If Joe Biden is to win November’s election, he must win this week’s televised debate. He must come off as energetic and competent. He must make the case, persuasively, that Donald Trump is a danger to the nation and the world. And, perhaps most of all, he must seem mentally sharp.
That’s a lot to do in under 90 minutes, especially while sharing the stage with someone as unpredictable as Trump, whose dominant personality and in-your-face tactics can put him at an advantage.
Luckily for Biden – and anyone who gives a damn about the future of America – the president already has some crucial advantages going into Thursday evening’s CNN debate.
The format is good for him. First off, there is no studio audience to create a disruption or cheer Trump’s wild utterances; thus, the debate will not turn into one of those fake “town halls” packed with rightwing cult members posed as undecided voters. (Is there really an undecided voter left in the nation? If so, why?)
Secondly – and crucially – each candidate’s microphone will be shut off when it’s not his turn to speak. This limits Trump’s habit of relentlessly interrupting, which dominated the first presidential debate in 2020.
Given those ground rules, it’s surprising that Trump agreed to the debate at all – and it’s still possible that he’ll back out, no doubt citing how “rigged” the entire world is against his noble greatness.
But even with these reasonable regulations in his favor, Biden must meet the challenge of convincing prospective voters that he’s capable of doing the job for another four years.
Toward that end, he’s had some help from an unexpected quarter: the media, both mainstream and rightwing.
In recent months – and especially in recent weeks – much of the media has been on a campaign to depict the 81-year-old Biden as nearly senile and certainly incapable of another term, while seldom focusing on 78-year-old Trump’s lunatic ravings on the campaign trail or his long list of other disqualifications.
Recall what happened in February after special prosecutor Robert Hur’s report described Biden as an elderly man with a poor memory. An amazing barrage of coverage followed. For many days, it was as if there were no other subject. At one point, the New York Times opinion section offered a list of four pieces, lined up in a neat row, all on the same subject, while CNN gave us a chyron for the ages: “Is Biden’s age now a bigger problem than Trump’s indictments?”
Once that frenzy settled down, another bombshell hit – a front-page article in the Wall Street Journal with a devastating headline: “Behind Closed Doors, Biden Shows Signs of Slipping.”
The piece was much criticized, and not just by Democrats, some of whom complained that the only on-the-record source was Republican Kevin McCarthy; the former House speaker slammed Biden’s mental sharpness even though he reportedly has said quite the opposite in private.
Media critics jumped in, too. Tom Jones of the Poynter Institute, no partisan, judged the Journal article “a pointed piece based pretty much on quotes and opinions from those who don’t want to see Biden elected to a second term”.
Soon after, that report began to spread through the media ecosystem, most notably on dozens of TV stations around the country owned by right-leaning Sinclair Broadcasting, whose local anchors read from almost identical scripts. It was powerful anti-Biden coordination that must have delighted the Trump campaign.
Although this is all bad for Biden, it comes with an upside for this debate.
Many viewers are probably expecting him to be infirm and inarticulate. As one right-leaning acquaintance of mine put it: “If the choice is between the orange guy and a corpse, I’ll go with the orange guy.”
The choice, of course, is not that at all. It’s between a traditional, pro-democracy president with a strong record of accomplishment versus a twice-impeached would-be autocrat with 34 felony convictions – and his own alarming set of gaffes, memory lapses and campaign-trail ravings about sharks. Only one of these candidates fomented an insurrection, or appointed three Supreme Court justices who seem hellbent on denying women’s bodily autonomy.
Biden may make some missteps in the debate, but he’ll be well prepared and focused on appearing vigorous, as he was in his high-energy State of the Union address in March. He won’t become a compelling TV star or a great public speaker between now and Thursday, but he doesn’t need that.
Thanks to the incessant media messaging, the bar for Biden is nowhere near that high. Those of us who care about democracy in America are hoping he clears it with ease.
Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture
