The clash between US President Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump will be less on policies than on each candidate’s manner and appearance, says Edward Luce for Financial Times.
US President Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump will face off in the first presidential debate of the 2024 US election on Jun 27. WASHINGTON: How do you run a debate between two men whose combined age is two-thirds that of the US republic? The answer is to have no audience, mute the one not talking and schedule bathroom breaks .will be definitive. But in a close election in which each candidate’s mental capacity is under scrutiny, it will matter a lot.
The other two election-deciding debates both involved Jimmy Carter. In 1976, a month before the election, Carter lured the sitting president, Gerald Ford, into a trap. He got Ford to deny there was Soviet domination of eastern Europe. This alienated swing state voters of Polish and Czech origin in a tight election where the electoral college margin boiled down to a few thousand votes in Ohio and Wisconsin.
Examples two and three augur badly for Trump. He has no equal in his capacity to demean large groups of people. Past targets include women, people who serve in uniform, and those with close family suffering from addiction or disability. Though Trump can be funny, his character is decidedly un-reassuring.On past performance, Biden ought to beat Trump. He was judged the winner in both their 2020 encounters.
In March, Biden gave an energetic State of the Union speech. Millions only saw the 15-second clip where he mangled the name of a murder victim. The perception gap between Americans who watched the speech and those who saw tiny snippets was vast. Biden is certain to produce a few clippable Bidenisms next week.
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