What to Watch For in Tonight's Debate

Incompatible goals: democratic aims of informing the public vs. an authoritarian fear-and-smear show

Many will be following tonight's show-down between presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, which will be hosted by ABC News, with David Muir and Linsey David as moderators. With Trump involved, this cannot and will not be a true debate.

This blockbuster television event is a prime opportunity for Trump to spread his poisonous lies and reiterate the insults, sarcasm, and negative emotions his devoted followers enjoy and have come to expect from him. He may introduce some new twists on his favored propaganda themes —successful indoctrination requires some variation, so the public does not grow bored— but the rhetoric and emotion that has made his base see Democrats as political enemies will continue.

Here is the clip from a good conversation I had with Nicolle Wallace on MSNBC about the Joe Biden-Donald Trump encounter as seen through the lens of authoritarianism. Although Trump faces a very different adversary with Harris, who is a sharp and quick thinker and a seasoned prosecutor, I do not think he will change his methods, unless forced to by assertive live fact-checking. I do not think he will change his goals of providing a fear-and-smear strongman show.  

Ideally, authoritarians dispense with debating altogether, as I observed of Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orbán in my 2023 Lucid essay "Demagogues Don't Debate." That's because the idea, structure, and aesthetics of debate are threatening to the authoritarian mindset.

Debates among presidential candidates enact the democratic principle of mutual tolerance: the notion that those who don't share your political views have a right to free expression. The public hears an exchange of views by individuals who are on equal footing, including visually, and bound by rules which are enforced by an impartial arbiter.

All of this runs counter to the principles of personality cults that posit the leader as a man above all others, a man who dominates just with his presence. The egalitarian staging and format of debates make them dangerous to this brand. Moreover, authoritarians who still have to contend with democracy have much to lose by submitting to spontaneous questioning by a rival or a third party, given how dependent they are on lies and corruption.

Putin, who long ago dispensed with allowing true rival opposition candidates to survive in his country, holds "call-in shows" in lieu of debates. In post-Communist fashion, these are supposed to be "spontaneous" questions from "the people," but are highly scripted. The staging of some of these shows communicates whose opinion matters in Russia: Putin is alone on the stage.

Putin preparing for one of his “call-in shows”: he alone can be on stage

Moreover, in a democracy, the purpose of a debate is to provide voters with accurate information on candidates’ platforms and views. When an authoritarian like Trump is involved, he turns it into an occasion to air a stream of falsehoods, half-truths, and fabrications.

This puts the other person on the defensive, forcing them (if there is no live fact-checking by the moderators) to spend all their time refuting the lies. In this way, the aggressor controls the narrative by preventing his adversary from making the case for their achievements and their positive goals for the future. This is especially important when the adversary has accomplished so much that benefits the American people in their everyday lives, as is the case with the Biden-Harris presidency.

As I wrote after the Biden-Trump debate: "Biden was decidedly out of it, but a different person, perhaps much sharper and quicker, would have been in the same situation. Ironically (given the Greek choir proclaiming him not just old but incompetent) Biden demonstrated better than anyone that he understood the situation, commenting just after the event that 'It’s hard to debate a liar.'”

Last time, Trump deployed this tactic to transform the debate into a spectacle that served authoritarian ends. Knowing things might be tougher for him this time against Harris, he is already claiming that the debate will be "rigged" in Harris's favor by the "biased liberal media." Insinuating that she has received the questions in advance continues his victim persona and builds on the Republican narrative that "Black people, favored by our DEI culture, are given an unfair advantage."

Trump is always attentive to every detail of performance, and this narrative frame also lowers expectations in the event that his actual ignorance or nonsense on policy issues is exposed.

Harris is building out her policy platforms. Given the amount of skepticism even supposedly centrist major media outlets display towards her, she faces pressure to clearly articulate what she has already achieved for Americans as part of the present administration, but above all what her signature goals and agendas will be. Trump will do everything in his power to disrupt those kinds of communications. Propagandists need their enemies to remain faithful to the image they have crafted of them.

However well Harris performs, the big-picture takeaway from this prime-time spectacle will be about our time of transition. The old political forms of democratic electioneering seem to be continuing, but when one party has exited democracy, and has chosen a demagogue as their candidate, those forms cannot function in the same way.

One person will show up tonight to have a debate in the democratic tradition, based on a free and fair exchange of views. That person will accept the results of the election when it happens. The other person will show up to indoctrinate people with lies. If he loses, he will contest the results and, if Jan. 6 is any guide, incite violence to avenge his loss. If he wins, he has stated that he intends to investigate and prosecute Democrats, Harris likely included.

So, the real issue up for debate tonight, personified by the two individuals on stage, is what political system Americans will live under in 2025 and beyond: a democratic system, guided by rule of law, or an autocracy marked by rule by the lawless and a criminal in charge?