Every Nation has the Presidential Debates it Deserves

America's cartoonish debates reveal more about itself than about its candidates...

[Photo Credit: by Gage Skidmore]

Ten days ago, immediately after the Trump – Harris debate, we posted several quick responses to it here on Landmarks. We noted at the time that we welcome further responses, and so we were delighted to receive the following more extensive analysis from Ethan Alexander-Davey, professor of constitutional law and political science at Campbell University. The Simone Weil Center, as an organization, takes no position one way or another on political candidates; we see our task as that of providing thoughtful analysis, and we remain open to other, perhaps very different takes on the topics here discussed, providing they are equally thoughtful.  Having said that, how could anyone not support demonopolizing the mass-media entertainment industry (which industry includes what is, unaccountably, still termed ‘the news’), as Alexander-Davey suggests?  -- The Editors

This is the first time I have been asked to comment publicly on a presidential debate. It may also be the last. My title modifies a saying of the 19th century counterrevolutionary author Joseph de Maistre: “toute nation a la gouvernement qu’elle merite” –  every nation has the government it deserves. How the candidates for the highest office in the land are presented to the population tells us, I think, more about the audience and the state of our institutions than about the candidates themselves.

‘Aloof Academic Shows His Hand’

Before offering my remarks, I feel obligated to state where I stand on this election, lest I be accused of being a supercilious academic who hopes to evade criticism by condemning everyone and not taking a stance. Contemptuous as I am of 21st century electoral politics, I am also a citizen of the United States, and as such, I have a duty to exercise the rights I have been given, in this case, to choose the candidate I think would be better for the country. As I did in 2016 and 2020, so in 2024, I will cast my ballot for Trump.

I came of age politically in the time of our disastrous military interventions in the former Yugoslavia and Iraq. I was a reader of Russell Kirk, ‘the sage of Mecosta,’ and a supporter of the political platform of Patrick Buchanan, author of such books as A Republic, Not an Empire, and The Death of the West. The journalist Steve Sailer captured the insanity of the agenda of the America’s postwar political class with the phrase “Invade the World, Invite the World.” The Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington offered, in essence, the same critique of the 21st century Pax Americana in two books, The Clash of Civilizations and Who Are We? How can a polity seek to dominate the entire globe militarily while at the same time transforming itself demographically through mass immigration, and gutting its own manufacturing base? The answer is that such an empire will overcommit and overextend itself, provoking hostility from other powers, while also undermining its own social fabric and economic productivity. Sooner or later, this “liberal empire” will destroy itself. In the words of the 17th century critic of empire Johannes Althusius, “Experience testifies that might leads to overconfidence, overconfidence to folly, folly to contempt, contempt to the weakening of authority, and so to the loss of imperium.” Kirk, the historian of ideas, Huntington, the political scientist, and Buchanan, the politician, all supported domestic policies that would favor cultural cohesion and a more modest foreign policy. This more moderate, sensible alternative to domestic and foreign adventurism was effectively kept out of mainstream political discussion until 2016. Donald Trump, it is true, cannot be said to have a clearly articulated set of policies. At most, he has instincts. But those instincts make him skeptical of mass immigration, the identity revolution, and the national security state, which is intent on keeping the US in the role of world policeman forever. Donald Trump is like a much dumber and cruder Patrick Buchanan, who, if he selects the right advisors, might just be able to move American domestic and foreign policy in the direction suggested by the likes of Kirk, Buchanan, and Huntington. If Harris is elected, then we can be certain her administration, like the Biden, Obama, and Bush administrations that preceded it, will continue in earnest to “invade and invite the world.”

That I have resolved to support the man who sounds dumber in a presidential debate than any past candidate I can remember is itself a commentary on 21st century presidential debates and electoral democracy itself. But the stupidity of a significant portion of the electorate is the second point I will consider. My first point is about the mass media.

Mass Media and the Manufacture of Consent

It is hard to believe that otherwise discerning men in the 19th century put such faith in newspapers, the mass media of the time. Alexis Tocqueville, in Democracy in America, argues that newspapers allow what would be otherwise isolated and powerless individuals in a democracy to form political associations that reflect their sentiments and interests, and to convey their opinions to society and government. But long before Tocqueville’s voyage to America, John Adams had cast doubt on this “empowering” narrative in a series of letters to John Taylor of Caroline. “You must remember,” Adams writes to Taylor, “that the art of printing, to which you appeal to level aristocracy, is almost entirely in the hands of the aristocracy. You resort to the press for the protection of democracy and the suppression of aristocracy! This, sir, in my humble opinion, is “committere agnum lupo.” It is to commit the lamb to the kind guardianship and protection of the wolf! A hungry wolf! A starving wolf! Emperors and kings and princes know the power of the press, at least as well, perhaps better, than you or I do. It is known to nobles and aristocrats of all shades, colors, and denominations, much better than to democrats.” Adams used the term “aristocrat” loosely, much as 21st century American writers use the term “elites,” or when speaking of foreign elites, “oligarchs.” In a hypothetical democracy, an aristocrat is anyone who, owing to advantages of wealth, birth, and talent, gets two or more votes for everyone else’s one vote. The mass media, then and now, is controlled by oligarchs. Mass media does not reflect mass opinion. It does not give “the people” a means of expressing their opinions to the powerful. On the contrary, powerful individuals and groups use mass media to shape public opinion, in other words, as the title of Noam Chomsky’s book has it, to “manufacture consent.” 

