Last night's VP debate did one thing; it let us know that America's next vice-president will be a catholic. That may be a cynical way of saying that no new talking points were created, but the essence remains the same. Although Team Obama came firing on all cylinders, Team Romney was able to dodge enough bullets to not thoroughly convince undecided minds. If anything, it pushed the real issues back another week towards the second presidential debate.
Given the general futility of this particular debate, one question began creeping in the back of my mind; what exactly do these debates give back to the public that so eagerly awaits them? In my view, not enough. We can take the VP debate as an example of exactly what i mean here.
What Debates Give Back:
What debates generally are good for is to reach a wider audience. Up until debate season, the only people involved in these campaigns are the hardcore partisan supporters who track irrelevant polls left and right. The debates are chance to push politics into an even greater, and importantly more public, spotlight which does have its advantages at cultivating an informed electorate.
Last night, both VP hopefuls were engaged in talking to every American; current VP Biden in fact had many direct messages to the viewing audience at home (cut to camera 4) pointing out differences in policy and approaches. He obviously does not need to remind people who have already donated to his campaign, but he did take the chance to reach out to the undecideds and perhaps the wavering.
Another thing debates are generally good at is projecting the candidates as people and not as just names on a cardboard post. There were moments of great humanity in this last debate, the majority of which coming from religious based questions. Although religion does not ultimately decide these men, their catholic faith and their own personal interpretation of it showed that there are some deep personal differences among the two.
In that respect, the debates are formulated to try to contrast the two people debating as not just two flag-bearers but as two wholesomely different people. All in all, it is a good attempt at trying to remind everyone that people and not talking points will be in leadership positions. That may be where the positives to debates end however.
What Debates Lack:
The biggest drawback in debates is the talk over foreign policy. In my view, this is the most theoretical and therefore most useless portion of the debates. The problem is the following; while you may have both sides arguing for what is America's rightful place/role in the world, you do not have enough concrete facts to go off of in order to fully judge the intentions of either candidate. Last night for instance, the attack on the Libyan Consulate illustrated this point precisely.
There was no talk about what could have been done differently, or where the moral blame should have been, or who ultimately is responsible, because the intelligence as VP Biden pointed out and Cong. Ryan chose not to proceed on was still not 100% there. Not only is missing intelligence a problem, but so too is intelligence which is already there. VP Biden made it very clear he did not want to release classified information, even if that information would have been a great piece of real evidence to use in his debate. Foreign policy in general needs to be taken for what it is in these debates: a hypothetical litmus test for the temperament and international knowledge of the candidates and nothing more.
Another major drawback is the set of expectations regarding decorum and mannerisms creating a fake veneer of comradeship up on the stage. Putting the candidates on TV has the advantage of letting America see its candidates upfront and in person, but it also heavily dilutes the ideas and message of either candidate/party. Debaters who find themselves at odds with how to deal with misrepresentations of facts or outright lies cannot, for the sake of looking calm and collected, crush a statement if it needs to be done for the sake of truthfulness.
VP Biden's laughs last night as well as Cong. Ryan's wonky eyebrow gestures were not in any way extensions of their real personas, they were what each debater thought looked most appropriate to let the American people know "this guy is totally nuts, but I still respect him being nuts." Ironically enough, that itself is nuts. Unfortunately, we have nobody but ourselves to blame. If we as the American electorate understand that these are people with candid emotions that will fight tooth and nail to achieve their political agendas, then we can give up on the pageantry of the debates and instead find out who really believes what they are saying and who is the better actor.
What are we to make of all this?
What we are to make is that on the whole, debates water down the electoral process for undecided voters. They are out not to make a more informed electorate, but an angrier and simpler one. It takes more than an hour to hash out key ideological differences among two men who have severely different backgrounds and experiences. Trying to shove that much information, in that little a time, with so many unwritten rules pledging appearance over substance does not in any way add positive or necessary attributes to a presidential race, whether the debate is presidential or vice-presidential. If you want to keep debates a spectacle and still have them aim to be informative, there should be a new dynamic added to them; a truly independent panel of fact checkers that check facts as they are said.
