To win the debate, Biden just needs to be Biden

The first debate is Thursday, so naturally, the Washington press corps is busy setting expectations for Joe Biden, most of them high enough to match the feeling of suspense that editors and producers want to create to attract that most coveted of all commodities: your attention.

MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace offered a representative sampling of what’s been offered so far this week: “He has to come in there and punch [Trump] in the face with his own boasts. Trump boasts about things that are traitorous. Trump boasts about things that are disgusting. Trump boasts about grabbing women between the legs. And if Biden doesn’t go in there and punch him in the face, with his own things that he’s proud of, the [debate] is lost before it starts.”

Yeah, no.

To win, the president doesn’t have to do anything as theatrical as (metaphorically) punching Trump in the face. He doesn’t have to stage low drama for CNN’s cameras. He doesn’t even have to be the hero of the republic. All he has to do is act like a normal incumbent in whom most people most of the time can continue placing their trust. All he has to do is remind a majority of Americans why they canned Trump.

I mean, I understand the need to dispel concerns about his advanced age, but he’s not going to dispel them with one debate performance, even if it were the best performance in the history of ever. Whatever effect it will have, it will be temporary, as it was shortly after his homerun speech at this year’s State of the Union. Concerns about Biden’s age will come roaring back in one form or another once CNN’s lights go out. The rightwing media apparatus will see to that.

No, an ordinary debate performance will be a win, because on Thursday, the president will no longer be seen in isolation by the public, as he has been seen since taking office. His appearance, his record of achievement and his vision for the country will be seen in their proper context, in relation to a felon who’s the embodiment of lawlessness, indecency and betrayal. An ordinary debate performance by a good democratic leader next to that of a criminal spells victory.

By “ordinary debate performance,” I do not mean lukewarm. I think the president should and will go on the offensive. Indeed, he has been doing so for months. (I have been saying to anyone who will listen that Biden is the most combative Democratic nominee in my lifetime.) Nicolle Wallace says he should punch Trump in the face, but his face is practically bloody from all the blows it has received. In January, hardly anyone was paying attention to those attacks. By Thursday, attacking him as a loser and coward – and now, as a felon – should be ordinary.

It’s important to remember how we got to where we are. In mid-May, Biden proposed, and Trump accepted, a series of debates that included one in June. A summer debate hasn’t happened since no one remembers. Debates are a fall thing. However, Biden wanted one this month, not only because it would take place soon after Trump’s felony trial concluded, but also because it would come right before the parties’ conventions, which is around the same time that lots of people who have not been paying attention to politics start paying attention.

The Biden campaign has for months been operating under the belief that its biggest problem, reflected in polling, is the sheer disbelief of people who have not been paying attention to politics. The idea is that these “undecideds,” as they are sometimes called, just could not believe the Republican Party would nominate Trump for a third time, not after he botched America’s response to the covid pandemic, not after he led a failed paramilitary takeover of the US government.

As far back as January, the Biden campaign believed the president would glean more support from “undecided” voters every time Trump won a Republican primary, or after some kind of major news event, such as his criminal conviction on 34 counts of business fraud or the first presidential debate of the election year. The Biden campaign described this awakening by people who have not been paying attention as a kind of “switch” that will increasingly “turn on” as time goes by.

The Biden campaign seems to have been right, though it’s still too early to know for certain. For the entirety of the current year, the approval rating of Trump has run parallel and above that of Biden, according to 538’s poll of polls. That changed for the first time on the eve of the summer solstice, last Thursday. The president’s aggregated approval rating reached 40.6 percent, two tenths above Trump’s.

Some attribute this movement, slight as it is, to a single event, namely Trump’s felony conviction. That’s Karl Rove’s theory, though he wasn’t citing 538’s poll of polls. On Fox over the weekend, the Republican strategist held up a white board showing select polling results.

“These are the polls since June 1,” he said. “If they’re in red, Donald Trump won ‘em, if they’re in blue, Joe Biden is leading, and if they’re in green, it’s a tie. And take a look, from the first of the month, where it’s Trump up by 1, Trump up by 2, Trump up by 1, Biden up by 1, a tie, Trump up by 2, Biden up by 2, tie, Biden up by 2. So there’s been a trend since the … May 30th guilty verdict in the New York case.”

But Trump’s conviction didn’t change things on its own any more (or less) than the president’s homerun speech at this year’s State of the Union changed things. No one event is going to wake up people who have not been paying attention. Only an accretion of events, big and small, can do that. The “switch” may take time to “turn on,” but once it’s on, it stays on. To win, the president doesn’t need to do anything extraordinary, because what counts as ordinary is already changing.