Joe Biden came out swinging this week, agreeing to face off against Donald Trump in two debates and taunting the former president. Biden claimed that he already beat Trump in both of their debates in 2020, implying that he was confident that he could do so again. “Make my day, pal,” declared Biden, as he playfully suggested that Trump might be “free on Wednesdays” – a reference to the schedule of the Stormy Daniels hush money trial in New York City.
Despite Biden's tough talk, however, the truth is that Democrats, including key Biden confidantes, have been hedging their bets for months about whether any presidential debates would be held. Biden backers have been advising the president against debating Donald Trump – including, most recently, Nancy Pelosi. Their stated reason has generally been that Trump is a lying sack of [expletive deleted], so no self-respecting person should ever talk to him. Lurking underneath this flawless logic, however, is a burgeoning leftist contempt for all forms of dissent, as well as strong doubts about Biden's ability to go toe-to-toe with the fast-talking Trump.
Well, the people who tell Joe Biden what to say and do obviously crunched the numbers, and they decided that he simply couldn't dodge the obligation to debate his major party opponent -- not without looking like he was lily-livered and senile, that is. What Biden could do, however, and has done, is frame the debates so as to give himself maximum advantage, particularly since Trump had already declared that he would debate Biden "anytime" and "anywhere". Biden thus took up the challenge and accepted specific invitations to debate Trump in June on CNN and in September on ABC. The timing is favorable to Biden since few people will be engaged that early in the process, and, if he stumbles, he will have plenty of time to recover before the voting starts. The venues are even more obviously favorable to Biden, since there is no such thing as a Trumper who works at CNN or ABC.
Be all that as it may, the mere fact that Biden has begrudgingly agreed to debate Trump is highly significant. There can be little doubt that the audiences for both debates will be massive, and the stakes will be, or at least will seem, high.
Then again, we should bear in mind that neither Trump nor Biden is broadly popular, and very few people do not already have extremely fixed opinions about both men. In that sense, no debate is likely to move the political dial all that much. Indeed, one could argue that no development, period, is very likely to change the election landscape, given the fact that, over the last six months, based on RealClearPolitics polling averages, in a five-way race Trump has been consistently ahead of Biden nationally, by a minimum of one and a maximum of six points. Trump has consistently held similar, if modest, leads in most of the swing states. Only a very remarkable debate indeed could shift this race out of the narrow channel through which it's been flowing for so long...or so an objective observer might conclude.
One other notable corollary to the announcement of these two debates is the effective elimination of RFK, Jr. from the lineup, which appears to please both the Trump and Biden camps. It is extremely difficult to see a third party or independent candidate breaking through and claiming victory in a presidential election, when he (or she) is denied the opportunity to appear at, and participate in, the highest profile clashes between the major candidates.
One thus has to wonder whether, in the wake of this setback, RFK, Jr. might propose a debate between the also-rans, including himself, Cornel West, and Jill Stein – or whether he might find some other, inventive way of maximizing his visibility as a candidate. If he does not, then the likely trajectory of his support in the polls will be, as both Trump and Biden seem to want, down, down, down.
And that, in the end, maybe the most significant aspect of the Trump-Biden debates: their exclusion of any and all alternatives to the two least-liked major party candidates in history.
Dr. Nicholas L. Waddy is an Associate Professor of History at SUNY Alfred and blogs at: www.waddyisright.com. He appears on the Newsmaker Show on WLEA 1480/106.9.