That's because the GOP ironically understood the science behind debates; the human response to debates is incredibly illogical. Harvard did a study and they found that debates does not have any significant effect on any group in terms of who they vote for.Â
You aren't going to change people's vote through a debate, they'll think their guy won.
So what use is it? Jazzing up your own base. You go up there with a big performance and try to convince your base that the other guy is the big bad wolf. You're not trying to convert votes You're trying to get 100% voter turnout from your own base. And for that who wins and loses doesnt matter, they'll think you won regardlessÂ
ETA people are bringing up Biden and I don't feel like responding individually. 2 things. 1. They are talking about under normal circumstances debates don't flip votes. Obviously you could imagine an extreme circumstance that would for example if your rode in nude on a donkey and flipped the audience the bird that would probably do it.Â
Biden's debate changed things because it made him seem off (or however you would like to term it). It had nothing to do with the debate itself the same effect would have been had if his own ad made him seem impaired or an interview etc. So I'm not really sure it's fair to say the debate convinced people of that, it was a whole separate thing.Â
Exactly. Debate is an academic exercise and hardly anyone is ever swayed to change their mind based on one. That's why academic debate has so many rules - because almost every "fallacy" that breaks those rules is actually emotionally persuasive.
Yeah, The only time those style of debates really matter is when audience members don't have firm opinions yet.
Eta well matter for changing people's minds. There is value in learning to think critically imho but we're a dumb animal and the vast majority of us don't change our opinions based on superior evidence
The issue is that there is no impartial arbiter. Fact checking is seen by one side as an attack and an insult instead of identifying blatant intent to defraud their voters and the American people. It's been turned into competitive theater with teams and what is supposed to be for informational purposes has been turned into Ancient Aliens and Honey Boo Boo.
It's basically a content generating device to keep a hype train going and that is what I find so irritating is that is what the "bad condidate" argument boils down to. They claim there was no platform when there damn well sure was. What they are really doing is the work of the other hype team to drag down the only viable alternative to the lying criminal who will definitely hurt people on purpose for profit and fun.
Trump proved that by acting like a complete moron in the debates with Hillary and still won I was actually embarrassed for some of my friends as we watched. I thought he would go down in flames after that.
I watched that final debate against Clinton with a bunch of Hillary supporters. They all thought she had won. That is because they defined win incorrectly. I saw that Trump did exactly what he needed to do to win the debate - appear strong and reassure his base he would appoint conservative Supreme Court justices. I came away worried. The other Clinton supporters came away laughing at Trump. If you defined winning as giving more intellectual smart answers you of course thought Clinton won.
This is one of those things I just don't get, like when people say trumps time on the apprentice convinced people he was a good business man. I watched that show... I just didn't understand how anyone watching him could come away with the impression he's a competent person.
That's what woke me to it. She was the clear winner to anyone who listened. But his supporters weren't listening to it. At least not the words. Maybe the tone. They saw his physical dominance, the way he kept interrupting her, was allowed to to do so and how she gave him her time as victory.
While we saw it as, "Don't interrupt your enemy when he's making a mistake," as he blundered around unable to make a coherent point beyond promising to make unspecified things better in an unspecified way by unspecified means, they saw taking and holding the floor, boldly flouting rules, convention and basic manners as a show of strength they want to see in a leader.
Iâll disagree about the efficacy of debates. Case in point, Biden exhausted from actually doing his job and not napping and golfing all day, put in one of the worst debate appearances I can think of.
Even his supporters saw how tired and how he had lost his vitality and ability to speak forcefully with conviction. That said, he wasnât a dementia patient but he was old and tired.
That debate shone a light on him that caused many of his supporters to look differently at him. Ultimately it cumulatively resulted in his withdrawal from the presidential race.
So in just 2024 we can point to an example of debates changing supporters minds.
Well, Biden also fumbled before that by inviting a pedophile rapist and failed coup leader to share a stage with him, the president of the United States of America.
When Trump got the news, he probably ejaculated on the spot.
Yeah, but your example was more demonstrative of u/resident_trash5605's point. He didn't effectively use the debate stage to hype up his base. Of course, if you can't get your base, you certainly won't get the opposition's base. But, their point was more or less, that research shows debate efficacy is primarily derived from the pre-existing base, but rarely effective at converting from outside that base.
No, but you did point out the inverse which reinforces Residents point imo, which I think is empires point. So I think you're all agreeing with each other.
one of the worst debate appearances I can think of.
I mean, it was, but it wasn't even the worst debate appearance that night. As you say, Biden seemed old and exhausted, but other than fumbling over words, some made coherent and decent points and arguments.
Trump, on the other hand, spouted utter nonsense. Literally every Trump debate is the worst debate performance since I've been alive in the late 80's, probably followed up by Biden's as the next worst. Yet Trump has still been president twice.
I agree that Biden with a stroke is better than what we have now. But for many people, myself included, who dismissed MAGA attacks on sleepy joe it was shocking to see Biden as infirm as he presented.
I have to agree that Biden standing there with a blank face his mouth hanging open was not a good look. But, to be fair, listening to Trump tends to affect me the same way.
Listening to Trump is so confusing to me - I canât believe anyone thinks he should be in charge of anything.
But it was Bidenâs frailty that was shocking. I knew he was tired and working hard but he truly seemed old in the debate. It was enough that even his big donors took notice.
You make a good point but draw the wrong conclusion.
A terrible debate performance absolutely can reduce the turn out of your side or even convert some against you.
But the conclusion the populist right draws from this is not to show up. When you combine the high cost of a terrible performance, with the low value of a great performance (as per the comment you replied to) the logical decision for a cynical actor is to simply not show up. At least if the candidate is lackluster.
That is the MO of Ken Paxton in Texas. However Talerico has effectively used it against him possibly to a greater degree of success than a mediocre debate performance.
The conclusion I drew has nothing to do with whether itâs a solid political decision to participate in a debate. Iâm not certain where you got that. I simply established that debates can change votes and support even among a loyal base. And that was proven in 2024.
It can reduce turn out but not will. The current president was an unhinged lunatic on the debate stage against Harris and he swept every swing state. Now that everything is team based, individual performances seem to matter very little.
No argument about Biden's debate performance, but it's interesting to me how people make up (or repeat unverified) things about about politicians they don't like. In this case, Biden played golf 20 times across a full term. This compares to 293 days for Trump's first term only, or 333 across two Obama terms.
I think they were saying that Biden was not golfing. They were saying that he was tired from doing work, and that he wouldnât have been as tired if he had been constantly golfing and avoiding work like his competition.
The substance of the debate still didnât matter. And in that case his opponent didnât have to make him out to be the bad guy, his own condition did that for him. Youâve kind of provided supporting evidence in favor of, not against, what the previous person said.
Simple question. If Biden did not debate would you have understood how he was presenting or would you have thought it was MAGA tossing shit against the wall?
No debate and we donât have enough to make an informed decision.
Itâs ironic that our current president has said and done so many scandalous things weekly for years that his base still canât find a reason to question him. Although the Iran war, gas prices and inflation do seem to finally have an impact.
The debate didn't change the people's minds. Biden seeming however you would like to label that did. But nothing about the actual debate changed their minds. It wasn't his arguments being bad or Trump's being good.Â
A bad interview would have had the exact same effect.Â
So if say one of the two candidates was unbelievably hot and people voted for them for that reason after seeing them you would consider that to be the effects of the debate? Because that's a whole other thing to me. Bidens thing was similarly different.Â
It was smart to put him in front of a camera but the debate itself was immaterial.Â
For another example if while Mitch McConnell was MIA there had been an election and someone had challenged him I wouldn't be like oh this is why we do debates. It shows the man is very physically ill, but any TV appearance would have done that.Â
But I will grant you that the study is talking about normal circumstances. Obviously it is possible to have something happen in a debate that effects votes. But these are weird things not normal debate stuff as the study shows. Sure if you rode in naked on a donkey and flipped the crowd the bird that would change votes.
Can you think of a single example of the constituency not seeing a candidate prior to a debate?
When Kennedy and Nixon debated, radio listeners all thought Nixon had won. Yet the viewing audience all felt that Kennedy had won. So itâs already happened and is taught in first year poly sci.
Their minds were changed because of his appearance, not the debate, as you just noted. The study tests the effects of a debate. And if your main point is to see if someone looks unhealthy let's substitute half a mile brisk walk instead of a debate.Â
Not just appearance. You get that from magazines back then. Itâs much more than that. Itâs gravitas, itâs posture, itâs intangibles like leadership. Itâs more than just looks.
