Hello and welcome to this special bonus episode we recently published, who Cares About Presidential Debates?

And I'm joined now by Emma Long to discuss this a little bit more.

Emma, thank you for hanging around.

No problem.

And you know, we spent so long talking about, you know, the history and evolution of debates that I think we need to maybe just chat a bit about the absolute train wreck that was the June 2024 debate with Biden and Trump.

It's so painful, isn't it?

I mean, actually I, I just can't watch some of it.

It's just excruciatingly painful to watch sort of Biden just fall apart.

And, you know, somebody who's sort of followed Biden's career at various points, you know, it's, it's just kind of sad to see that and someone struggling and that at that level.

Yeah, it was quite sad to watch and more so than maybe other candidates or presidents because I think, you know, I think history is going to look really fondly on Joe Biden anyway.

But I do really believe that he's a very well liked and well respected politician in, in Washington.

And I don't think that, you know, that there was, I mean, there was essentially a coup.

Right.

Like Democrats started to rally round the, the sort of, the get Biden out sort of camp and it, the momentum built and it was kind of over for Biden after that debate.

But I think they had to be a bit ruthless because Biden really didn't want to step down.

And I think people like Nancy Pelosi and the Obamas, you know, they were doing it because they knew that they had to, not because they wanted Biden to step down.

Yeah.

And I think you see that in the way that it was done, in the wording of it, you know, the way those, those things happened.

I mean, we always, we know, I mean, Biden had wanted to be president for, for years.

He'd run in the past.

You know, it's sort of, it came right at the end of his political career.

That's sort of it, it's just when it happened.

And you know, if you've been aiming for something your entire life and you finally get to do it, being, you know, being forced to give it up is probably not something you're going to, you are going to have to be forced to give it up, you know, if that comes.

Yeah.

And so, but, you know, so I think I also get the sense that Biden really did think that he could do it.

I mean, the things we're not seeing, right.

We see the public things.

We see him falling on the steps of the.

Of planes and things.

Right.

You saw him in the debate.

We see him at press conferences, stumbling over things.

What we don't see is what's happening in private.

So the assumption, of course, that's been going around is that he's basically like that all the time in private.

And the reality is he can't be, because if that was constant, that's something that I think people would have pushed back on before.

So there's obviously a lot of good stuff that we're not seeing that convinced him that he could still do the job.

But I, yeah, and I agree with that.

I just, I.

What I think was so devastating for Biden after that debate is the fact that the campaign sort of were going into the debate so really bigging up the fact that kind of unlike Trump, Biden cares about this debate, he's going to prepare for this debate.

He's locked himself away for a week, you know, making sure that he's fully prepped and able to tackle Trump, you know, because.

Because we're not like Trump, you know, we actually give a damn about what we say and we're not just going to wing it because that's disrespectful.

They were really kind of playing that card.

So for them, Biden to turn up and for it to go so horribly wrong, it just felt like the consequences were so much worse.

Because they big themselves up so much.

Yeah, exactly.

And I think, you know, that was.

It was a natural approach for them to take.

It was sort of an extension of what they did in 2020.

Right.

You know, you're not going to come out and say, well, we, you know, we're just going to do the best we can and all the rest of it.

And I have no doubt that Biden was well prepared.

I don't think his performance was a lack of preparation.

But, yeah, I agree with you from earlier.

I think history will judge his long career in politics more harshly and some points and some things that he supported perhaps early on in his career.

But I think on the whole, certainly his term as vice president was very successful.

And I think longer term, some of the things that he did in his four years as president, particularly the end of the COVID crisis and trying to get the economy back on track, I think those will lay strong foundations for things that will come later.

So, you know, I'm a historian.

I'm familiar with the way in which reputations rise and fall over the years.

I think probably, you know, he'll be.

Think he'll be thought of well, generally, which in a way is why it's kind of sad to see it end in the way that it has.

Yeah.

I, I have a hypothetical for you and I, I know how much you love hypotheticals from me.

If, if the Biden Trump debate had happened pre social media, pre Internet, you know, if this, if this was like in the 80s, do you think it would have had the same impact?

Oh, good question.

I, I think it probably would, but it would have been slower, which of course may have limited options by that point.

We were talking about in the, the main show.

Right.

That if you, if you look up like top 10 moments in presidential history.

Debate, Debate history, sorry, and those kinds of things and you look at the things that come up in, in those lists, it's often when candidates made errors sometimes because, you know, they misspoke on a policy or they said something that just didn't go down well with the public or it was a, or it's a behavior thing.

So it's in the night, One of the 92 debates between Clinton and President Bush.

