Presidential debates are a product of the bygone teevee age. The country got along quite well without them before 1960. They didn’t become a quadrennial event until 1976 when the unelected incumbent needed a boost for his lagging campaign.

Last century, Dan Rather dubbed them joint press appearances. Dan’s description has stuck with me because they’re definitely not the sort of debates many of us participated in high school or college. The formats have varied over the years, but they usually boil down to the candidates responding to questions from the media be it a panel or a lone moderator.

My primary objection is that these so-called debates have nothing to do with the job of the presidency. It’s a team sport: one reason Joe Biden has been a good president is his experienced and competent staff. They’re human, so they make mistakes but not as many as Team Trump did between 2017-2021. It helps to have a steady hand at the helm instead of an erratic mouthy idiot.

Being fast on your feet is not part of the job description: preparation and consultation are essential to making good presidential decisions. Speed is necessary at times but can also lead to poor choices. A good analogy is a trapeze team. It looks like a solo act but requires steadiness and teamwork; neither of which Trumpers are noted for.

When Trump is on the high wire, tight rope or whatever you want to call it, he works without a net. That’s why he was the worst president in American history. No sane or sentient person should want to double down on that dismal record.

The need for team work is why I bang on about the importance of Vice President Harris: if something happened to the president, she’d have his staff and cabinet to lean on. That’s how it worked during the abrupt JFK-LBJ transition and how it would work today. In fact, there would be less animosity between the Biden and Harris people than was the case in 1963.

Presidential debates lend themselves to stunts before, during, and after the event. The coverage is less horse race than boxing match. There’s a focus on gaffes and knockout blows that have nothing to do with fitness for office.

In 2024, there’s one candidate who’s manifestly unfit but Trump is under less scrutiny than Biden for mistakes. This is madness and seems to be based on the public’s alleged knowledge that the Convicted Insult Comedian is forever spouting gibberish. You hear the refrain: the public knows Donald Trump says weird stuff, so we don’t have to report it. But do they? I’m unconvinced. There’s a reason Gore Vidal coined the phrase, “the United States of amnesia.”

Thursday’s joint press appearance is the earliest in the dubious history of these so called debates. It’s a gambit by Team Biden to jump start the election by raising the early stakes. The gambit was a success but the debate itself will be another journey into hype. The legacy media will declare winners and losers but won’t adequately deal with the tonnage of lies told by Trump. He will lie early and often. It’s what he does.

I do, however, like the format changes, especially the lack of feral Trumpers and stunt guests in the audience. In fact, there will be no audience at all, which plays more to Biden’s strengths than Trump’s. But the uber short questions make coherence a problem. Does anyone really think Donald Trump will respect the strict time limits? He’ll surely say the debate is rigged. Everything is rigged as far as the MAGA Yippie is concerned.

In theory, debates help edify the electorate. I’ve rarely felt edified by the gotcha questions favored by debate panels or moderators. That’s why Dan Rather calls them joint press appearances.

In 2024, Team Trump has painted themselves into a corner after 4 years of claiming that President Biden is senile and unfit for the job because of his age. All Biden has to do to pass that test is not drool as he’s done at every SOTU during his first term. A reminder that Trump is only 43 months Biden’s junior but looks and sounds worse.

I may hate presidential debates, but I still watch them. I’m not planning on doing a blow-by-blow instant analysis of Thurday’s event. I’m jaded after writing about debates since 2008, so I’ll leave that to my First Draft colleagues for whom writing about presidential debates is a new experience. I’ve let them carry most of the campaign coverage thus far and see no reason to change that.

I’m not among those who think the Kaiser of Chaos will bail on the joint appearance. That would make him took weak and the appearance of strength is essential to his self-image. That’s a loser’s move and, despite all evidence to the contrary, Trump thinks he’s a winner. Why, I’ll never know.

And that is why I hate presidential debates.

I used a trapeze/high wire/tight rope analogy earlier, so the last word goes to Leon Russell followed by Men At Work with different variations on the trapeze theme: