The first 2024 presidential debate was a sad commentary on the state of the union. It looked more like a prizefight than a debate with analysts using terms like “pummeling” and “scoring blows”. Trump lost points by hitting below the belt, rarely answering the focused questions, and punching with repeated falsehoods. Viewing Biden’s staggering around the rink, angry facial expressions, and blank off camera stares, the moderators should have called the fight after the 3rd round.
When addressing healthcare, Biden lost his train of thought searching for the term ‘Medicare’ but instead came up with ‘the covid’, and ended with the incoherent utterance, “…what if we finally beat Medicare ''. Did he mean ‘beat covid’? The moderators protectively stepped in by returning the microphone to Trump, but the damage was done.
Trump also engaged in self-damaging strategies. Given the close race and the fact that both candidates had their loyal base, pundits advised Trump to appeal to the undecided by sticking to relevant issues. He could have presented optimistic plans for addressing the issues of concern: the economy, immigration, social security, and abortion. He squandered this opportunity by focusing on the past, hammering at what he felt were Biden’s failures rather than how he will make America great again. The word ‘trump’ means to beat someone by saying or doing something better. Former President Trump did neither.
Many noted that the 2020 election was Trump’s to lose. His erratic and chaotic behavior then was consistent with this view. As a psychologist, I conjectured that although attracted to the power of the presidency, at a deeper level he wanted to return to his world of business and his Mar-a-Lago life at the 126-room estate on 17 acres in Palm Beach. His statements in the current debate essentially confirmed this conjecture. Trump said, not once but twice, that he didn’t really want to run for president but is doing so only because Biden was so bad. Given the demands of the presidency, America needs a president who passionately wants to lead the country, not an eighty something man who would rather, and probably should, be playing golf or making deals.
Returning to the fight metaphor, Rocky Marciano was the only heavyweight champion of the world who retired undefeated at age 32 after 49 fights, 43 won by knockout. Marciano offered this explanation, “I am retiring because of my wife and baby…the rink has seen the last of me”. Commentators felt that his last grueling fight made him realize his power was in decline. Either way, there is a message for the current candidates.
This shockingly ‘unpresidential debate’ featured one candidate who doesn’t really want to be president and another who can’t be. Both lost the debate and both should consider retiring. Biden is apparently not heeding pressure to step down after his painful debate performance and says he is planning for the September debate. This poor judgement is reason enough to increase the pressure for him to step aside.
The United States would be better served if Biden, in the folksy spirit of his hometown Scranton, Pennsylvania, would follow the words of the American folksong, Irene Goodnight:
“Stop ramblin’ [in debates] and stop gamblin’ [with our future],
Quit staying out late at night,
Go home to your wife and your family,
Sit down by the fireside bright”.
Although former President Trump accomplished things and was especially good for Israel, his passion for another four years is questionable. It’s too late for him to retire undefeated, but not too late to withdraw, to do what he said he wanted, and what many Americans want: Make room for the next generation of younger leaders before it’s too late. Given his power in the Republican Party, he could likely pick his successor.
America needs and deserves a matchup of candidates with more cognitive and moral clarity, candidates with the vigor, determination, and ability to distinguish truth and falsehood, to inspire and unite the country, and to lead the West in a wider war that may be in our future.
Consider the remarks by one of the world’s most successful leaders. During W.W. II, Winston Churchill cited the lack of charisma and vigor of several aging generals whom he dismissed or reassigned. Andrew Roberts noted in his recent Churchill biography that there was a common thread in Churchill’s reasoning: “It was that they were on the verge of sixty and were tired, in some cases exhausted by the stressful commands they had held since 1939”.
In warfare and prizefighting there are no ‘winners’, only victors and the defeated. Both incur inevitable losses. Trump may have been victorious in the debate but he did not win. It is no great triumph to score points through an onslaught of false facts against a sadly impaired opponent. In this debate, both candidates displayed to the world, and especially to our enemies, an image of America in precarious decline. Follow Marciano’s footwork, step out of the rink, and let others lead us back to our historic role as ‘the last great hope’. We cannot wait another four years.
Dr. Robert M. Schwartz is a psychologist and former Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.
He has published pioneering scientific articles on positive psychology, as well as political and social commentaries in the American Spectator, the American Thinker, Christian Science Monitor, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Jerusalem Post, Arutz Sheva, and others.