Bush got caught looking at his watch.

Right.

And that, you know, pre Internet period, you know, that kind of, it's not like it scuppered his campaign, but it meant that it, it changed the narrative for a period and got people focusing on, on other things.

So I think, you know, either way, even if there hadn't been social Media, you know, 50 million people watched the, the debate.

The, you know, the, all of the newscasters afterwards on all the main news programs were showing clips that would have happened anyway.

So I think the reaction might have been slower as it sort of fed its way out.

Would the outcome have been different?

I don't know.

I think it was.

The problem was it was so disastrous.

Yeah.

It wasn't just one or two moments.

Right.

Which could have been brushed off and even in social media age might have been brushed off.

It was sort of big chunks of the, the debate.

So I think it was.

Yeah, I think it was on such a big scale that probably it would have happened maybe in a slightly different way.

Yeah.

And kind of following on from that, I think it's safe to say if Harris wins the 2024 election, the, the course of the election and that turning point was the debate, because had Biden continued, had he still run against Trump, the polls were widening and I think it's probably safe to assume Biden was just not going to win that.

Yeah.

Has there ever been as consequential a Debate before?

I don't think so.

I mean, when you think about it, there's never been a debate which has led to the change of the candidate.

I mean, just at that level, you think?

Not.

Not so much.

It's always hard to tell in terms of, you know, has it swung public opinion one way or the other?

Because, you know, polls often showed different things.

But I think, you know, what you can certainly say about this one is that all.

Everything was leaning in Trump's favor.

Right.

I mean, despite the fact that, excuse me, no one was particularly enthusiastic.

Right.

Other than maybe the really hardcore Trump supporters who wanted him back.

All the storylines leading up to this, all through the primaries, was kind of, oh, here we go again, it's 2020 all over again.

Is this sort of.

Is this the best that we can do out of our respective parties?

You know, two old white men amongst the diversity of the American population?

All the polls were showing that people on both sides, actually, of the partisan divide were not terribly enthusiastic possibility that while they wouldn't vote for the other side, they wouldn't vote at all.

And so the big question early on in the election was really, whose side, Whose side is going to have more people who stay home?

Right.

And the side that managed to get more people out to vote was going to be the one that won.

And, of course, Trump supporters are very supportive.

So it always seemed likely that all things remaining equal at that point, that Trump would win.

It might be narrow because, of course, Democrats would ultimately be motivated to vote, but it's still close.

Nobody's suggesting that it's completely shifted and Harris is pulled away and we've got a while to go.

As we were talking about, there are some big milestones.

She's the presidential debate.

Right.

Can she hold her own against Trump?

This interview that's coming up, what will be the impression of her there and that kind of slightly more unscripted, more personal thing, rather than big campaign events where it's very scripted and, you know, pretty much in control, you know, what will be the impact of those.

So the story of this election isn't over yet, but what it does seem to have done, apart from change the candidate, which is pretty big in and of itself, is put it much more in an even keel than it was before.

We know that people currently at least, are more energized about the election, so we're likely to see a higher turnout than we would before.

But that can equally apply to both sides.

Yeah.

So I think this is.

I mean, predicting elections is always a dangerous Business, anyway, but predicting this one is particularly problematic.

Yeah, and I mean, this is probably a conversation for another podcast, but I think just that the concentration now of campaign efforts on essentially just seven states, because that's really what it comes down to when you look at where the Democrat and the Republican bases are in the states that they pretty much have locked up, there are like seven states that are considered swing states, and these are generally the ones that decide the election.

It almost kind of feels like a national debate is fairly redundant in such a divisive country, because really, what are they gaining from reaching the other 43 states that have already kind of decided who they're giving their vote to?

You've still got to get people out to vote.

I mean, you know, they're only, you can only take them for granted if you assume that people are going to go out to vote.

And, of course, what the concern was, particularly for Democrats before Biden stepped down, was that Democrats just wouldn't go out to vote and that actually those states that they thought were safe may not turn out to be.

I mean, it's a weird thing.

I think we talked about this quite a long time ago about the fact that actually the way the presidential election is set up means that there are places where people feel ignored by candidates.

You know, the, this focus on swing states means that actually some voters genuinely do feel like, you know, well, we never get a presidential candidate come and talk to us.

Why are we less important than the others?

And, you know, a lot of the calls for changing the electoral college system and just having a nationwide vote is partly about that.

So you don't take certain places for granted, but you still have to reach voters all over the place and you never know who you're going to reach with what.

So, you know, national campaigns, in the same way, national campaign ads and all the rest of it are a part of the way in which they're fought.

