The New York Sophist

The Vice Presidential Debate yesterday was cold, calm, and “civil.” It seemed to include everything we thought was lacking in the First Presidential debate (with the exception of a good moderator). Yet it seemed so profoundly disappointing. Did we learn anything? Did we move forward in our understanding of the candidates? I think most of us would say no to these questions.

The problem isn’t civility or facts. The problem is in defining what debate is. Everyone thinks they know what real debate is, and nobody has examined the reasons why they believe what they do.

The heart of the problem is that we tend to believe that debate is natural. It’s something humans do when we have mutually exclusive, competitive options on what to do. There is some truth to this perspective; recent research from Hugo Mercier, Dan Sperber and others is confirming via cognitive psychology what American rhetorical theorists such as Douglas Ehninger, Wayne Brockriede, and James Brenham were writing about debate in the 1970s and 1980s. But this isn’t quite enough.

Eating is natural, but eating well is a practiced, learned behavior. Speaking comes to children naturally, over time, but speaking meaningfully and recognizing how to say something well must be practiced and studied. Debate is the same way. We might learn to argue at a young age – any parent can confirm this fact – but to debate is to offer a refined performance for a particular purpose. It has to be thought out, prepared, and carefully made for an audience.

Most people model good debate after school debates, or intercollegiate debates. These debates are not structured with the principles of good debate in mind. Very much like a school exam, they are structured to teach and measure recall and performance of various educational metrics. For example, the popular high school competitive format of Public Forum debate exists to fill a need for an activity that gives students practice and support of skills such as speaking with organization, research, comparing information, and the like. It is not modeled with fidelity to debate, but more modeled for what works in teaching. Lincoln-Douglas debate is also similarly modeled, created in order to provide students educational opportunity. Both serve their purpose, but do not have much support for being a national model, or a universal model of debate.

There is no universal model of debating, except that there should be agreement between the participants on time limits, topic, and the judge. The Commission on Presidential Debates has failed to establish any of these fundamentals. Their function is to create a “newsworthy” event that the media can cover without having to provide equal time to all political candidates. The Commission, set up and run by two-party partisans, does it’s job well in reducing our scope of choices to the two major parties.

If we wanted to model a better debate, what would it look like?

From my point of view as a professor who teaches this and studies it, the major change must be in the topic. Choose one topic, and let’s have alternating speeches on it, 5 minutes each. The moderator can go to Twitter and pull the questions from the viewers. The moderator need not be a journalist, as journalistic questions are not debate questions. Journalists are trying to get at the truth and the facts; debates are trying to explore whether we really know or understand the issue. A good debate is one that surprises us and makes us think not that we might be wrong, but that we need to think about the issue more.

For the vice presidential debate, how about the topic: “The Trump Administration has served America well.” Mike Pence can defend this motion, and Kamala Harris can argue against it. The debate will move between various examples, but instead of having someone who writes for an 8th grade reading level in USA Today, let the candidates choose what examples to take up and run with. I would predict Pence to flee from discussion of the pandemic, and Harris to speak only about that issue. But near the end, both will be focused on two major points.

Allowing them to speak longer and deeper about one question gives voters information. This information allows voters to construct more complicated ideas about motive, values, and potential of the candidates to engage in policymaking, as well as identifying what matters and what doesn’t. Rushing along through 10 topics doesn’t do anything for voters, but it sure does create some great sound bites for the media.

The model of debate should suit the reason why you are debating. The high school or college model is chosen because it helps people practice research, evaluating evidence, and speaking in an orderly, meaningful way. The CPD model is chosen because it reduces our scope of thought and choice, allowing the 2 party system to thrive by filling the rhetorical space with whatever they want. A third model might actually do what we need: Give us more information about these candidates by watching them develop, alter, and engage reasons on an issue over 90 minutes.

Nobody wanted to be in Chris Wallace’s shoes last week at that terrible debate. Not even sure it was a debate. Lots of shouting. For most people, it was a preview of Thanksgiving dinner, maybe even before drinks.

In this video I suggest three options Wallace had that would have been a bit better than what he did: Join the fray. He could have:

1. Asked short, thoughtful questions rather than reading a 15 second setup for each one.
2. Spoke to the audience as moderator, into the camera, explaining the rule violations as they happen.
3. Walked off the set since a moderator is not needed when all the agreements to debate have been violated.

I wonder what future moderators will do (or won’t do) after Wallace’s performance has drawn commentary from everyone about a role that usually doesn’t get that much attention.