The circumstances of ABC’s presidential debate are a case in point. It was revealed after the debate that Dana Walden, the head of the Disney Company which owns ABC, is a close personal friend of Kamala Harris. This no one denies. It has been alleged, further, that ABC had an agreement with the Harris campaign to avoid certain uncomfortable questions, and provided her with sample questions. Even if this affidavit is fake, the bias of the ABC moderators toward Harris was obvious. The moderators frequently fact-checked Trump’s assertions. They fact-checked none of Harris’ statements. Some of the questioning also followed a familiar pattern: "Mr. Trump, you have said or done an atrocious thing; please explain.” “Now, Mrs. Harris, please comment on the atrocious thing Mr. Trump said or did.” The pretense of any mass media organization to neutrality is just that, pretense, and it has ever been so. The idea that media organizations represent public opinion is and always has been a sham. They are engaged in the business of manufacturing public opinion.

That said, biased media companies are not all-powerful in their ability to shape public opinion. In this instance, a competent, disciplined, articulate candidate, that is, someone other than Donald Trump, could, conceivably, have won against a stacked deck. As has been universally acknowledged already, Trump fell for almost every trap Kamala Harris laid for him and mostly repeated the same simple talking points ad nauseam. 

Stupid Discourse for Stupid People

It is said that modern speechwriters write presidential speeches at the 8th grade reading level. At a presidential debate, the discourse is, perhaps, at the 5th grade level. Then, there is Donald Trump’s political rhetoric, which is, perhaps, somewhere between the 2nd and 3rd grade levels. What does this tell us about mass democracy? Find any political speech by George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, or James Madison. Contemporary Americans will complain that the framers spoke “in Old English.” Some of the words are too big and the sentences are so long. Minds trained by social media to focus for 30 seconds at a time, and then blink off, are just not equipped. Should political discourse in a democracy be calibrated for the laziest citizens and those of the lowest intellectual capacity? Or were the American founders, and indeed all European statesmen of that era, right to maintain high standards whether the indolent and the ill-educated could understand them or not?

This raises another important issue, for it was only in the mid-19th century that the opinions of the whole population began to matter. Even the celebrated Levellers of 17th century England did not think everyone should be allowed to vote. At the Putney debates, it was agreed that the franchise should be extended to native born Englishmen who supported themselves — “apprentices, or servants, or those that take alms” were to be excluded. More demanding property qualifications were, however, the norm in most places that had voting at all well into the 19th century. Justifications for restrictions on the franchise included doubts about the capacity of the average citizen to make sound judgments about politics in general, and, in particular, fears that those without property, if given the power, would vote to redistribute the property of others to themselves, or abolish private property altogether. The experience of the Great Terror in revolutionary France gave credence to these doubts and fears. Of course, no one today would predict that universal suffrage will again lead to confiscations of property and extrajudicial executions en masse. But I have no doubt that it makes our politics stupider.

The mass media mandarins have excoriated Trump for saying that Haitian migrants in Ohio are “eating the dogs, they’re eating the cats, they’re eating the pets of the people who live there.” Educated people on the left and right consider this an outrageous statement. And it is. Even if there are some documented instances of it, it is still utterly insignificant. Nonetheless, even if rhetoric like this could alienate some educated or delicate voters who might otherwise have supported Trump, could it not also be a particularly effective way to appeal to a large portion of the electorate? There are many sound arguments a statesman might make for more restrictive immigration, asylum, and refugee laws, and even for mass deportations. But to understand any of these arguments, a voter would need to have an IQ above room temperature. According to one very rough estimate, there are something like 50 million Americans who have an IQ below 85. Roughly 100 million Americans have an IQ between 85 and 100. Stoking fears of Haitians coming to eat their pets could very well be the best way to gain the support of 10s of millions of citizens, especially in view of the fact that, given the mass media’s amplification of this soundbite, it might be the only thing that most voters remember from the debate. 

Similarly, there may indeed be good reasons to impose protective tariffs. But is it possible to explain these reasons to the average voter, and to trust voters to be willing to accept the sacrifice of paying higher prices for some goods? Given the ignorance of much of the electorate, it might simply be expedient to lie about the effects of tariffs on prices. (I do not claim that Trump’s rhetoric is calculated to appeal to the stupid. He is a man of instinct, not of calculation.)

Of course, raw intelligence, or lack thereof, is not the only problem. People with good brains are miseducated by the sentimentalism, and general idiocy of mass media and mass entertainment. There are, no doubt, 10s of millions of voters who with relish lap up the platitudinous slurry that flows voluminously from the mouth of Kamala Harris. Unlike Trump, Harris has revealed herself to be a very calculating demagogue. In the debate, she portrayed herself as a "strong, independent woman” who has spent her career fighting bullies like Donald Trump. There are doubtless millions of voters, unemployed, lonely, living in basements, who feel that they have been bullied their entire lives, and who will thus see Harris as their champion. It does not matter whether her policy proposals have any substance or make any sense. The main government handout she offers is good vibes. Harris’s rhetoric, like that of Trump, appeals to stupid people, and stupid people decide elections.

Some of the commentary from participants in focus groups following the debate has been revealing. Many undecided voters, it seems, were unconvinced by Harris, even though her performance was verbally superior to that of Trump by far. Those voters who earn their living, and have to pay income and property taxes are, I should think, generally not as easy to fool by emotional appeals. As taxpayers, they will be skeptical of a politician whose substantive policy proposals all amount to promises to bribe them with their own money. 

What, then, would we have to do to improve the quality of presidential debates? There would have to be a change in the voting population to whom the candidates appeal. It seems useless to propose things that would never make it through the legislative process, and would be declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court if they did. But I see no other way. First, we should admit that the English Levellers had it right: the franchise should belong only to those capable of supporting themselves. Second, the mass media-entertainment industry, which makes even smart people stupid, must be dismantled by means of new anti-trust legislation.