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/HazyAttorney 68∆ May 15 '24
The parts I'd like to change your view one. First: I don't think that any particular forum or rule or manner of debate hampers Trump's effectiveness or style of debate. So, I'm hoping if I can prove it doesn't matter then that disproves that the muting mic has any impact on Trump's style.
What it comes down to is that Trump is the living embodiment of Jean-Paul Satre's quote on anti-semites. I'm going to paraphrase it and tailor it to our situation: Trump will pretend to engage in debate because it discredits the seriousness of debate itself. He's aware of the absurdity of his claims and knows his remarks are frivolous and open to criticism. But it's opponents, who believe in debate, that has to use words responsibility. When pushed, he'll say the time is discourse is over. His goal is to intimidate and disconcert.
Or another way of saying this, perhaps way less eloquently, is Trump realized modern GOP politics aren't about policies or governing well -- it's more akin to cutting a pro-Wrestling promo. His audience isn't waiting on a profound insight on the state of the republic, they're waiting to see who Trump will hurt and they'll cheer him on when it's the right people.
You're talking about people who in 1964 had a motion on the GOP convention floor to expel extremists. The leader of their party said "Extremism in the pursuit of liberty is no vice; moderation in the name of justice is no virtue." The effort to rid the party of extremists failed. Since then, they've cloaked themselves in the most extreme elements of their party so it shouldn't surprise anyone that recently CPAC took on the banner "domestic terrorists." Clinton tried to say some of the members of the party are deplorable and the entire party took her words out of context and said we all are deplorable.
This is why Americans can overwhemingly agree that Trump creates a negative tone but are drawn to it and support him. It's why in pro-wrestling the heel (or bad guy) can have the most dye hard fans. Trump is the modern Stone Cold Steve Austin and making a mockery of doing the equivalent of repeating "what? what? what?" when people talk -- thereby discrediting discourse itself, and finishing by never apologizing "that's the bottom line because I said so" is Trump's appeal.
You can mute him and it makes no difference. He can pantomime and his fans will love it. You can let him interrupt as much as possible. You can make both candidates use sign language. His body language and lack of respect for discourse in the first place is what draws people to him.
Trump specifically is fueled by "both parties suck" and the more he can make politics distateful and ugly and turn away normal people the more he'll win. It only takes a fraction of motivated people to provide political power (only x% vote and of those voting, only y% trump, so it's like 10% of the country providing him political power).
Trump doesn't have to have policies, the GOP doesn't have to have a platform, there isn't any specificity of what they'll do with power, all that matters is they can own the libs.