Your example literally says it was because he looked pale and sickly. They even noted that Nixon did much much better with a new diet but people couldn't unsee the image of him looking sickly. So your source disagrees with you.Â
Intangibles like leadership would have been heard over the radio.Â
But regardless the point the article is making is generally debates don't change people's minds pointing to one extreme example doesnt change that.Â
Also, your example doesn't undermine what they said. Kind of the opposite actually. The debate didn't change people's minds. People heard the debate and thought nixon won. His appearance actually outweighed the debate for people.Â
People who heard the debate said "nixon won" people who saw them on TV said "nixon looks pale and sickly JFK is young energetic and attractive."Â
So even in your example, the debate didn't sway people. People were swayed despite the influence of the debate, not because of it. They were actually swayed in the opposite direction than the debate pointed, because again people who only consumed the debate thought nixon won.
If they were swayed by the debate itself the radio folks who also heard the debate would have had the same opinion.
Ironically, the takeaway from what you're saying is also completely wrong btw. If what you and the article are saying is strictly true we shouldn't have televised debates. Because having people choose based on someone looking pale and sweaty is a horrible criteria and apparently that even overshadows who actually had better things to say.
There was nothing wrong with nixon physically and he looked better once they had him gain some weight. He lived another 34 years and the audience aren't doctors.
So if I strictly believe your example, thats a bug, not a feature of televised debates.Â
He didn't say that debates can't change minds, he said they don't tend to change voters from what side to another, but they can have an effect on how much of your own constituency shows up....which aligns with your argument
Biden is actually a double example. Back when he was doing the VP debate with Ryan the polls legit moved after the fact. It was notable because I don't think any of the quantitative election folks (it was peak 538) actually believed the VP debate was going to matter at all unless someone died.
Thats not the same thing, Biden had an inability to debate, period. He lost support, not because he lost the debate, but because he proved he wasn't fit to hold public office.
I disagree. He lost support because he appeared to have missed a step, that age was catching up to him. However, short of a couple of verbal gaffes, his answers were pretty on point.
Anyone who voted MAGA due to Bidenâs performance are moronic, being they think the âeating our petsâ guy is fit to lead
You're just repeating right-wing talking points. If you actually watch the debate critically, you'll see Biden's only issue is appearing low-energy and sometimes saying million instead of billion. The whole debate, he was delivering straight facts, from memory, with actual statistics and logical reasoning, on the actual topic of the question asked. He just did it kind of quietly.
Meanwhile, at no point did Trump ever say anything based in reality or relevant to the topic at hand (except when it was a red-meat topic for his base, like immigration). But even then, it was 100% emotional-based lies and hollow promises. He just did that while being loud.
It turns out that it's much easier to just loudly spew lies than to explain complex topics with facts and figures. And, as always, Democrats are held to an impossible standard because they actually try to meet it, while Republicans get infinite free passes for saying and doing the dumbest and most despicable things.
I watched the debate. I guess i have a higher standard for the people who lead our country than you do. I didnt vote for trump and I dont consume right wing media.
I was not directing my response to you. Directly. I am happy to hear your opinion. If I have 2 to choose from, Iâm gonna go with the guy who works hard, and answers questions appropriately. I consider my standard pretty god damn high.
I see, tell me, who did you vote for?
Your standard is so high that you will allow your vote to benefit an obvious fascist?
Or, did you vote at all? Because that is also a vote for the looney fascist as well.
You couldnât offend me if you tried, and yeah, if you did not vote for president, youâre saying that you believe that a vote for Trump is the same as a vote for Kamala. You really believe that we would be in this shape had common of one the election? Itâs worth it to you to be at war with Iran, food, houses peeking? Just so you had some your nose at the system? That my friend is a vote for the fascist
But Biden in the debate looked and sounded like he had lost a step and was exhausted and showing his age. Trump, despite having a fraction of Bidenâs IQ seemed energetic in contrast. Perhaps Trump took a little sumthin sumthin that gave him a boost or perhaps it requires less energy to spew than it does to cite facts.
Regardless, even George Clooney called for Biden to step back after the debate so a lot of hardcore Dem donors saw what I saw.
I'm stealing, paraphrasing, and probably butchering the words of someone smarter than me. But 'the best one can hope for in a honest debate is a mutual understanding of each others position.'
From that understanding someone might actually end up adjusting their position. Political debates have devolved into substanceless soundbite machines.
Yep so much of what we do is fishing for good YouTube clips. Like people were confused by why they're asking questions this way that Smith had an easy answer to. Because it doesnt matter. Theyre gonna post them asking 5-6 charged questions back to back edited together without the answers and celebrate them owning the libs regardless.
