There's No Debate: Perception Creates Reality

I am a firm believer that perception is reality for most people. It’s for this reason that I don’t like to wade into politics because, in the words of Paul Simon, “A man sees what he wants to see and disregards the rest .” Another way of saying this is that people make up their minds first and then look for reasons to confirm their beliefs and ignore those that contradict them. And how we perceive situations or people is often our reality, facts be damned. As a result, I think it’s often futile to attempt to change any minds by what I write. All I can do is write about how I perceive the world and what decisions these beliefs and interpretations may lead to. We are a product of our choices, including doing nothing as this is still a choice if we are consciously aware of choosing inaction, and these choices help form habits which influence our future choices. I write to help me process what is going on with me and what I am finding interesting and important at the time and what people do with what I write is up to them.

With all of that being said, there are seminal moments in history, however, when I have to throw caution to the wind and discuss politics. The Biden-Trump debate from last week is one of those such that Joe Biden’s performance on Thursday night was one of those defining moments in American history that I would be remiss not to memorialize it, at least for my own personal diary. For those who watched it live they will never be able to unsee what they saw and, now because of the mass proliferation of social media, those who didn’t will still be heavily influenced by their viewing of the countless clips that have gone viral. I don’t think the Russians could have come up with anything to help unseat Biden as powerful as what Biden did to himself and creating and reinforcing for people the perception that his cognitive capacity is declining rapidly.

The frightening question many Americans are now asking, because perception is reality, is who has been actually calling the shots for the country because it doesn’t seem possible that he has the cognitive consistency and capacity to do so effectively. Once again, this is now the perception regardless of the reality. It is also one of those rare instances when perceptions will have actually been changed. Biden supporters, of which a not insignificant number do so because they hate Trump, now realize that he may not be able to beat Trump and that he must be replaced if there is any hope of stopping Trump. And for those who are pure Biden supporters, they are also coming to terms with a perceptual change that they have been supporting him because they love him as a person and because of what he stands for are now going to believe that the best way of showing their love for him is to find a far more suitable candidate.

There are a few crucial events in politicians' lives that have taken place on very public stages and derailed their election chances. A few that come to mind involve Richard Nixon, Ed Muskie, Gerald Ford, and now Joe Biden. These events changed voter perceptions, and they were clearly the tripwire to derail their campaigns by changing or reinforcing voter perceptions of them.

The first televised presidential debate was in 1960 between John F. Kennedy, Jr. and Richard Nixon. The cameras and lights were not friendly to Nixon as he was sweating and looked rather stiff. Two days prior to the Biden-Trump debate W. Joseph Campbell was reflecting on that debate and what it might mean for the upcoming Biden-Trump debate.

I wasn’t born at the time so my cursory knowledge of the impact of that debate was that it derailed Nixon’s campaign and that was the principal reason why he lost to the underdog Kennedy. This is what Campbell wrote and how others chalked up Nixon’s loss to his debate performance.

Ahead of the first 2024 presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, I’ve been reflecting on the first-ever televised presidential debate in 1960 – and how Vice President Richard Nixon’s sweaty, haggard appearance that autumn night opened a pathway to the White House for the tanned and telegenic Sen. John F. Kennedy.

“Kennedy went on to narrowly win the election that most say he never would have had a shot at without that first debate,” TIME magazine declared in 2016 , in a laundry list of the supposed greatest missteps in presidential debates. “Nixon’s fatal flub was in failing to recognize the power of the visual image.”

Max Frankel, then the executive editor of The New York Times, wrote several months after Nixon’s death in 1994 that “Nixon lost a TV debate, and the Presidency, to John F. Kennedy in 1960 because of a sweaty upper lip.”

What’s interesting, however, is that Campbell went back and looked at newspaper articles written immediately after the debate and Nixon’s visual appearance was hardly mentioned. Campbell’s theory is that it became an after the fact explanation as to what tipped the scales to Kennedy in one of the closest elections in history. He won the popular vote by 118,000, or 0.2%. Since perception can become reality this was the start of television appearances for political candidates becoming enormously influential in shaping the perceptions of the electorate.

