That’s Debatable

What makes a truly great sports promo? Is it picking out the right soundbites, giving everyone a sense of the deep personal stakes? Is it choosing a certain cut of music to help convey that “big fight feel”? Or is it all in the lighting and photography, about leaving no doubt as to the epic nature — the grandeur, dammit — of what we’re about to behold?

The answer, of course, is “all of the above.” Which is why, naturally, the following clip has become my favorite spot of 2016:

Clinton!  Trump!  This time, it’s Presidential!

On Monday night at Hofstra University, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will share the stage for the first Presidential Debate, an event some believe will be the most watched political showdown in American history. And while it’s hardly novel, at this point, to note that the campaign for the highest office in the land more closely resembles a three-ring circus than a serious, sober discourse of the issues at hand, the arrival of the debates has nevertheless served to add yet another layer of prize-fight pageantry to the proceedings.

It’s the pugnacious “outsider” against the ultimate “establishment” stalwart! It’s the “wild card” who never had a chance taking on “the man” (who happens to be a woman)!  It’s “Deplorable Donald” vs. “Crooked Hillary”!  And wait just a minute… is that Don King!?

It would all be rather harmless, and undeniably entertaining, if this were monster truck rally — or a MMA cage match; or two bears fighting blindfolded over a bucket of salmon — and not the election of the most powerful person in the free world. But then, the true damage won’t be done by the advertising. It won’t be the hype, or the selling of our discourse as though it were just another grudge match with titles on the line.

No, the real problem comes when all that noise fades from earshot. When all that’s left is 90 carefully moderated minutes, wherein these two individuals will be presented as equally viable, equally worthy candidates for the Presidency. Because our sporting culture doesn’t merely provide a template for how to promote the big game; it’s also given us a blueprint, year after year, on how to normalize the unthinkable, how to legitimize the inconceivable, and how to make even the most transparently ridiculous notion worthy of argument.

“Embrace Debate,” indeed.

* * * * *

In a recent interview with Recode Media’s Peter Kafka, Fox Sports 1’s Skip Bayless, who holds a prominent place on the Mount Rushmore of sports shouting, was asked what happens when he and his new co-host, former NFL tight end Shannon Sharpe, agree on the topic at hand.

“”If we do agree, and I do go first, I go boom-boom-BOOM to open the show,” explained Bayless, “One of those booms, if he will listen carefully and trust himself, might cause him to say, ‘I agree with you in the big picture, but did you just say that x is y?’ ‘Yeah, I said x is y! What’s it to you?’ Maybe we take a hard left turn out of a basic agreement into a disagreement.”

Disagreement, of course, is the fuel on which so much sports talk runs these days — the precious ore that must be mined to fill shout-show television, drive-time radio, and an exploding field of podcasts, digital hits, and shareable social extras. The demand for discord is as high as it’s ever been. And so it’s only natural that the industry has developed new ways to manufacture a quarrel, to spin contention and controversy out of even the most simple, straightforward, unimpeachable certainties.

Because our sporting culture doesn’t merely provide a template for how to promote the big game; it’s also given us a blueprint, year after year, on how to normalize the unthinkable, how to legitimize the inconceivable, and how to make even the most transparently ridiculous notion worthy of argument.

That dynamic, when met with thousands of hours of unfilled airtime, is how we arrive at such tried and true chestnuts as “Can Tim Tebow reach the major leagues?”; “Is LeBron James actually that good at basketball?”; and my personal favorite, “Do we really need to pay all those college kids?” It matters little that these questions are plainly, clearly, self-evidently absurd on their face. The Skip Baylesses of the world would have you believe you can always find dissension, if you’re willing to dig deep enough. But the real truth — the dirty little secret that lies at the heart of an entire industry — is that if you argue about something long enough, it becomes debatable, as the immutable laws of “both-sides-ism” begin to take hold.

Easy as it is to blame those who play the contrarian for fun and profit, given the way in which we’ve come to value rhetoric, talking points, and the art of the argument over any sense of objective truth — we’re all culpable. The game may be level on the field, but in the studio, sports media has perfected the art of putting fact on equal footing with the patently ridiculous.

* * * * *

On Monday night, the ridiculous takes center stage, in the form of a racist, xenophobic, chauvinistic, pathological liar. A festering manchild who built a business empire on deceit, uses his charitable foundation for personal gain, has never held public office, puts forward no plausible policy proposals, and demonstrates a frightening lack of understanding of even the most basic challenges, whether foreign or domestic. And this man — this Presidential candidate — will enter the first debate in a near dead heat, with most recent national polling showing the race well within the margin of error.  