I think you got the answer the first time though. The purpose of the debate is the jazz up your own base and the party realised that Biden couldnât do it. No matter how bad his performance, nobody intent on voting Dem was going to flip if he continued to be the nominee. More of them would have sat out thatâs all.
They're always trying to redo 1960, when a debate did matter. They forget it was the first televised debate and was broadcast on all three networks and on radio. It was literally he only thing to watch, so everyone watched it.
It still didn't matter in the way it should have. It mattered because one of the candidates looked better than the other one. The content of the debate didn't change minds.
I don't entirely agree. I think there are a lot of fence-sitters who need to confirm their choice from how the candidates perform during the debate. The "debates" are valuable for everyone because it demonstrates how serious and knowledgeable each candidate is about the issues. Body language and facial expressions speak volumes more than the words out of their mouths.
Actually, the term "debate" shouldn't be used in these events because it's not formally structured the same way as an academic debate (i.e. the way debate clubs and competitions operate). In a political "debate", the rebuttal only happens when one candidate mentions the other persons name.
Either way, Mary is 10x better than Sullivan and it's time for Alaska to make the right choice, not just the expected one because of party affiliation. You did it with Ted Stevens, so you can do it again with Mary.
I just listened to my local candidates debating, and it helped me get a better perspective of how they think about issues. It showed that some of the candidates were better than I thought they were, although it wasn't enough to sway my decision. If we had ranked choice voting, it probably would have changed my second choice candidate.
yeah, but has Mary explained what a woman is, or how can we get more information on people's genitals? Or, for extra bonus points, can Mary tell us which bathrooms to use? - Alaskans, 2026.
I'm high and tired and read your comment as talking about diabetes at first not debates and I was so confused but curious where where you were going with this
People are fickle, stupid, and simpistic, and Republicans have done a great job exploiting these qualities. It's genuinely hard to combat against because it fundamentally requires people to put effort into thinking which is currently a losing battle
I think they still need to do them on principle, regardless of whether it affects the election significantly. If you want to run for public office, you need to publicly answer direct questions about your policies, beliefs, history, etc. The people have the right to hear their responses
Again not the actual debate (two people arguing) that changed things. The televised event did because of his appearance. And for that any event would have done. In fact, if what you want a debate to do is reveal if someone is sickly and sweaty I would suggest we do away with debates and have a half mile brisk walk.
"appeared sickly and sweaty, while Kennedy appeared calm and confident. As the story goes, those who listened to the debate on the radio thought Nixon had won"Â
Interesting take, I'm wondering if this pointlessness of debates is at least partly caused by the US two-party system. I mean, they really realistically have only two choices, so it's one or the other without any options in between.
I'd think in my country, where you normally choose from 7-10 parties and 5+ reach the parliament, and governments have and always will be coalition based, debates do matter because many people do not have a strong preference for a predetermined party. Therefore, many people would be making their choices around things that matter to them, and different parties would have both overlapping and conflicting policy proposals. So one chooses what best aligns with thelr worldview. Sure, the debates still often become a shitshow of who is most at fault for whatever is being discussed, though.
To me this sounds like a democracy question, in which it seems to me like the US is simply not a strong democracy (anymore?).
I think American political debates donât change anyoneâs mind about who they are voting for. They can inspire people to actually go out and vote. Who they vote for doesnât change, whether they bother to vote does change.Â
You're not trying to convert votes You're trying to get 100% voter turnout from your own base.
Only applies somewhere where voting isn't compulsory. Might have to find this study and see if they looked at how it impacted on a situation where everyone votes.
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u/Resident_Trash5605 1d ago edited 1d ago
That's because the GOP ironically understood the science behind debates; the human response to debates is incredibly illogical. Harvard did a study and they found that debates does not have any significant effect on any group in terms of who they vote for.Â
You aren't going to change people's vote through a debate, they'll think their guy won.
So what use is it? Jazzing up your own base. You go up there with a big performance and try to convince your base that the other guy is the big bad wolf. You're not trying to convert votes You're trying to get 100% voter turnout from your own base. And for that who wins and loses doesnt matter, they'll think you won regardlessÂ
ETA people are bringing up Biden and I don't feel like responding individually. 2 things. 1. They are talking about under normal circumstances debates don't flip votes. Obviously you could imagine an extreme circumstance that would for example if your rode in nude on a donkey and flipped the audience the bird that would probably do it.Â