When Joe Biden repeatedly stammered, slurred, babbled and stared off into space during the first 2024 presidential debate, America's 46th president made history in a way he never intended. Because of his abysmal performance, June 27, 2024 will be remembered as the date when a failed debate set in motion a chain of events culminating in a sitting president withdrawing his reelection campaign.
The task of understanding why Biden fell apart in that debate will fall to future biographers, presumably those with direct access to Biden and the other principals. Comprehending its long-term ramifications for American politics, by contrast, is a much simpler matter: It demonstrated that presidential debates can single-handedly and massively alter the course of human history. To best understand why debates remain so potent in 2024, one need only look to the first presidential debates ever televised — an appropriate parallel, given that Biden's collapse would not have had its massive impact if not for the medium of television. Sixty-four years before America's second Catholic president destroyed his presidential campaign with a bad debate showing, the first Catholic president made history by appearing to be more physically and intellectually vibrant during an opening debate against his sallow and sickly opponent.
