Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.
The Biden and Trump campaigns recently agreed to two presidential debates. Who among us can contain our excitement?
Well, it depends on what you mean by "us." In my corner of the professional world — pundits, commentators, political junkies — there was much rejoicing. Watching the Sunday shows, you could be forgiven for thinking church bells must have rung out to celebrate the news across the nation, as if some medieval queen had given birth to a male heir. The debates are happening! The debates are happening! Huzzah!
Meanwhile, among normal people, that sound you didn't hear was the great mass of humanity shrugging. A smaller segment of the population likely let out an involuntary groan of the sort you make when you find out you got a middle seat on an airplane.
I don't have polling to back this up, but I suspect most Americans would regard the prospect of Donald Trump and Joe Biden yelling at each other like two old men squabbling over the check at a Denny's with resigned exhaustion. Ugh, really? We're doing this again?
Now, I understand why journalists and junkies are excited. For starters, presidential debates inflate the egos of journalists, giving them ample opportunity to talk grandly about the fourth estate's important role in democracy. They're also great for ratings: The first, thoroughly awful 2020 debate was watched by 73 million people.
The drama of politicians offering unscripted -- though often rehearsed -- answers to complicated questions has a Super Bowl-like quality for political nerds. That listening to either of the current presumptive nominees talk is like watching a race car driver behind the wheel of a vehicle without brakes just adds to the excitement. The prospect of a spectacular crash always has a certain dark appeal, and in a Trump-Biden matchup, crashes are assured.
Lost amid the hoopla over the latest debate agreement is the fact that pretty much all presidential debates are tiresome and counterproductive spectacles.
The arguments for debates are often somewhat tautological. We supposedly need to have presidential debates because we've always had presidential debates. But this isn't true.
The first presidential debates, between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, were in 1960 (when Biden and Trump were, respectively, 17 and 14 years old). All anyone remembers about the Kennedy-Nixon debates is the first one, which Nixon lost, according to lore, because he was without makeup, unshaven and sweaty. Again, according to lore, people who listened to the debate on radio thought Nixon won, while people who watched it on television were so impressed by Kennedy's suave style and good looks that they thought he won. Nixon, who was underweight and exhausted during his first appearance, got some rest and good makeup and won the next two debates, which nobody remembers.
In other words, the lesson from the beginning was that style was more important than substance. It has ever been thus.
We think, partly because we are told as much over and over again, that televised debates convey important information to voters. But television makes certain information seem more important than it is, often subliminally. For instance, in most presidential elections, the taller candidate wins. Does height in some way correlate with superior policies?
There's a reason FDR hid his wheelchair from public view. But while I have no end of substantive criticisms of Franklin D. Roosevelt, his having had polio is not among them.
Obviously, television presence is part of modern presidents' job description. But televised presidential debates magnify that qualification beyond all reason. Yes, yes, presidents need to be good communicators. But at no point during their actual presidencies are they ever expected to bicker with a political foe for 90 minutes in front of millions of people.
The political skills we are testing for are not the political skills the job requires. The candidate who forcefully, confidently or amusingly lies is often rewarded by debates, while the candidate who tells the truth awkwardly, hesitantly or with appropriate complexity is often penalized.
The debate "highlight" reels the networks routinely run are full of one-liners, gaffes and falsehoods often treated as true by sympathetic journalists. But I've never seen a really thoughtful explanation of the national debt or another serious problem celebrated as a great moment in debate history.
The prospect of a Biden-Trump rematch is especially deserving of an "Ugh, really?" But the truth is that all presidential debates deserve the same.
First posted May 21, 2024. (C)2024 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.