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Study of 2020 Debates Finds New Topics but Familiar Framing FAIR ([link removed])
[link removed] FAIR analysis of the 2020 general election debates found stunning breaks from past practices combined with tried-and-true tropes of national US debates. One of the biggest changes was the coronavirus pandemic, which accounted for 18% of the total of 186 questions asked during two debates between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden (9/29/20 ([link removed]) , 10/22/20 ([link removed]) ), and the single debate between Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Kamala Harris (10/7/20 ([link removed]) ). Continuing old patterns, the economy came in second, representing 16% of questions.
In notable changes, race and racism came in third, with 11%, and environment tied with governance in a close fourth, with 10% of questions each. (Just over a third of the environmental questions were about climate change.)
Non-policy issues (8%), international issues (8%), and healthcare (7%) were asked about less. Criminal justice (5%), immigration (4%), education (2%) and gender equality (1%) were only touched on. There was not a single question about LGBTQ issues or gun policy.
** ‘Violence in Our Cities’
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If you’re familiar with FAIR’s debate studies during the last several presidential cycles, you might be surprised to see so many questions on race and environment. In the Democratic primary debates, the environment ranked sixth and race eighth, according to a FAIR analysis ([link removed]) . Moderators only asked about racist "police violence" twice in the 2016 presidential debates, with no broader questions about racism (FAIR.org, 10/21/16 ([link removed]) ). They asked no questions on race at all in 2012 (FAIR.org, 10/26/12 ([link removed]) ) or 2008, according to transcripts—despite the fact that the two races involved the first African-American candidate running for president on a major party ticket. And according to meteorologist and climate correspondent
Eric Holthaus, the 10 minutes spent on the environment in the first debate alone doubled the time spent on the subject “in all 2,000 minutes of presidential debates since 1988 ([link removed]) .”
Chris Wallace, Cleveland debate
Fox News' Chris Wallace
What changed? A rising tide of tireless activism has played an important role. Fox News’ Chris Wallace originally announced ([link removed]) he would not cover climate change in the first presidential debate, but changed his mind after a wave of protest that included a FAIR Action Alert ([link removed]) , a RootsAction petition ([link removed]) and a letter ([link removed]) signed by 37 senators. And seven years after the birth of the Movement For Black Lives, the size and scope of the George Floyd protests ([link removed]) over the summer made it difficult for debate moderators to avoid questions on racism this time around.
But while the numbers are significant, the questions themselves bring us to more familiar territory. Wallace combined his questions on racism with naked attacks on the George Floyd protests, which he framed as “violence in our cities.” He asked Biden if he would do "whatever it takes" to put down the anti-racist "riots" against police brutality in Portland, Oregon. He asked Trump if he would condemn "white supremacists and militia groups," but immediately cast an implicit equivalence between those groups and antifascist "left-wing extremists.”
Only USA Today’s Susan Page, who moderated the vice presidential debate, introduced her line of questioning about racism with the phrase “racial justice.” For Wallace, it was “the issue of race” and “race issues,” just a beat away from the antiquated “race relations” used in the 2016 debates (FAIR.org, 10/21/16 ([link removed]) ). NBC’s Kristen Welker, who moderated the second presidential debate, used “race in America.”
Wallace did ask Trump, "Do you believe that there is systemic racism in this country?” This marked the first time a moderator has used the term “systemic racism” in US presidential debate history, and only the second time ([link removed]) a candidate has uttered it after Hillary Clinton used the phrase once in the September 2016 debate ([link removed]) . While this is significant, the questions still put the existence of systemic racism in America up for debate.
Welker did not use the phrase “systemic racism,” but acknowledged its reality. In a question to both presidential candidates, she addressed “the talk” where Black parents "feel they have no choice but to prepare their children for the chance that they could be targeted, including by the police, for no reason other than the color of their skin.” Welker asked the two candidates, "Do you understand why these parents fear for their children?"
