The Despicable Debates
Sunday night’s debate was even more despicable than the first.
I can say with confidence, that as a young, impressionable, future voter, this election has been the single greatest disappointment and instance of institutional failure I have ever known.
The second debate followed directly in the footsteps of the first. Instead of facilitating respectable discourse, the candidates attacked each other personally and with no focus on their actual policy.
It also became apparent during Sunday’s debate that both Hillary and Donald have fundamental, fail-safe issues they fall back on in almost every response. For Trump, it’s ISIS and Hillary’s emails. For Hillary, it’s Donald’s tax returns and a casual, cynical laughter to assure us of how false Trump’s statements are.The big question going into the debate was how Donald Trump would respond to the tapes released last Friday. Trump knew this and it showed. His first few minutes where awkward; he stood straight and uncomfortable; he held himself like a freshman visiting the principal’s office for the first time. He made no sense when he spoke, making nonexistent connections between ISIS and his own vulgarity.
But the question we all have after one of these debates is this: Who won?
I could talk about which candidate expressed the greatest knowledge of their policy. I could talk about which candidate defended their viewpoints the best. Or I could talk about whose hair looked better, or who had a better outfit. The answer would be the same for each.
Neither.
The truth is that these debates aren’t changing minds. They’re reaffirming prior judgements. No one goes into these 2016 Presidential Debates wondering about policy. They’ve become solely entertainment.
Neither Trump nor Clinton deserves to be our president.
But if there’s one thing Donald’s right about, it’s that our country needs fresh leadership. Of the 320 million people in our country are there really none more qualified to lead?
According to a Gallup poll, 25 percent of the United States is dissatisfied with both candidates. By the same report, that’s more than twice the joint dissatisfaction in 2012 and four times that of 2008. So what does this growing disapproval of the presidential candidates mean?
It means that something has to change. A recent video by Vox News proposes radical new ideas about our presidential debates.
According to the video, the main problem with the debates is the live audience. Candidates like Donald Trump feed off of interaction with the audience, and play to them to manipulate the viewers at home. While the moderators do encourage the audience to be silent, that is utterly unrealistic.
It’s the live audience that promotes personal attacks, snide quips, purely reactionary remarks and the proliferation of interruption. It’s the live audience that pulls the focus away from policy and onto performance.
Another improvement offered by Vox is the use of a chess clock for speaking time. This would force candidates to allot their time more appropriately and would discourage interruption and pointless ramble. It would also work to condense the candidates remarks and hopefully focus them on the question asked.
The need for intellectual, informative debates is an absolute necessity.
As Alexander Hamilton said, “All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and well-born, the other the mass of the people. The voice of the people has been said to be the voice of God; and however generally this maxim has been quoted and believed, it is not true in fact. The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right.”
Let’s avoid the thin line our Founding Fathers walked as they vouched for the suppression of democracy within the poor and working classes. Instead, let’s embrace the people.
Let’s not call them a “basket of deplorables,” or demean women and minorities. Instead, let’s inform our voting population.
Let’s not create debates in which the winner is the candidate with the best zinger or the best, longest, most strategic interruption. Instead, let’s reform our debates.
If we hope to create a respectable political system, we need an election process that reflects everything we stand for as a nation. We need an election process that represents the people, informs the people and most of all, is for the people.