on policy. It didn’t change the fundamentals of the race — that Warnock is the only candidate of the two qualified to be a senator — nor should it have.
And yet I am still stuck in the position of analyzing the debate because it is a major event in a race I care about. So I’ll begin with Warnock because his performance was the easier of the two to analyze.
He didn’t answer directly when asked what limits he favored on abortion, whether he would back President Joe Biden if he runs again in 2024 or whether he would support expanding the Supreme Court.
The preacher has become a politician.
Equivocation, as a strategy, was a miscalculation for the Warnock campaign, but it pales in comparison to the staggering ineptitude that Walker presented.
First, we just must come at this directly: Herschel Walker is an absolute butcher of the English language.
When challenged on reducing the cost of insulin, Walker responded: “I believe in reducing insulin, but at the same time, you got to eat right, because he may not know and I know many people that’s on insulin, and unless you have a eating right, insulin is doing you no good.”
Say what? English translation: “Healthy diets can help treat and prevent Type 2 diabetes.” The nearly 2 million people suffering from Type 1 diabetes, not caused by diet and for which whom insulin is needed to stay alive? Oh, well.
When Warnock accused Walker of pretending to be a police officer, Walker whipped out a badge and said, “You know what’s so funny? I am worked with many police officers.” A moderator then chastised him for bringing the “prop” to the event.
I could do this for the rest of the column, but I won’t. The point is this: Walker is devastatingly inarticulate. That is the fact of the matter, and a disqualifying one. This is not a dialectic issue, of which I am more understanding. Regional and cultural dialects are real and not a measure of intelligence.
That’s not what’s happening with Walker. With him, there is a base inability to convey his ideas in complete thoughts or sentences. And like a child, when his words fail, he fills in the gaps with energy and emotion, hostility and humor.
This cheap rhetorical trick works for Republicans.
They will elect a man without command of the English language or the issues if it gives them command of the seat and the Senate. Walker’s debate performance was just designed to allay their fears, to make them think better about doing the unthinkable.
The New York Times