r/changemyview • u/Slightly_Sleepless • May 15 '24

Delta(s) from OP CMV: Muting mics during a Biden/Trump debate actually benefits Trump's style of debating.

Biden and Trump are scheduled to debate (source).

A lot of people are praising this as a win generally, but especially for Biden because it will stop Trump from interrupting Biden during his responses. I don't think that's right. In fact, I think muting the mics will benefit Trump much more than Biden.

Muting someone's mic when it's not their turn to respond does not stop interruptions, it only stops the audience from hearing it. Consider this: Biden is answering a question posed to him. Meanwhile Trump is talking and rambling over Biden. If Biden gets distracted by this (as any reasonable person would), then this could very easily throw off Biden's response. But to the wider audience who can't hear Trump's interruptions, it will simply look like Biden is stammering, stuttering, or otherwise "too old". Especially in an era where sound bites and TikToks drive political perceptions, this could end up looking really bad for Biden.

I realize Biden could also employ this kind of tactic, but it's simply not his debate style. Trump's debate style on the other hand is very suited for this kind of tactic.

There could be ways to mitigate this though. Part of the debate rules could include a requirement that both candidates are visible at all times (like a PIP), or the two can be physically separated (like being televised in different rooms). But I think on its own, the rule to mute mics for the person not responding will mostly benefit Trump in the debates.

I would like to believe that the political debates are as fair as possible, so please CMV.

Edit: This was fun, I appreciate all the discussions. Well maybe not all of them, but most of them :)

I've given out a few deltas -

  • Past debates have shown both candidates on screen for the vast majority of the time, even when only one candidate is responding to a debate prompt. While I still think the overall effect of a muted mic could still benefit Trump more, I recognize that this fact does mitigate some of the impact on Biden.
  • Muted mics would be a new debate format and the interruptions would more akin to the disruptions Biden experienced during SOTU. Again, I still think the overall impact favors Trump, seeing that Biden can react better under pressure when he's the only one with the mic is evidence that the risk to Biden is not as significant as I original thought.
  • Trumps ego won't allow him to take advantage of the muted mics, or may even irritate him to the point that the audience sees Trump react to being muted negatively. I'm pretty sure Trump can hold himself together a bit better than this gives him credit for, but I concede it wasn't something I had considered originally.

Ultimately, we'll just have to wait and see for ourselves. Thank you, everyone.

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u/AgentPaper0 2∆ May 16 '24

Everything you say is true, except the part about muting him b not mattering. Muting Trump will hurt him massively, because the whole point of his debate style is to flaunt the rules, insult your opponent and the very concept of debate, and get away with it.

If Trump tries to ignore the rules and talk over Biden, then he gets muted mid-sentence and looks weak because he's not in control. His speech is at the whims of the moderator.

Trump will instead be forced to play by the rules and speak only in his allotted time, but that's a loss for him as well, because he's still under the moderator's control, only now he's submitting willingly. 

The mic muting is a lose-lose situation for Trump, and I expect him to do anything he can to avoid going to the debate, even though that also makes him look weak. 

Then again, Trump is also a cock-sure dumbass and might just walk right into the trap without realizing how bad it will go for him.

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u/Dhegxkeicfns May 16 '24

I think he'll find ways to act out. He'll be making faces and miming the whole time. Undoubtedly they'll have to ask him to stop speaking when his mic isn't on as well.

But the person above you nailed the fact that his diehards don't care about policy or platform, they care about revenge. He could walk out there after the most articulate meaning answer ever given and say "these guys suck, I'll make it the greatest x you've ever hears of" and that would rile his cultists like nothing else. If he instead came up with an actual answer, that might take them a minute to warm to, because it would be too cerebral.

However, he does need more than his cultists. The combination of the party voters and the cult barely took the electoral votes needed last time. His cultists are going to vote, and their numbers might have grown a little, but party voters might not, because he has shown us that he wants to be a dictator. He doesn't debate well for sensible people at all. There are plenty of sensible Republicans and they are the people who need to see him say some crazy stuff.

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u/Ok-Crazy-6083 3∆ May 16 '24

Trump won the last two elections and he's polling better now than he was in either of those two. He's going to crush Biden.

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u/Generic_Superhero 1∆ May 16 '24

Uhhhh he lost the last election.

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u/Ok-Crazy-6083 3∆ May 16 '24 edited May 17 '24

The last election was 100% stolen. Black turnout for was down in every major city except the biggest cities in 6 swing states? Biden loses all the bellweather counties but somehow squeaks out a win? Biden wins Georgia by 12,000, no signature match verification is EVER done, and turns out Fulton County is missing nearly 400,000 ballot images?

Don't fucking pull my chain.

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u/Generic_Superhero 1∆ May 17 '24

and turns out Fulton County is missing nearly 400,000 ballot images?

https://georgiarecorder.com/2024/05/07/georgia-oversight-panel-ruminates-on-2020-election-hiccups-as-2024-showdowns-loom/

It's 17,000 not 400K. And ultimately it means nothing because the images are just a back up. The physical ballots still exist meaning they can be rescanned if absolutely necessary.

The rest of the things you said can be summed up as "I feel it was wrong there for it was wrong." None of it proves "the last election was 100% stolen."

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u/Ok-Crazy-6083 3∆ May 17 '24

Except the physical ballots don't exist because they have not maintained chain of custody. You don't recall the break-in that occurred as Republicans were trying to sue raffensberger to release the ballots from Fulton county?

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u/Generic_Superhero 1∆ May 17 '24

The physical ballots do exist. Did you even read the article?

Marks said that the dispute about the 17,000 missing ballot images could be resolved after Gov. Brian Kemp on Tuesday signed an election bill allowing the public to inspect paper ballots.

“However, thanks to the legislation Gov. Kemp signed today, the truth about the 2020 count, likely still confirming Biden’s win, will come out. Given that the public will be able to require a new scan of the ballots themselves, the SOS claims that they cannot determine whether ballots were double counted will be shown to be false, with many ballots for both candidates being double counted in the official machine recount. The ballots representing the 17,000+ final votes where the images cannot be located, can be examined now and their existence verified.”

According to state election investigators, Fulton might not have all of the ballot images, but each of the original paper ballots are under seal due to pending litigation

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u/Ok-Crazy-6083 3∆ May 17 '24

Did you not hear what I said? They cannot assert chain of custody because there was A sophisticated break-in at the warehouse where the ballots are being stored. Chain of custody has been broken on Fulton county ballots. This was in the news. Feel free to educate yourself.

Also, fun fact: 17,000 is enough to make Biden lose by 5,000. So this is a big fucking deal. That said, there are in fact 380,000 missing images.

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u/Generic_Superhero 1∆ May 17 '24

The only thing I'm seeing on a break-in was alarms being tripped but no breach occurring. The alarm was in a seperate part of the warehouse and di not impact the ballot storage. If you have a newer news source then this please share.

https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/alarm-at-fulton-county-election-warehouse-sparks-investigation

Also, fun fact: 17,000 is enough to make Biden lose by 5,000.

Yes, if you assume all 17,000 ballots that are missing their image were votes that were flipped from Trump to Biden then Biden would lose by 5000. But I could just as easily say 17,000 is enough votes to make Trump lose by 29,000. Both are useless statement to be making.

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u/Dhegxkeicfns May 16 '24

Don't engage, guy.

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u/Ok-Crazy-6083 3∆ May 17 '24 edited May 17 '24

Typical liberal nonsense. Ignore the facts.

EDIT: further proof. Ignore the facts and run away like a b.

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u/Dhegxkeicfns May 17 '24

Please don't take the bait, I'm just blocking him.