Yeah, yeah, it's a valid point.

I was just thinking.

Oh, what do you, what did you say you wanted to cover at the start of this?

Yeah, the, the one thing that I've been thinking of that we didn't touch on, on the, the main show was the, the influence of the American presidential debates.

Right.

Internationally.

So I am in no way an expert on this, but I was, I suppose I was thinking about the British example here.

In the last two, maybe three general elections that we've had in here in the uk, we have had leaders debate kind of in the style of presidential debates.

Now, obviously it's different because Actually, this is about leaders kind of making a case about being prime minister.

But it's, you know, it's a slightly different system of government.

So it's not about them holding the office, it's about getting people to support their party so they can get back in.

But it seems to me that they have been very much influenced by the coverage of the American elections and now we've got them.

And quite frankly, I personally, I don't want them.

I'm not sure for all the talk about them and for all the spectacle of them and everything that we've been talking about, I remain skeptical about their value in a campaign.

I think there are other things that could be done and in a parliamentary system where it's not about an individual for office, I think it's much more about the entertainment type side of things and it's just not something I find particularly interesting or useful.

There may be lots of listeners who actually would think differently, but I think taking my personal opinions of this out of it, I think it is a reflective of, of the influence that, the attention that the American system gets and that there have been other, I mean, there have been lots of elections around the world this year, but I think there were some of the elections in Latin America.

They also had presidential debates in some kind of format.

So that influences is being felt in other places.

Yeah, yeah.

And I, I think you're right that, you know, we, I mean, we're sat here talking about the US election and I think it's hard to think of a comparable country that has such interest internationally in their general election.

And I think that's a testament to America's influence and gravitas around the world.

And I think probably this year has been exacerbated by, you know, the conflict in Gaza, you know, where America, you know, is quite a big shadow there to that.

And again, you know, the war in Ukraine.

I think, you know, there's a lot that I think is just making people very aware of just how important this election is to everyone.

Yeah.

And I think, you know, the US may not be as unquestionably powerful as it, as it was 30, 40 years ago.

Right.

But what it does still matters politically, economically.

We see, you know, we saw when, when Russia invaded Ukraine, you know, one of the first things is what are the Americans going to do?

You know, what Israel, Gaza, you know, what, what the, what are the Americans going to do?

I wonder if, if China was a democracy.

I mean, they have elections, but not in quite the, the same way.

Right.

And Russia has Elections.

Russia has elections, too.

Yeah.

Also not quite in the same way, but I do wonder if they were democratic systems, given, particularly given China's increasing economic and political influence around the world, whether we might see that we would get coverage of.

Of that in the same way.

But they're not, and so we don't.

But, yeah, I mean, it's testament to the fact that what happens in the US and who is at the head of government in the US has an impact on the rest of the world.

We saw it in 2020, even before the two conflicts that we're talking about at the moment, where the world wars.

Is Trump going to get in again because of his position on America and American unilateral action and the criticism of sort of international organizations like NATO and the World Health Organization and all of those, you know, America not, you know, being critical or not taking part in those, has a really big influence.

So whether we like it or not, whoever is in control of the American government has international significance.

And I think if there's one thing that we get wrong, perhaps, is that we focus almost exclusively on the presidential elections and don't talk enough about the congressional elections, because what the US can do on the.

On the international stage is in part limited by what happens in Congress.

So as we see with divided government and the battles that the Biden administration has had over aid for Ukraine, for example, that the Republicans haven't wanted to support, it's not just about who wins the presidency.

It's about who wins Congress, too.

And I think sometimes in the spectacle of the presidential election and the ability to be easy to focus on two candidates, I think sometimes here we forget a little bit to talk about what's happening in Congress and why that is also significant for that international milieu, for want of a better word.

Yeah, yeah.

Created a whole bunch of episodes here.

Constant listeners.

No, I'm sorry, you'll, you know, you don't want to keep listening to me.

Maybe we'll.

Maybe we'll schedule some of these for the 20, 28 presidential round.

We'll hold some of these off for a little while.

Emma's going to be hibernating for four years after November, but, yeah, anyway, I'm not going to take up any more of your time.

Emma, thank you so much for joining me for this and also for the main episode and to anyone listening, you can listen to that right now.

It's in your feed, so go check that out.

And thank you for supporting us on patre.

Emma, remind people, where can listeners contact.

You My email address is emma longue.ac.uk or just search for my name and UEA in a search engine and it will bring up my contact details.

Awesome.

Thank you Emma and thank you to everyone listening.

Until next time.

Thank you very much and goodbye.