Not only does it make good television to see politicians have their statements revoked by the facts right in front of them, but it forces more honesty into the debates. Perhaps you could also invite professional debate scorers like in most official debates to figure out who actually won instead of being slaves to a poll sampling error. What I'm suggesting is that the truth can be just as entertaining or as enthralling as these ad-hoc rules of engagement we have about the candidates or the expectations we lay down before anybody debates anything.
As the people who decide who eventually has a job come January 20th I suspect we deserve better than what we are being given right now. By not helping ourselves figure out a way to honestly judge these candidates, we are not helping society and we are definitely not helping the future we will ultimately decide.
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Given the general futility of this particular debate, one question began creeping in the back of my mind; what exactly do these debates give back to the public that so eagerly awaits them? In my view, not enough. We can take the VP debate as an example of exactly what i mean here.
What Debates Give Back:
What debates generally are good for is to reach a wider audience. Up until debate season, the only people involved in these campaigns are the hardcore partisan supporters who track irrelevant polls left and right. The debates are chance to push politics into an even greater, and importantly more public, spotlight which does have its advantages at cultivating an informed electorate.
Last night, both VP hopefuls were engaged in talking to every American; current VP Biden in fact had many direct messages to the viewing audience at home (cut to camera 4) pointing out differences in policy and approaches. He obviously does not need to remind people who have already donated to his campaign, but he did take the chance to reach out to the undecideds and perhaps the wavering.
Another thing debates are generally good at is projecting the candidates as people and not as just names on a cardboard post. There were moments of great humanity in this last debate, the majority of which coming from religious based questions. Although religion does not ultimately decide these men, their catholic faith and their own personal interpretation of it showed that there are some deep personal differences among the two.
In that respect, the debates are formulated to try to contrast the two people debating as not just two flag-bearers but as two wholesomely different people. All in all, it is a good attempt at trying to remind everyone that people and not talking points will be in leadership positions. That may be where the positives to debates end however.
What Debates Lack:
The biggest drawback in debates is the talk over foreign policy. In my view, this is the most theoretical and therefore most useless portion of the debates. The problem is the following; while you may have both sides arguing for what is America's rightful place/role in the world, you do not have enough concrete facts to go off of in order to fully judge the intentions of either candidate. Last night for instance, the attack on the Libyan Consulate illustrated this point precisely.
There was no talk about what could have been done differently, or where the moral blame should have been, or who ultimately is responsible, because the intelligence as VP Biden pointed out and Cong. Ryan chose not to proceed on was still not 100% there. Not only is missing intelligence a problem, but so too is intelligence which is already there. VP Biden made it very clear he did not want to release classified information, even if that information would have been a great piece of real evidence to use in his debate. Foreign policy in general needs to be taken for what it is in these debates: a hypothetical litmus test for the temperament and international knowledge of the candidates and nothing more.
Another major drawback is the set of expectations regarding decorum and mannerisms creating a fake veneer of comradeship up on the stage. Putting the candidates on TV has the advantage of letting America see its candidates upfront and in person, but it also heavily dilutes the ideas and message of either candidate/party. Debaters who find themselves at odds with how to deal with misrepresentations of facts or outright lies cannot, for the sake of looking calm and collected, crush a statement if it needs to be done for the sake of truthfulness.
VP Biden's laughs last night as well as Cong. Ryan's wonky eyebrow gestures were not in any way extensions of their real personas, they were what each debater thought looked most appropriate to let the American people know "this guy is totally nuts, but I still respect him being nuts." Ironically enough, that itself is nuts. Unfortunately, we have nobody but ourselves to blame. If we as the American electorate understand that these are people with candid emotions that will fight tooth and nail to achieve their political agendas, then we can give up on the pageantry of the debates and instead find out who really believes what they are saying and who is the better actor.
What are we to make of all this?
What we are to make is that on the whole, debates water down the electoral process for undecided voters. They are out not to make a more informed electorate, but an angrier and simpler one. It takes more than an hour to hash out key ideological differences among two men who have severely different backgrounds and experiences. Trying to shove that much information, in that little a time, with so many unwritten rules pledging appearance over substance does not in any way add positive or necessary attributes to a presidential race, whether the debate is presidential or vice-presidential. If you want to keep debates a spectacle and still have them aim to be informative, there should be a new dynamic added to them; a truly independent panel of fact checkers that check facts as they are said.
