JUNE 25, 2024 – At my old law firm, the lawyer in the office next to mine was several years ahead of me and a rising star. Clearly, he was a smart cookie and I often slipped into his office for advice and guidance. Occasionally we went on a noontime run together out of the downtown athletic club up the street, and for a time, he even invited me over to his place for long Saturday morning runs around a nearby lake. An honors graduate of a premiere college and a superior law school, the lawyer did not suffer fools lightly, least of all, foolish lawyers. His wife was neither a lawyer nor foolish, but smart and kind, both traits reflecting well on him.
Given his high intellectual standing, laced with habitual biting sarcasm, I was greatly surprised when on one of our long runs he revealed that he was a die-hard fan of live professional wrestling. The attraction of that sport, so-called, was as baffling to me as “Monster Truck” mud-rallies at the old Metrodome-dome-dome (as the echo sounded on local radio and TV ads for the events), and for that matter, the whole NASCAR scene. The lawyer in question was also an avid baseball fan, which I took as a mark of sophistication, especially given his infatuation with statistics. But professional wrestling?!
Leap to the present—now years since I ran with or into the sardonic lawyer. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if he were no fan of President Biden, but the probability is also high that his opinion of Trump is low. Nevertheless, if Thursday’s presidential debate (so-called) were billed and staged as a professional wrestling grudge match inside the ring at Caesar’s Palace, there’s no telling on whom the lawyer would lay his bet, cheering wildly for the K.O., preferably with a folding chair over Biden’s noggin. In fact, I can visualize my former legal comrade taking a gulp of Badd Ass Beer, the house favorite, smirking, and shouting into my ear, “So what if it’s all a circus act. Aren’t all of them—traditional Dems and Reps—a bunch of dummies? Now, at least, we have a true bad ass to go with the beer!” Burp!
I’m not being any more facetious here than political commentators are in their drum-beating for the upcoming debate. Not since Lincoln debated Douglas (seven times across the state of Illinois) in the 1858 campaign for the U.S. Senate have the voters witnessed anything close to a true debate between or among candidates for high office. Of the past number of “presidential candidate encounters” billed as debates, 95% of the viewers, I’m sure, wouldn’t know a true debate if one slapped their snoring faces. And about the same percentage of debate watchers don’t understand that how a candidate performs in the ring of a so-called debate has little to nothing to do with the job of president of the United States.
I mean . . . people! It’s a bit like the NFL draft having nothing to do with an eligible player’s actual performance on the gridiron but rather, how the player does on the karaoke stage “singing” We are [still] the Champions. I find most entertaining—but also shocking—how we all judge the “grudge matches” after the fact. Most of us who witness the bouts form strong opinions about who won, who lost. Nearly always, our judgments happen to coincide with our pre-match opinions.
The worst of it is that the best of our post-debate chatter focuses on how each side handled or mishandled the folding-chair-over-the-opponent’s-noggin routine. Lost in the din of the crowd juiced up on Badd Ass Beer are factors that actually matter: a candidate’s . . . character; political experience[1]; intelligence—cognitive, creative, emotional; education and experience, and whether either involved a hard science; social, business, political, international networks; understanding of history; appreciation of the arts; concern about the environment; understanding of the Byzantine health care delivery systems in America; grasp of macro-economic policy; knowledge of the judicial system and the work of federal trial court judges and appellate jurists—among the many people that the candidate once president would appoint; steadiness in times of crisis; physical and mental health; foreign travel experience; ability to attract qualified advisors—and to grasp and synthesize their advice; comfort level with criticism; toleration of constructive dissent; experience in managing and delegating; leadership skills; inspirational quotient, including, but not limited to, persuasive and inspirational public speaking; and last but hardly least, policy positions on the top 100 serious issues confronting American citizens in today’s world and into the next four years. For starters.
But no, we live in a fast turning, burning, churning culture in which we have little patience for chess, a symphony or Tolstoy’s War and Peace but oversized appetites and stomach capacity for . . . professional wrestling and Badd Ass Beer. “Me,” “Fast,” “now,” bright shiny objects, one-liners, and knock-out punches (delivered by the seat of a folded folding chair) are at the center of our American heritage. These aren’t drawbacks, mind you. I mean, after all, didn’t they make us champions of the world?
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© 2024 by Eric Nilsson
[1] As much as we say we “hate” politicians, we’re invariably disappointed when our guy—so far it’s always a guy in the White House—can’t deliver legislation on which his policy “promises” presumptively hinged. A leading reason (aside from the opposing party controlling one or both houses of Congress), for such delivery failure is political inexperience. (See LBJ for how political genius and experience made all the difference in getting his legislative agenda passed.)
