The Survivor Superficiality of Last Night’s Debate

There was a moment in last night’s Republican presidential primary debate that has stuck with me more than any of the crosstalk or inter-candidate squabbling. It came near the very end. Co-moderator Dana Perino astutely noted that, if none of the candidates on the stage dropped out, Donald Trump — who skipped the debate, as he did the last one — would win the primary. But Perino went from this interesting set-up to a bizarre query: “So which one of you on stage tonight should be voted off the island?” She then prompted the candidates to use the paper and pen provided to indicate their choice and hold it up, à la the reality-TV show Survivor.

I have complained before about how the modern presidential debate forces us to believe television performance is the best indicator of presidential prowess. Decades ago, media critic and philosopher Neil Postman explained why this makes no sense:

The point is that television does not reveal who the best man is. In fact, television makes impossible the determination of who is better than whom, if we mean by “better” such things as more capable in negotiation, more imaginative in executive skill, more knowledgeable about international affairs, more understanding of economic systems, and so on. The reason has, almost entirely, to do with “image.” But not because politicians are preoccupied with presenting themselves in the best possible light. After all, who isn’t? It is a rare and deeply disturbed person who does not wish to project a favorable image. But television gives image a bad name. For on television the politician does not so much offer the audience an image of himself, as offer himself as an image of the audience.

Last night’s Survivor interlude was a kind of apotheosis for the format’s superficiality. It was a moment when a force of cultural degradation attempted to gain another beachhead in our politics. Fortunately, at least this time, there wasn’t much appetite for it on the stage. To his immense credit, Florida governor Ron DeSantis led the charge in shooting down the gimmick, which ended up going mostly nowhere.

Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie did, however, end up playing into it somewhat, though in a defensible manner: He used it to attack Trump, in part for his absence. “I’d vote Donald Trump off the island right now,” Christie said. In contrast to him, “every person on this stage has shown the respect for Republican voters to come here, to express their views honestly, candidly, and directly, and to take your questions honestly.” It was a good closing to what Noah Rothman described as a decent night for Christie. Earlier in the debate, he pulled his 2016 trick of looking directly into the camera to goad Trump for his absence. He was not alone in calling out Trump; DeSantis also said, “He should be on this stage tonight.” It was a welcome change from last time, when no candidate employed this easy and effective line of attack.

Does it matter? There’s a strong case, as several of my colleagues have argued, that it doesn’t. I tend to agree with that case, with one serious caveat. If somehow this goading, other criticism, or the consolidation of the race around one non-Trump candidate led Trump to feel genuinely threatened, maybe he could be lured back into the arena. I’m more a high-fantasy guy than a reality-TV guy, so I’m reminded of The Lord of the Rings: specifically, the way the battle of the Last Alliance of Elves and Men against Sauron and his forces is depicted in Peter Jackson’s adaptation of The Fellowship of the Ring. It took the entry of Sauron onto the battlefield, at first a major setback for those fighting his forces, to defeat him. This analogy is obviously imperfect. First off, Trump is not Sauron. (He’s more of a god-emperor.) And the way the movie shows it, victory was near for those set against the Dark Lord when he appeared. Whereas even the Last Alliance might have wavered had it taken a look at the RealClearPolitics average. This battle was also not what defeated Sauron permanently. But getting Trump back into the debates might be one of the only ways to alter the distressingly consistent status quo — challengers fighting for scraps while Trump leads commandingly.

It is, of course, no guarantee of success. Trump, a product — indeed, a master — of the reality-TV world, unsurprisingly prospered in the 2016 debate environment. His television skills were simply at another level versus those of his competitors, which, on the basis of the nonsensical syllogism Postman described, made him more politically viable. But it would be something, especially if Mark Wright is correct that Trump is not quite his 2016 self any longer.

Regardless, it doesn’t seem to matter. Trump has already decreed he won’t be at the next debate; in fact, he thinks no more should be held. If last night’s debate produced any of the outcomes that would cause him to change his mind — Trump successfully getting Marty McFly’d, consolidation (perhaps around former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley?) — there isn’t much evidence of it yet. For now, the status quo obtains. And that makes for pretty boring TV.