Donald Trump is not worthy of roofless outhouse, let alone the White House, and that remains as true today as it was fifteen months ago, when he descended down an escalator to begin a campaign universally understood to be part farce, part performance piece. Since that descent into the throngs of his paid supporters, Trump 2016 has been every bit as preposterous, as ignorant, and as despicable as anticipated. The only part that nobody saw coming, was just how many would come along for the ride. “Who’s to blame for the rise of Donald Trump?” having thus become the defining question of this election season, and one without a simple, satisfying answer.

The media? Tempting as it might be to indict them for their role in this reality show of a campaign, there’s no denying the essential investigative work that so many have done to pull back the curtain on Trump’s history of hypocrisy and fraud.  

The voters?  It’s certainly easier to pass judgement on anyone who chooses to cast their lot with this most heinous of demagogues, but given the way in which our elite institutions have left so many behind, it’s no wonder that some would turn to the nearest strongman.  

His opponent?  Clinton’s strategy thus far has been flawed on any number of levels, most notably in her attempt to portray Trump as some sort of outlier, rather than the inevitable result of the greed, ignorance, and fear that drives the modern GOP. And yet, even as the Democratic nominee stumbles through self-inflicted wounds and struggles to find a coherent message, one must acknowledge that, as with most aspects of this fever dream of a race, we’ve all become entirely too willing to grade on a curve.

Perhaps, instead of continuing the search for a scapegoat, it’s time for a bit of scrutiny on the system itself. Because with nearly everyone in agreement that Monday will prove pivotal in shaping the remainder of the race, it’s become increasingly clear that there’s no debate stage, format, or moderator in the world that can handle a situation quite like this one. Ninety minutes of carefully managed discussion of six major issues? Good luck with all that. It seems far more likely that Trump will offend an international ally, threaten to rescind entire sections of the Constitution, and divulge classified information, all within the first half-hour!

And yet, even as the Democratic nominee stumbles through self-inflicted wounds and struggles to find a coherent message, one must acknowledge that, as with most aspects of this fever dream of a race, we’ve all become entirely too willing to grade on a curve.

Ours is a system designed to compare and contrast two divergent-but-equally-serious-visions for the country, and it simply has no idea what to do when it’s instead handed a dystopian nightmare. Turning our backs on our allies; discriminating on the basis of race and religion; walling ourselves off from the rest of the world: None of these ideas deserves a serious hearing, but they’ll receive it nonetheless, because there’s time to be filled, and an argument to be manufactured.

There’s no “debate” to be had — not in any Lincoln-Douglas kind of way — between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. One is an imperfect but undeniably accomplished candidate who has spent a career in public service, and who has prepared herself for the job in every way imaginable. The other is a boorish, ill-informed carnival barker who stands against every ideal of enlightenment, fairness, and pluralism that our nation was built upon. To present these two individuals on the same plane; to bestow them with equal time; to suggest — for even a moment — that they are similarly worthy of our consideration, is plainly laughable. But the show must go on. And so, on Monday night, we move one step closer the unimaginable reality of President Donald Trump, thanks in part to a system whose rancid trajectory left it little choice but to rationalize him. 

* * * * *

Of course, Clinton vs. Trump isn’t the only big sporting event unfolding on Monday night, and wouldn’t you know, that ended up being a serious sore spot for the Donald. Back in July, Trump complained that scheduling two of the three debates against NFL football was — what else — an attempt to rig the system.

For many observers, Trump’s scheduling tantrum, (and his false claim that the NFL sent a letter to complain), appeared to be laying the groundwork to skip the debates entirely. After all, why bother with all the preparation, all the work, all the risk of a disappointing performance, when it would be just as easy to claim the game was rigged?

Now, of course, the answer seems fairly obvious: When it comes to debate, it’s not really about talent or experience, or even winning and losing; it’s about the optics of being on the field at all.

Donald Trump is a huckster, a charlatan, and a national disgrace. But for a few hours on Monday night, buoyed by every major network in America, he’ll get to stand behind a podium and look presidential. It’s ludicrous, of course. Yet somehow it’s exactly what we deserve.

Next: Ranking every NFL coach on Presidential potential

But with every second Trump spends up there, through the cartoonish face contortions and ad-hoc nonsense that’s become less a calling card than a straight-up ticket to the top, it’ll start to feel a little more real. That’s the thing about debate — that pernicious principle that thousands upon thousands of hours of sports yakking has taught us, time and time again:

You don’t really have to win. Just argue loud and angrily enough, people will start to believe you belong.