Tonight’s presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will be the equivalent of pitting the smartest kid in the class against the school bully. Objectively, you know the smartest kid is going to win. But in this case, the judges are secretly rooting for the bully.
Even Trump’s supporters don’t pretend that he cares about policy details. What they like is his shoot-from-the-hip, blunt style. On the other hand, Clinton is famously knowledgeable about policy details, no matter how mind-numbing.
So how will the media be judging the debate? They will likely expect Clinton to be brilliant on policy, which then allow her to be called boring or, worse still, condescending. (Because being smart is a drawback in these things.) As for Trump, all he has to do is refrain from showing up wearing a Klansman’s hood and odds are he will be declared to look presidential.
Trump has been graded on a curve by the mainstream media throughout this entire campaign. He has said so many shocking things that the press is inured to them. He lies with such facility that his campaign could be called the Home of the Whopper (and not the whopper Trump would like to possess).
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Clinton, on the other hand, cranks out detailed policy proposals that you have never heard about, because the press is more concerned about Trump’s feuds with Megyn Kelly than with the country’s future.
Presidential debates generally have little impact on a race. President Obama was listless in his first face-off with Mitt Romney in 2012, although he recovered for the second debate. Ronald Reagan looked like an incipient Alzheimer’s patient in his first debate with Walter Mondale, until he reconnected with his inner Gipper.
But what the debates do is solidify a narrative about the candidates. In a close race, that can be deadly. The scariest example is the 2000 debates between Al Gore and George W. Bush. People who watched the first debate thought Gore won. But people who didn’t watch the debate believed that Bush won, based on the media coverage, which portrayed Gore as an arrogant know-it-all compared to good ol’ boy W. We had eight years to consider the impact of that favoritism.
If you think that can’t happen again, you might want to book your room for the Trump inauguration now. Clinton has given the press more to work with than Gore ever did in terms of apparent conflicts of interest, allowing reporters to build a narrative that Clinton and Trump are both equally flawed. They are not. Trump is in a class by himself.
Yet Clinton’s coverage has been overwhelmingly negative, according to one recent study, largely because of her email server and the Clinton Foundation. Meanwhile, any day that Trump appears only mildly crackpot by his own high standards gets recorded as an example of discipline.
Trump has set such a low bar for himself that, should he fail to rely on his trove of racist and misogynistic statements, he will come across as a credible candidate. At the same time, the media has impossibly high expectations of Clinton (a problem that any successful women will attest to as common). If she doesn’t deliver a performance on par with a JLo concert, she’s likely to be declared a loser.
What would solidify that story line is if Trump deviates from right-wing ideology. One possibility is if he says something positive about LGBT rights, as he did during the GOP convention (sorta). The press will speaking glowingly about how Trump is reshaping the GOP and ignore the fact that Trump has surrounded himself with the most homophobic campaign staff ever.
You can think of the presidential debates as the ulitmate in reality TV. Just don’t fool yourself into believing that what you read about the debates afterwards reflects reality at all.
Hussain-TheCanadian
Who’s going to be watching the debate tonight?! It’s projected that 70 million people will tune in, it’s going to be something.
Alistair Wiseman
@Hussain-TheCanadian:
American media are reporting that as many as 100 million may tune in to watch the first Trump/Clinton debate; a presidential debate record.
Trump has only 18 months in the political arena to Hillary’s nearly 40 years; advantage Clinton.
It should interesting!
NCSilverBear
I have held since the beginning of this “race”, and still do hold the press totally responsible for the creation of Mr Trump’s viability as a candidate for President. Without the media’s constant coverage and free press snippets of him, about him and for him, there would be no Trump for President. He is a freakishly bizarre showman, a snake charmer, a master manipulator and peddler of lies — the press and his followers have been hoodwinked. There is no other way he could possibly have been nominated for President by any Party without the press falling for his sales pitch.
redcarpet30
*puts self in cryonic suspension until November 3rd*
Xzamilloh
@Alistair Wiseman: At the same time, though, that could be a disadvantage to her, especially since I get the feeling that she is being treated as the only serious candidate, meaning her questions are probably geared more towards her political career, promises, and what kind of policies — if any — she supports, will enact or do away with (this is merely speculation on my end). Trump, on the other hand, is seen as a joke, and is able to squirm out of answering questions without being grilled more intensely. Although I don’t feel the media has properly called either out on their shady dealings, especially Clinton.