Not only does it make good television to see politicians have their statements revoked by the facts right in front of them, but it forces more honesty into the debates. Perhaps you could also invite professional debate scorers like in most official debates to figure out who actually won instead of being slaves to a poll sampling error. What I'm suggesting is that the truth can be just as entertaining or as enthralling as these ad-hoc rules of engagement we have about the candidates or the expectations we lay down before anybody debates anything.
As the people who decide who eventually has a job come January 20th I suspect we deserve better than what we are being given right now. By not helping ourselves figure out a way to honestly judge these candidates, we are not helping society and we are definitely not helping the future we will ultimately decide.
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3 comments:
As a general rule, I agree with the majority of what you've put here. It's certainly impossible to distill to any reasonable degree the different viewpoints of the two major parties in one hour, but it's also questionable whether that is really necessary. Fundamentally, the two-party system is flawed. The advantage of the checks-and-balances is, in this regard, truly that not much gets done that is *too bad* for *too long*. Every two years, a new crop of reps and 1/3 of the senate can be replaced (whether they are or not is a separate discussion), and every 4 the figurehead of the administration can be changed, but underlying it all is the system that supports it, and the system is what keeps it all moving. What every president has figured out after their numerous campaign promises of "Reaching across the aisle" and "bringing Democrats and Republicans together" on pieces of "important legislation" is that the system won't let this happen.
It's particularly telling when in a nation of 250 million voting age and eligible adults, roughly, the 2008 election was "historic" for its voter turnout - total votes cast were still only about half of those of voting age and eligible to vote, about 130 million. If you count the non-votes as either protest votes against the system or people so disinterested by the process (with a historic election, mind you) that they couldn't be bothered to vote, either of the candidates managed to garner even 1/3 of the voting age and eligible population's vote. That is a strong indictment of the system.
What the debate proved, ultimately, is that we are a nation, a society, at the stage of panem et circenses - bread and circuses. Keep us fed, keep us entertained, and we will let you serve as our lord and masters, to do with us as you will. It's politics as theater, and all of the participants on the stage know their roles very well, and they played them like the fine actors they are paid to be. The system that supports the political class, that gives us actors like Obama and Romney, Biden and Ryan, likes it this way, since it makes it easier to lead a flock of relatively disinterested people and remain answerable only (in any real sense) to their primary interests, which also happen to be their biggest campaign donors and those most likely to benefit directly from their "leadership" and support them after their tenure.
What that means for the future of the nation, of the society, remains to be seen. If you can't tell, I'm cynical.
Jake,
I would follow that sentiment of Americans following in Rome's footsteps if Rome had Facebook and Twitter and Youtube. It doesn't mean that Romans and Americans would have wasted time equally, it means that Romans were a people easily swayed and distracted because they did not have the same capacity of spreading information the way Americans do today. If one of the candidates says something unsatisfactory, word will get around (47% anyone?). So yes, Americans, like every populace, are not absolutely on the mark with everything political, there are people who just don't care enough to pay attention, there are those that simply don't understand the system and how it works, and there are people who are legitimately delusional (this is true for a whole load of discussion topics other than politics). But the way in which social media has affected how information spreads even to those not plugged into the social media systems gives the people more tools to at least attempt to be insightful, which is more than we can really ask for given people's busy lives. That's why I think there is more to be asked of these debates and more to be deserved by the American public.
Every tool useful to the dissemination of information is also a tool for the dissemination of misinformation. That some information disseminators are given the title "journalists" doesn't mean that their information is factually superior to those without that title, given that most "journalists" do not work in the realm of objective facts but in the realm of repeating the intentional misinformation of others (aka "spin").
And whether some piece of information is satisfactory or not is irrelevant if it is true. I'm not saying that the 47% comment by Romney is true. But it is an unfortunate reality today, as much as it was when Bastiat wrote it, that those who offer half-truths are at an advantage because to refute them we are required to offer longer, more in depth, explanations. It takes no effort to talk about this woman who you met on the campaign trail who is your proxy for everything that is wrong with the world and the view of the other party. To answer that proxy takes more than a proxy of your own.
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