This came to the forefront in 1972 when Senator Ed Muskie of New Hampshire was the frontrunner to win the Democratic Party nomination to run against Richard Nixon for President. Muskie gave a speech on a cold, snowy day in New Hampshire and he was quite livid because he had been falsely accused of saying something he didn’t. He was so upset that it looked like he began to cry .

Whether he cried or not is up for debate but what was clear to everyone watching was that Muskie was absolutely livid and he believed this forever changed voters’ perception of him and this new perception became reality.

Muskie later blamed his outburst in Manchester on exhaustion caused by cross-country campaigning. But he acknowledged to White that the display of anger proved too much to overcome. “It changed people’s minds about me, of what kind of guy I was,” Muskie said. “They were looking for a strong, steady man, and here I was, weak.”

Incumbent Gerald Ford, the accidental President, sealed his fate in the second debate with Jimmy Carter when he said that there was no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe. This was a blunder so disastrous that it cleared the way for Jimmy Carter to win the presidency.?

Since we’re on the subject of perception versus reality, I found the following statements made by Carter during that debate fascinating. Carter is perceived as one of the weakest presidents in modern history, particularly when it came to projecting American power. He was completely derailed by the Iranian hostage crisis along with the terrible inflation of the 1970s. This is what he had to say, however, about America’s standing in the world, which if you didn’t know who was speaking, you would have guessed that it was Ronald Reagan.

“Our country is not strong anymore; we’re not respected anymore,” Carter declared. “We can only be strong overseas if we’re strong at home; and when I become president, we’ll not only be strong in those areas but also in defense — a defense capability second to none.”

This is how the Gerald Ford derailment unfolded.

The debate then turned to the Helsinki Accords which many, particularly in Ford’s own Republican Party, was an appeasement to the Russians and made America look weak and would only come back to hurt us. Carter agreed with this assessment. The debate moderator then probed this subject and the following exchange took place that put the nail in the coffin of Ford’s hope to win the 1976 election.

We’ve virtually signed, in Helsinki, an agreement that the Russians have dominance in Eastern Europe; we’ve bailed out Soviet agriculture with our huge grain sales, we’ve given them large loans, access to our best technology. … Is that what you call a two-way street of traffic in Europe?

After rattling off a few facts, Ford walked into his own trap by stating there was no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.

Frankel seemed stunned. In a halting follow-up question, he gave Ford a chance to walk back his statement, asking, “I’m sorry, could I just follow — did I understand you to say, sir, that the Russians are not using Eastern Europe as their own sphere of influence in occupying most of the countries there, and making sure with their troops that it’s a communist zone?”

“I don’t believe, Mr. Frankel, that the Yugoslavians consider themselves dominated by the Soviet Union,” Ford replied. “I don’t believe that the Romanians consider themselves dominated by the Soviet Union. I don’t believe that the Poles consider themselves dominated by the Soviet Union. Each of those countries is independent, autonomous; it has its own territorial integrity. And the United States does not concede that those countries are under the domination of the Soviet Union.”

Ford was toast and Carter won the presidency.

I won’t dwell on Biden’s performance other than to say it was disastrous that even his biggest supporters are saying he needs to drop out of the race.

And before writing off Biden completely in the immediate aftermath of his dismal debate performance, I think it’s important to read other points of view that suggest, while significant damage has been done to his re-election chances, there are still ways for him to recover because of who he is running against and because some of the policies Biden has promoted have been relatively popular with the American public. At the same time, the writer of this piece is brutally realistic that Biden may have done irreparable damage to his ability to win the election.?

And while the debate fiasco is fresh in everyone’s mind and the election is still four months away, it is virtually impossible for a jury to disregard statements when told to do so by judges because that only serves to burn them into their consciousness even more. Most Americans will not be able to unsee what they saw and this will forever change or reinforce their perception that Biden’s deteriorating cognitive abilities pose a clear and present danger to our great country, no matter how much President Biden cares for and loves his country. I think this tweet by Maria Shriver is reflective of this school of thought.

And after having some time to reflect and waking up the next morning, she changed her tune ever so slightly.

Unfortunately, Maria, not all nights are created equal, and this one night has most likely changed or reinforced the perceptions of the American electorate regarding Joe Biden in irreversible ways.

Never forget that there is little difference between people’s perception and their reality.