Why Sloganeering has Eclipsed Nuance in US Presidential Debates

Although Tuesday night’s presidential debate wasn’t focused on global issues, discussion of the US role in China and Libya figured prominently.

Susan Glasser, the editor of Foreign Policy magazine says when it comes to foreign policy, this year’s US presidential campaign has moved beyond nuance and into unabashed sloganeering.

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Marco Werman: I’m Marco Werman, this is The World. There’s only one presidential debate left now. Next Monday, in Florida, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama will slug it out over foreign policy. After last night’s fireworks I think we can expect next Monday’s encounter to be feisty too. We already know what the main topics will be. Moderator Bob Schiffer has publicly announced them. They include–and these are the subject headings provided by Schiffer himself–our longest war, Afghanistan and Pakistan, red lines, Israel and Iran and the rise of China. Susan Glasser is the editor of Foreign Policy magazine. She says in last night’s debate sloganeering took the place of nuance foreign policy debate.

Susan Glasser: Look, you have Barack Obama even slipping in the killing of Osama bin Laden into a question about the economy. And I think you almost have a bumper sticker approach from each of the candidates when it comes to foreign policy right now. If Obama is saying hey, elect me, I killed Osama bin Laden…Romney is saying hey, here’s the guy who screwed up Benghazi as a stand-in if you will for the broader issue of just what has the United States gotten out of the upheaval in the Arab world.

Werman: Right, so Benghazi, Libya, I mean there it was again, so much has been said about the White House response to the tragedy in Benghazi and the death of four Americans, including Chris Stevens at the embassy. What is the back and forth about Benghazi and whether it was or not a terrorist attack? Why does it have such staying power? What is that argument fundamentally about for you?

Glasser: It seems to me that the reason that the Romney campaign hasn’t let it go, there are probably several reasons. No. 1 of course, they’re looking for any advantage right now when it comes to something they can attack and criticize the president on. Much more so as the challenger then laying out an affirmative program of their vision of the world. What they’re looking to do is really to critique the performance of the other guy, so this offers a chance to do that. It also in a way seems to undercut the Obama campaign’s at times triumphalist narrative even about al-Qaeda being on the brink of strategic defeat, as Leon Panetta called it. You don’t hear that much from the White House anymore.

Werman: Now this was as everyone knows, a town hall style debate, so maybe the people in Hempstead, NY didn’t want to focus on foreign policy. What was missing foreign policy-wise from the debate for you though, what questions were not asked?

Glasser: Oh, my goodness, where to start? We ran a list of somewhat humorous, somewhat serious list of 15 or so questions that foreign policy nerds were in charge of the town hall debate, what would you hear? But the reality is that the list of major global challenges that have been addressed in this election year is so much longer than the ones that have come up in the campaign context. It’s amazing to me that we have 70,000 troops in Afghanistan and yet it doesn’t rate a mention in most of the major moments of this US presidential campaign. That’s just, it’s astonishing, right?

Werman: What’s the reason for that?

Glasser: Well, it seems to me that both parties for very different reasons have come to the conclusion that there is no real political advantage for them.

Werman: So instead of this consequential issue, Afghanistan, catching on with the public, we’ve got this phrase of binder of women that seems to take off on Twitter and Facebook. Have you see any responses to that turn of phrase from beyond our shores?

Glasser: I guess what I would say is I’m sure that Romney’s comment about binder full of women was noted internationally, but it might have just been one of those Americanisms that just didn’t compute. Maybe it’s a do not translate type of a phrase.

Werman: Now, one word neither candidate seems to tire of is China. They each used the word about 10 times last night. Was it a nuanced China we heard about last night or was the country used as a bit of a punching bag?

Glasser: Nuance in the context of foreign policy debate in American presidential election, it’s sort of an oxymoron, right? We’re not having a lot of nuanced conversations about anything at this point and China clearly has emerged as a bugaboo of this year’s election. Somebody pointed out just the other day that in fact, actually Japan may now be the largest holder of US debt, but it doesn’t really sound the same this election year to scare people about Japan and you know, do you want the Japanese holding our debt in the same way that it resonates clearly with voters or they wouldn’t be talking about it, to use China as a sort of scare tactic. That being said, I am skeptical and I think if you look at a lot of the experts, they are quite skeptical that you’re gonna see any kind of major policy shift either by Obama or Romney in the next US presidential term when it comes to China.

Werman: Susan Glasser, the editor of Foreign Policy magazine. Thank you so much for your time.

Glasser: Oh, thanks so much for having me today.

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