But in a pattern that would emerge across all three debates, Welker inexplicably allowed Trump to derail the conversation with the Murdoch-hyped story ([link removed]) about Hunter Biden’s laptop. As Trump railed about corruption and repeated the contextless phrase, "They’re calling it the laptop from hell," Welker fruitlessly interjected, "President Trump, I want to stay on the issue of race. We’re talking about the issue—” before being cut off again.
** 'Would You Close Down the Oil Industry?'
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Susan Page at Salt Lake City vice presidential debate
USA Today's Susan Page
Trump and Pence used the same strategy to blunt conversation on the environment. There were only three environmental questions in the vice presidential debate. There might have been more, but when Page asked Pence if he thought climate change was an "existential threat," Pence executed his ticket's signature one-two step. "As I said, Susan, the climate is changing,” Pence said, continuing blithely: “We’ll follow the science. But, once again, Senator Harris is denying the fact that they’re going to raise taxes on every American." And just like that, the candidates were talking about tax policy.
When asked if he believed in human-caused climate change, Trump responded with platitudes. “I want crystal clean water and air. I want beautiful clean air,” Trump said to Wallace, repeating an almost verbatim response to the same question from Welker. When pushed by Wallace, Trump demurred, "I think to an extent, yes,” he said, but then pivoted without transition, “I also think we have to do better management of our forest,” and that was the end of that. Trump then continued with a non sequitur about the cost of Biden’s plan and other economic concerns.
Not that moderators needed Trump’s help to guide the conversation on climate to a conversation on the economy. The moderators framed all of the environmental questions to Biden in terms of economic impact. Wallace told Biden the president says his environmental plan “would tank the economy and cost millions of jobs." Then later, "What about the argument that President Trump basically says, that you have to balance environmental interests and economic interests?" Welker asked Biden, "Would you close down the oil industry?" And so on.
While Trump almost always managed to pivot the conversation to his preferred topics, Biden largely addressed the moderators’ questions. So although unprecedented time was paid to racism and environmental concerns, half of that time was defined by conservatively framed questions from moderators, and the other composed of whatever Trump and Pence wanted to talk about.
** The Coronavirus Pandemic
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Most of the coronavirus questions revolved around grilling Trump on when vaccines would become available and questioning Biden about the efficacy of large-scale shutdowns in combating the virus.
Wallace quoted Trump saying two of his top scientists, Dr. Robert Redfield and Moncef Slaoui, were “confused and mistaken” that the vaccine would take until summer to distribute, and asked, “Are they both wrong?” Welker asked in the second debate: “You also said a vaccine will be coming within weeks. Is that a guarantee?” and “Is your timeline realistic?”
Wallace said to Biden, “You have been much more reluctant than President Trump about reopening the economy and schools,” and asked simply, “Why, sir?” Welker was more aggressive, asking:
What do you say to Americans who are fearful that the cost of shutdowns—the impact on the economy, the higher rates of hunger, depression, domestic and substance abuse — outweighs the risk of exposure to the virus?
And then, true to the form of national US debates, demanded a simple yes or no answer on whether Biden had ruled out more shutdowns.
Many of the remaining questions on the pandemic were vehicles for the candidates to answer with platitudes and stump speeches. Page asked Harris, “What would a Biden administration do in January and February that a Trump administration wouldn't do?” Wallace asked both candidates, “Why should the American people trust you more than your opponent to deal with this public health crisis?” Welker asked both candidates to “please be specific,” but in the next breath asked a question practically hand-crafted to elicit nonspecific answers: “How would you lead the country during this next stage of the coronavirus crisis?”
** Conservative Economic Framing
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Almost all the economic questions posed to Biden and Harris used conservative language, while arguably no questions to Trump and Pence used a progressive equivalent.
Page asked Harris about the Biden campaign's plans to raise taxes on the wealthy. “Some economists warn that [tax plan] could curb entrepreneurial ventures that fuel growth and create jobs,” she said. “Would raising taxes put the recovery at risk?”