In any case, this entire presidential process has been such a letdown. This is actually a close race. Clinton against Donald effing Trump, and it’s a close race. A testament to how disliked Hillary really is.
Xzamilloh
That said, the evil I know is better than the evil I don’t know, so I’ll be voting for Hillary… but honestly, whoever gets into office, we’re all kinda screwed by it
RIGay
Yes they will. Why is the media so terrified of Donald Trump? I can’t wait for Lester Holt to toss him the softballs while holding Hillary to the fire until she addresses a sentence in an Email she sent out 8 years ago.
I expect nothing less from the cluster that is NBC News and Lester Holt.
Alistair Wiseman
@Xzamilloh:
That’s funny the way you put it, “the evil I know is better than the evil I don’t know”, so you will vote for Hillary.
I have heard several people say the same thing, but in reverse. That they know the “evil” that Hillary will bring and will choose the unknown as it cannot be as bad as the known.
Xzamilloh
@Alistair Wiseman: That’s a fair point. And then of course, you know you have a bought candidate when both sides want her in the White House over Trump. This is just an awful election all around.
Alistair Wiseman
@Xzamilloh:
“This is just an awful election all around.”
Agreed, never in my lifetime have I seen anything like it. Hopefully, never again.
norodeocowboy
Grading Trump on a curve would only be fair, as it would partially make up for the fact that they haven’t exactly focused with an eagle’s eye on the actual record of her supposed accomplishment in the public sphere. Iraq, Libya, Waco, “Don’t ask, don’t tell”, Gulag America….she hasn’t exactly covered herself in glory.
norodeocowboy
@Alistair Wiseman: I’ve concluded that we’re doomed it we continue to take our orders from the Puppet Masters who control Goldman Sachs. Might as well take a flyer before they turn most of us into Soylent Green.
norodeocowboy
@NCSilverBear: Had the press covered Hillary’s chicken-little religious bigotry as closely AFTER Waco as they had BEFORE, Trump’s opposition would be Bernie or Elizabeth or Joe.
ErikO
I don’t like either candidate and that’s why I’m voting for Jill Stein as are most people I know.
Alistair Wiseman
@ErikO:
Considering Jill Stein is polling at 2.4%, you have a select group of friends.
csports286
I can’t wait to see the debate. I saw on the news that Trump spent only one day preparing haha. Tonight is really gonna confirm that Hillary’s the best one for the job. It will be undeniable! The media’s gonna have a tough time making her look bad. But they’ll find a way! Just like the ‘devastating win’ she had in the primaries.
Charlie in Charge
I’m nervous about this one. Folks voting for Hillary (as I am as well) have been chanting “Wait for the debate” over and over as trump closed on her in the polls. I’m worried this will be a cargo cult moment for us if Trump’s supporters are still convinced she is a criminal.
Alistair Wiseman
Please Hillary, remember to take your cough drops this evening. No one wants to see another 4 minute coughing spell where you could cough up a lung and require a defibrillator.
Stay smart Hillary.
Kieran
“Free of an agenda” Queerty at it’s best.
joeyty
The dumb hicks who run Queerty just don’t want anyone from Jew York City running their ‘Murica.
Kieran
Hillary PR Team @OnMessageForHer:
We strongly recommend against viewers forming their own opinion of the debate until it has been properly explained by a licensed journalist.
VampDC
The Queerty agenda strikes again.
The one place i will NEVER turn to politics.
o.codone
The press has been in the tank for HRC all along, so why would they change direction now? Oh, I get it now Queerty, if she completely blows it you have a go-to narrative which you are trial ballooning right now. That makes sense considering that the press was apoplectic after the first Romney-Obama debate when O fell flat on his stupid face, stuttering and resorting to ghetto euphemisms to make himself look smooth. The press had nowhere to go with it. But Queerty does. You’re not stupid.
Kangol
@RIGay: : Lester Holt is a registered Republican. But I don’t think he’ll pull a Matt Lauer this time. I hope not.
Trump may have prepared only a day or less, but no one should underestimate him. No one. I hope Hillary Clinton’s team hasn’t. He will probably be on his best–for him–behavior, but he can still toss out zingers like most people breathe. If she gets rattled, all bets are off. OTOH, if he comes off as a cruel jackass, it could doom him with all but his most diehard white male supporters.
@joeyty: Please take your r@cist, anti-Sem!tic slurs elsewhere. No one else felt the need to slander an entire religion of people but you. Please, GO AWAY!
Brian
Hillary empowers husbands who cheat on wives. She’s a misogynist.