One Night of TV Canceled a President

 

 

"President Biden’s decision to bow out after a disastrous debate confirms that in a TikTok era, TV is still the biggest political arena.""

read analysis by James Poniewozik

As soon as TV sets landed in American living rooms, media critics worried that television would dominate politics, and the medium wasted no time proving them right. Richard M. Nixon lost in 1960 to the glamorous John F. Kennedy after a shaky, sweaty debate that played better for him on the radio. After Ronald Reagan zingered his way to a second term in 1984, Neil Postman wrote that in the TV era, “debates were conceived as boxing matches.”

But not until now had a president KO’ed himself in one round.

On Sunday, President Biden announced his withdrawal from the 2024 campaign, ending an astounding disintegration that began with Mr. Biden’s discombobulated debate against Donald J. Trump late in June. Mr. Biden released his decision on X, formerly Twitter, but the moment recalled when Lyndon B. Johnson made a similar announcement on TV in 1968, or perhaps when Mr. Nixon resigned the presidency 50 years ago.

This collapse, however, was not the result of an overseas war. There was no break-in and coverup. There was simply a horrendous TV outing — less than two hours that changed history.

Yes, Mr. Biden, at 81, suffered doubts about his age, vigor and acuity before the debate. Yes, his mini campaign afterward to redeem himself with speeches, interviews and a news conference did not help either. Mr. Biden had a hand in his fate. So did Father Time.

Still, it took a single, horrifying prime-time failure to crystallize the problem. As he and his allies argued, 14 million people voted for him in the primary. But 51.3 million people saw his faculties fail him on live TV, and that’s before it was clipped and ricocheted and repeated.

Certainly the relentless digital-media cycle played a part too; maybe a pre-Twitter president could have ridden this out. But in a TikTok era, it still takes TV to concentrate that many eyes simultaneously on the one, unignorable, everybody-saw-it moment that starts the avalanche.

Mr. Biden was hardly the first president to have a bad debate. Gerald Ford declared there was “no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe” in 1976; George H.W. Bush looked at his watch and essentially called time up on himself in 1992; Barack Obama checked out at his first debate against Mitt Romney in 2012.

Mr. Obama won his election, and Mr. Ford nearly did. Mr. Bush’s moment was arguably more a symbol of his woes than a cause. The most damaging debates cement an existing and eventually fatal perception of the candidate.

This happened dramatically in a Republican primary showdown in 2011. Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, considered a top contender for the nomination, said that as president he would eliminate three federal agencies, and began to name them. “Commerce, Education,” he said. And paused. And paused. And looked through his notes. And after 53 excruciating seconds, said: “Sorry. Oops.”

Mr. Perry’s mistake was not a big deal, practically. If elected, people with briefing books could remind him of the third department. It was a big deal politically because of an existing perception, which his opponents had seized on, that he was too dim for the presidency. On national TV his bulb flickered, and it was lights out.

Likewise, Mr. Biden’s verbal disaster, as he insisted for weeks after, did not undo any accomplishment of his, nor any of his opponent’s offenses. But it manifested in living video the concern among the public (shown in polling) and in his party (whispered in private) that he had lost too many steps with age.

After that night, every appearance he made, every conversation about him, was framed by the memory of him exposed under the stage lights wearing the gaping mask of mortality. You could even say, and some did, that the debate did not simply reinforce an impression of mental decline but starkly exposed the thing itself.

People can argue whether Mr. Biden’s downfall shows the value of TV debates or proves them a curse. However imperfectly, these productions give voters information. This one is forcing the Democratic Party to make a change that its voters might have demanded had they seen the same thing months ago.

Then again, TV politicking simply selects for politicians who are good at TV — charismatic-cool like Mr. Obama, provocative-hot like Mr. Trump — and being telegenic does not necessarily mean having good policy or judgment or decision-making instincts.

But it is a false dichotomy to claim that there is TV, an artificial arena for fake performance, and then there is the real world, where a president does important business. TV is part of the real world. It is where presidents inspire, console, advocate, persuade, create an identity, make connections, seize attention, build support — and, yes, win elections, without which they can achieve nothing at all.

We may be better off for that or worse. But try to argue against what people have seen with their own eyeballs, as Mr. Biden discovered, and you will lose that debate too.

THE NEW YORK TIMES