Here’s a video I made as a first attempt at teaching the rubric I’ve designed for evaluating and making Presidential (or national party leader) debates tolerable and perhaps useful.

The goal of these debates, and the Commission on Presidential Debates, is to create a forum to inform voters on the issues. What they leave out is that the issues will be determined by two parties and the national TV news media.

This is a very limited crew to determine what issues matter in a national election. There’s little to no diversity of approach or thought here. Add to it that the Commission says nothing about the role of debate, what it should look like, and cites no study or explanation of why debate is so important and valuable. There’s no model here.

My approach is to take what we have and try to make something good out of it. I propose using the debates as a way of creating more nuanced political positions for yourself by evaluating how close or far from the candidate you are on certain metrics such as the nature of the world, principles, plans, and the role of past action on future success.

Have a look at the video and see what you think. It might be useful to try to use this for the next debate to gain something interesting to post on social media after it’s over and everyone is ready to fight.

Monday night I gave a talk to Cornell Law School’s American Constitution Society about the history and development of Presidential Debates. I thought I had shared this already, but it looks like I forgot to post the thing I was originally writing about it.

It’s a good thing too – these debates are well beyond our wildest dreams for low quality examples of political discourse. It’s not that fun to be living through the end of empire after all.

I gave my talk focusing on the idea that Presidential debates are not good because they represent all of the worst ideas about debate through American history: That debate should be exceptional, that it should be balanced, and that it is something we strive for that drives our country forward. Nothing about any of those assumptions is true. For the majority of debate history in the United States, we have been extraordinarily bad at it.

Here’s the lecture; let me know what you think about it. I do wonder if the conclusion has any relevance at all now considering how bad the debate was and how bad the remaining 2 will probably be.

The Commission on Presidential Debates released a statement about yesterday’s Presidential debate, seemingly unaware that they are the reason the debate was so poor. Here’s the text:

The Commission on Presidential Debates sponsors televised debates for the benefit of the American electorate. Last night’s debate made clear that additional structure should be added to the format of the remaining debates to ensure a more orderly discussion of the issues.  The CPD will be carefully considering the changes that it will adopt and will announce those measures shortly.  The Commission is grateful to Chris Wallace for the professionalism and skill he brought to last night’s debate and intends to ensure that additional tools to maintain order are in place for the remaining debates.

The Commission on Presidential Debates, September 30, 2020

There are so many concerns with this statement it’s hard to know where to begin. First, I would say that the statement ignores that the media, and most debate educators in the country, are calling on the CPD to cancel all the remaining debates. It feels to me that these events are going to be the rhetorical equivalent of injecting bleach into your body to protect you from the disease of tyranny.

The statement does reveal a lot about how the CPD thinks about things. They called Chris Wallace “professional,” when he spent the majority of the time of the debate arguing with the President. Why didn’t he just stay quiet? Why didn’t he call for Trump’s sound to be cut? Why didn’t he do anything other than join those two up there in talking over one another?

Secondly, they believe the debates are there to provide “an orderly discussion of the issues.” If you want discussion, have a discussion. It’s just that easy.

Debate is a triggering word for people. I have been teaching debate in some form or fashion since 1998. Whenever I use this term around those outside of what I do, it prompts a visceral reaction. Debates are seen as negative by most people, and best avoided. The reason why is that debates are perceived as contests of aggressive dominance. So if you can’t avoid them, you have to act this way to survive.

What are the issues? A debate should be about one issue, and one side should suggest change around or about that issue, and the other side should oppose it. A great example of this was the first question: Should a Supreme Court Justice be appointed now, or after the election? The entire debate should be about a question like this, not multiple issues. A discussion is where multiple issues can be handled, and handled well, because there is no structural requirement to decide between mutually exclusive options. A discussion would help the electorate gather information and reasons, as well as assign motives to the two candidates. Discussion can help make an electoral decision in this way.

Debates with a rigid timer that cuts the camera and cuts the microphone when the time expires are essential.

Debates that focus on a single topic that one candidate supports and one does not are essential.

Debates that have an official judge selected by the CPD to evaluate the quality of the argumentation of each candidate is an essential need.

A rubric, or some sort of form to assess the quality of debate performance by each candidate must be developed and distributed by the CPD.

If these things don’t happen, no further statement will save the legitimacy of this organization which has been on questionable ground since it’s very first sponsored debates, in 1988.

But it hasn’t done anything to alter these events and has not addressed the critics of their events in any way. Why would they do anything different now?