Biden vs. Trump: Prepare for More Spectacle Than Debate
By Carl Davidson
LeftLinks Weekly, June 21, 2024
In a few days, we will all witness another round in what passes for 'presidential debates' in our time.
These events have an uneven history. We can date their beginnings to the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates, even though those two men were competing for their state legislature's vote to designate them as their state's U.S. senator. It wouldn't be until 1913 and the 17th amendment to the Constitution that voters would directly cast votes for this high office. However, many historians have agreed that these exchanges set up Lincoln as a presidential candidate, even though most newspapers at the time designated Steven Douglas, the incumbent, as the winner.
Why bring this old history up? It's remarkable just how much our debates today have veered away from a back-and-forth exchange of competing arguments. The meaning of the word 'debate' is hard to stretch over the distance. We also have to note that during the 19th Century, presidential candidates were expected to remain silent, or at least stay home, in the last months of their races. In 1920, we saw a change when Warren G. Harding and James M. Cox delivered many speeches responding to one another—but not at the same time or place. The first radio broadcast of a debate was in 1948, in the GOP presidential primary where Harold Stassen and Thomas Dewey had a go at each other. Debates as we know them today started with the JFK-Nixon exchanges on the new and widespreading technology of television.
But new changes in technology also contributed to the Lincoln-Douglas debates. All the key seven cities in Illinois designed as sites for the debates had recently been linked by railroads and telegraph lines, and a software of sorts existed, the invention of what we now call 'shorthand,' a code to be used by stenographers. This allowed for several stenographers to record the speeches quickly and accurately, often in intervals when the speeches were long, then have the shorthand accounts delivered by rail, then turned into text in newspaper editorial offices. The editors often received more than one version and then merged them. Or they could be translated into normal text on the spot, then wired to the newspapers.
It was a tedious undertaking. According to the rules set by Lincoln and Douglas, the opening speech would last an hour, and the responding speech was allowed 90 minutes. Then, the first speaker was allowed 30 minutes for rebuttal. The process was repeated in all the seven cities. But it worked well. Both Lincoln and Douglas later gathered all the printed transcripts and, with minor edits, published them as books.
Even more impressive for the times were the audiences, often numbering more than 10,000. Workers and farmers came from miles around, making day-long picnics of the gatherings. There was no sound amplification, so secondary speakers throughout the crowds passed on what they heard (an early version of the ‘mike check’ repetitions used during the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ events in our time). Some even translated what they heard into German or other languages for recent immigrants. When they returned home, attendees got the printed transcripts, then continued discussion of the content in their favorite taverns or other venues. The same was true all across the country beyond Illinois.
The reason? The key topic, slavery and the status of Black people fired the national interest stirred by an impending conflict. But neither debater took on the subject directly. The question was narrowed to the status of slavery in new states and territories. Douglas held the position of 'popular sovereignty,' that the voters of each state should decide for themselves whether slavery would be legal or not. Lincoln, while he said he personally opposed slavery, only argued in these events against its further expansion. We should also note that Lincoln, by the end of his life, had shifted his views for the better.
Reading through the text of the debates today two things stand out. One was that there was plenty of racism put forth by both men, even if Douglas was more demagogic. The other is the relatively high intellectual level of the arguments. Viewers of today's 'debates' might marvel at how much they have been 'dumbed down.' While the Lincoln-Douglas debates had an element of spectacle for their time, today's performances are almost entirely spectacle, with a very low level of intellectual content, if any at all worthy of the name. In the 1858 transcripts, you'll find an in-depth reflection and examination of the political and social terrain of the time. It's why they are still studied in American history classes at the university level.
Don't expect anything close to it later this week. For Biden, the bar is being set at whether he can stand up for 90 minutes and not forget the end of his sentences. For Trump, it's whether he can speak a complete sentence at all, or even utter one that doesn't contain at least one total fabrication. It will show quite a difference between 1858 and 2024, and it's all been downhill.