Lower The Temperature: A Presidential Compliment Off

In less than two months, there have been two assassination attempts of former President Donald Trump. After President Biden’s historic withdrawal, I didn’t think the 2024 presidential race could get any crazier. I should have known better. It’s as if the race literally told everyone to “hold my beer.”

In the history of presidential assassination attempts, it’s rare to have more than one in a year. The first scares everyone. The following run the danger of numbing people, which is far worse. Think of the American attitude towards school shootings over the course of the last 25 years. Since Columbine, they have become more and more commonplace. The average American’s ability to treat each shooting as an awful tragedy has diminished. There’s only so much bloodshed we can take.

We cannot normalize political violence against political candidates. That is a road of no return.

The American electorate needs a show of unity between the presidential campaigns. We need an explicit event denouncing political violence. Something that builds upon President Biden’s interaction with a Trump supporter last week at a Pennsylvania fire station. Biden put on a Trump hat and exchanged jokes with the man. Interactions like those help make people realize that the other side is human, too. Another model could be last week’s 9/11 memorial event that Biden, Harris, Trump and Vance attended.

Debate, attacks or campaigning of any sort would be banned at my proposed event. No one would try to sell the other or the audience on their positions. The candidates would, at the bare minimum, interact as professionals.

During a debate in the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump and Hillary Clinton were asked to compliment the other. I’m drawn to having an event between 60 and 90 minutes in which Harris and Trump (perhaps Walz and Vance, too) are challenged to raise the most money for a charity of their choosing.

The thing is, they raise the money by complimenting their opponent or the opposing party. The audience could get involved by compliment the opposite candidate or party or selecting the ‘best’ compliment from a list, among other ideas. Any insults, either from a candidate or a voter, would result in a donation from their campaign to their opponent’s.

If charity is too hard of a sell, I’m open to the candidates earning money for their campaigns through the compliments.

Trump and Harris can only win by playing nice.

Is a “Presidential Compliment-Off” likely to happen?

Of course not.

But a political science major can dream.