BIG COUNTRY, Texas (KTAB/KRBC) — In this week’s episode of Big Country Politics, Dr. Paul Fabrizio, a Professor of Political Science at McMurry University, discussed the recent presidential debate. He highlighted the challenges the Democratic Party may face and explored the potential emergence of a third major party in the U.S. political system.
“I’ll just say from a historic perspective, it was the worst presidential debate in American history. I mean, it was just a bad show. I’m not sure where you want to go, but there’s so many things to talk about with this thing,” Fabrizio commented.
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Fabrizio shared that during this debate, Biden needed to demonstrate his competence and prove that he is physically and mentally capable of serving as president.
“The pressure was really on him. He took a week off before the debate, to go and stay in Camp David, and practice. He and his advisers went over various scenarios. They gave answers. They studied briefing books, they looked at tapes of old debates. So they wanted Biden ready to go and demonstrate that Biden was competent to be president,” Fabrizio said.
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“So we go to the debate and lo and behold, President Biden comes out and the first thing he does is he waves to an imaginary audience. There’s no audience there. There’s the two moderators in that set. And then his voice is raspy. We hear later he may have had a cold, and he just meanders. He sometimes mumbles was hard to understand him. As a consequence, he seemed to confirm the worst fears of his own side,” Fabrizio shared.
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In an interview with Reporter Noah McKinney just a couple of days before the debate, Fabrizio said, “Instead of looking at this debate as who wins or who loses, I think we have to look for those viral moments that are going to show up on TikTok or Facebook… The hope is that people who see those viral moments but miss the debate will at some point go and do their electoral homework and learn more.” He noted that those moments were definitely present.
“There were so many viral moments. I don’t know if President Biden was aware that they had a split screen. So when Donald Trump was talking, the camera was also focused on Joe Biden. He was looking off, he was staring. Sometimes his mouth was open. He just looked, and I hate to say it, he just looked old. He looked like he was not in command,” Fabrizio stated. “So there were so many moments that the Trump campaign can use to demonstrate, ‘Hey, Biden is not all there.’ Biden, we saw in the State of the Union message in March, being very much in command. Very different. Very, very different. Last night, it did not work for him.”
In a CNN poll from Thursday night, viewers were asked if the debate affected their presidential choice. The results showed that 5% said it changed their mind, 14% said they were reconsidering, and 81% said there was no effect whatsoever. Fabrizio mentioned that he had seen estimates suggesting that 95% of voters were committed to their candidate, but now, it seems like that could be changing.
“We need to remember we’re entering into this contest in a very polarized political atmosphere… It looks like it’s going to be a little bit more who aren’t as committed to their candidate. So in other words, some of those who say, ‘Yeah, I’m gonna vote for Biden’ or ‘Yeah, I’m gonna vote for Trump’ might be wavering a little bit,” Fabrizio said. “Can I point to words? No, because this is about images. This is about images. This is about Biden just looking dazed, confused at times. This is about Donald Trump looking sharp, looking like he’s in command. There’s only a three year age difference between the two. But it seemed at times to be a 30 year age difference between them.”
Media outlets like CNN and MSNBC reported that members of the Democratic Party were very concerned about Biden’s performance. Fabrizio said that if they went with another candidate, it would send a bad message.
“That would be a horrible message for the Democrats because it would be saying, ‘Oh, we’re wrong. We’ve been building up Joe Biden, and now we can’t do it. We have to go in this other direction.’ That’s going to cause all sorts of problems for them going forward. The last time something like that happened was 1968 when Lyndon Johnson dropped out, and they went with Hubert Humphrey, and Hubert Humphrey lost that race to Richard Nixon,” Fabrizio explained. “No one wants to see a lame duck. If that were to happen, Biden would continue as president through the end of his term, but he would basically be ignored as all the attention would shift to whoever is going to be the new candidate.”
In the fact-check segment on CNN on Thursday night, they reported nine false claims made by President Joe Biden and more than 30 false claims by former President Donald Trump.
“If you look at the whole Trump presidency, he was well known. It’s well documented that many, many times, he had misstatements; he told lies. He continued that pattern last night, he was not fact checked by the moderators. He was not really fact checked by Joe Biden either. So therefore, in a certain sense, it was a 90 minute opportunity for him to say whatever he wanted, without any rebuttal,” Fabrizio said.
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Fabrizio shared that he was surprised Biden did not fact-check Trump, but explained that it is a difficult thing to do.
“You’re doing a performative debate. If you’re Joe Biden, you’re a master politician. But you’re up against a master entertainer, who’s also a pretty good politician, too. So how do you correct him, as well as launch the personal attacks that you launch against him? As well as try to prevent a defense of your own administration and a vision for the future? I think that’s simply one too many things to ask of a candidate. In the in the forum, there just simply wasn’t opportunity for that kind of fact checking,” Fabrizio said.
Over the years, Fabrizio has moderated numerous forums and debates. He hoped that CNN would have stepped in to fact-check during the debate.
“There was a couple of times where Donald Trump said things that were just wrong. At one point when talking about abortion, he talked about several states that allow the killing of live babies. There’s no state that does that, that’s murder. That’s the sort of thing that should be checked immediately,” Fabrizio said. “He talked about environmental ratings that he’s receiving and approval ratings. What is he talking about? Where did that come from? I don’t know of any place where those things exist. So, there’s some things were I wish they would have done that at the same time. Do it also to Joe Biden, Joe Biden said a couple things that were also incorrect. So I wish there was that element in there. But the moderators for their own reason, it was CNN show, they chose to do what they did.”
Biden and Trump will go head-to-head once again on September 10 on ABC. Fabrizio shared that this debate will be crucial for Biden and his campaign.
“Based on what we saw from Joe Biden last night? If he wants one more opportunity with the American people, he has to have that debate. They probably will consider changing the format to one where there’s an audience so that both of the candidates can play off that audience,” Fabrizio said.
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While most focus on Biden and Trump in the election, there are multiple other candidates such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. However, Fabrizio said he does not believe that a change away from the two-party system will happen.
“The American system is built on the idea that only one candidate can win. It’s not a coalition, you can’t have three candidates or anything like that. It’s built on only one candidate winning, therefore that encourages people with different opinions, to get together with other people have similar opinions, to work to get the candidate who’s closest to where they believe elected,” Fabrizio shared. “So, simply the fact that we elect one person encourages, basically mandates that we only have two real parties. That’s the way it’s been in this country, from basically the beginning. You go back to George Washington’s presidency, there was Thomas Jefferson, against John Adams, Thomas Jefferson is against Alexander Hamilton. But it was Jefferson on one side and these other people on the other side. That is the way it’s been and that’s the way it’s going to be as long as we keep this one candidate can win system… I mean, Robert Kennedy can emerge. But the system is built for two candidates. There’s a bias in the laws for only two candidates.”
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