In the first presidential debate, Wallace did not even bother to ask Biden a question about the same plan, simply stating, "The president is saying...that sounds like it’s going to cost a lot of money and hurt the economy." In the final debate, Welker pointed to struggling "small businesses," and asked Biden, "Do you think this is the right time to ask them to raise the minimum wage?"
Meanwhile, Trump and Pence were only asked one adversarial economic question each, and neither employed a counter-posing progressive analysis. Page noted an “economic report” that contradicted the Trump administration's optimistic recovery predictions, and asked Pence, “Should Americans be braced for an economic comeback that is going to take not months, but a year or more?” Wallace questioned the efficacy of Trump's economic policy and pointed to better job growth under Obama, but declined to analyze why, simply asking, "You would continue your free market approach...correct?”—an odd characterization of Trump’s economic approach, which is notable for its reliance on tariffs, generous agricultural subsidies ([link removed]) and massive Federal Reserve loan guarantees ([link removed]) .
** What Wasn’t Talked About?
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Kristen Walker at the Nashville presidential debate
NBC News' Kristen Welker
Despite surging billionaire wealth ([link removed]) amid a raging pandemic and over 30 million Americans ([link removed]) living below the poverty line, “inequality” was not mentioned once. The word “poverty” was only uttered three times, once in a question from Welker, and twice in Biden's responses. “Poverty” was mentioned 20 times in the 2016 debates, although never by a moderator (FAIR.org, 10/21/16 ([link removed]) ).
Amy Coney Barrett's nomination to the Supreme Court was the subject of three questions in the presidential debates and two in the vice presidential debate. Wallace echoed right-wing talking points when he asked Biden, "Are you willing to tell the American people tonight whether you will support either ending the filibuster or packing the court?"
Biden attempted to talk about the implications to Roe v. Wade of Barrett's nomination, but moderators did not ask a single question about how the nomination might affect that landmark court case in either presidential debate. Page acknowledged the impact of the nomination on abortion access in the United States, but did so by narrowly asking the two vice presidential candidates what they would like their home states to do if Roe were overturned—thus steering these candidates for national office away from giving the issue a national framework.
Those two questions on Roe v. Wade were the only questions about gender issues across all three general election debates this cycle. As a point of comparison, North Korea was asked about five times. During the democratic primaries, moderators asked a total for 39 questions on gender issues according to a FAIR analysis ([link removed]) , ranging from representation, healthcare, workplace discrimination and sexism.
While healthcare was ranked by voters as the second-most important topic in the election (Pew, 8/13/20 ([link removed]) ), it placed eighth in the number of questions asked across all three debates. Five of the 15 questions were about socialism, thanks to a Trumpian pivot in the second presidential debate.
When Welker asked both candidates how they would improve or replace Obamacare, Trump sidestepped the question by accusing Biden of supporting "socialized medicine.” Welker jumped on board, asking Biden to respond to concerns that his plan “takes the country one step closer to a healthcare system run entirely by the government." With that, a conversation about Obamacare, the existing healthcare system that Biden’s actual healthcare proposals are based upon, turned into a conversation about "socialized medicine ([link removed]) ," a pejorative term for a system in which the public not only pays for but runs healthcare facilities—going well beyond what Bernie Sanders, let alone Biden, is proposing. Biden took the occasion to disavow Medicare for All—which is a far cry from “a healthcare system run entirely by the government”—without deconstructing the conservative framing. Trump, meanwhile, was never forced to acknowledge the fact that he has no
healthcare plan at all.
Candidates and moderators mentioned immigration 48 times in the 2016 general debates (FAIR.org, 10/21/16 ([link removed]) ); this time around it was mentioned just seven times, according to transcripts. At first glance, this might be seen as a liability to Trump, whose 2016 strategy revolved around a promise to “build that wall” to keep out refugees from Latin America. But the lack of questions about immigration may have helped him to shift his message to the economy, allowing him to make a play for the Latino vote ([link removed]) .
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