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2020 Presidential election

I love all the republicans making it sound like college Edu and universal health care are crazy debate topics.

I’m old enough to remember “carpet bombing the Middle East until it glows in the dark”, comparing hand/penis sizes, and Marco Rubio’s live on screen murder at the hands of Gov Chris Christie:

 
I disagree with the takes on Williamson. every second she’s allowed to debate I hear another pillar of democracy crashing to the ground. Not joking.

She’s such a clown that I feel she does harm to our country, to people’s perception of our government, and cheapens the entire democratic process.

I know we all love a circus. Circuses get ratings. But I’d hope that the world’s oldest democracy would take the election of its executive leader more seriously.
 
One thing I don’t understand, why don’t the parties host and moderate the debates and invite news agencies to watch? I think asking a candidate to answer a question in 45 seconds that would take hours to fully explain isn’t informative at all.

Because news agencies are moderating these debates, they’re really only asking loaded questions and giving candidates just enough time to answer so that the news agency gets a hot sound byte they can replay for the next 24 hours.

The goal of these debates shouldn’t be to get ratings or sound bytes, but to inform the public.

Hell, I’d be happy if PBS just did all of the debates.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
The Thriller said:
One thing I don’t understand, why don’t the parties host and moderate the debates and invite news agencies to watch? I think asking a candidate to answer a question in 45 seconds that would take hours to fully explain isn’t informative at all.

Because news agencies are moderating these debates, they’re really only asking loaded questions and giving candidates just enough time to answer so that the news agency gets a hot sound bite they can replay for the next 24 hours.

The goal of these debates shouldn’t be to get ratings or sound bites, but to inform the public.

Hell, I’d be happy if PBS just did all of the debates.
Click to expand...
It highlights why our elections are always such a **** show. CNN basically just tried to make the whole thing into a sporting event. No wonder the discourse is in the gutter and entertainers like Trump have success.

Debates should be on PBS or CSPAN imo.
 
One more critique, I love how the moderators and Never Trumpers focus on Warren/Sanders and ask them how we’re supposed to pay for their plans. Really? They don’t know? Probably the same way we’ve paid for two middle eastern wars, new aircraft carriers, bank bailouts, and tax cuts for the rich.

Also, Medicare for all is far cheaper than what we’re paying. Not a single host as brought up that we already pay 18 percent of our GDP towards health care, the highest in the world by far. Will Medicare be expensive? Hell yes, it’ll cost billions in raw dollars. But it’ll actually turn out to be savings, as we’ll spend far less of our GDP on health care.

Facts matter. Of course, it might take more than 45 seconds to explain that.
 
The Thriller said:
One thing I don’t understand, why don’t the parties host and moderate the debates and invite news agencies to watch? I think asking a candidate to answer a question in 45 seconds that would take hours to fully explain isn’t informative at all.

Because news agencies are moderating these debates, they’re really only asking loaded questions and giving candidates just enough time to answer so that the news agency gets a hot sound bite they can replay for the next 24 hours.

The goal of these debates shouldn’t be to get ratings or sound bites, but to inform the public.

Hell, I’d be happy if PBS just did all of the debates.
Click to expand...

I, 100% agree with this. Great take Thriller.

I cannot stand how debates are moderated.

I cant believe we elect our leaders this way. The whole thing isnt even fair. Every single participant should get equal amount of time. The moderators deciding would gets the most time is so ****ing fraudulent.
 
Zombie said:
It highlights why our elections are always such a **** show. CNN basically just tried to make the whole thing into a sporting event. No wonder the discourse is in the gutter and entertainers like Trump have success.

Debates should be on PBS or CSPAN imo.
Click to expand...

Right!

At some point we need to come face to face with our reality. And the reality is, we’ve allowed entertainment to dumb us down to the point where we can’t govern effectively. So instead of escalating the circus, lets focus on what these debates should be about:

1. Informing the public of the party’s plans/direction.
2. Informing the public on where candidates stand.

The point isn’t to entertain but to inform. Which is why williamson’s *** needs to be kicked to the curb. Let her do her dark psychic ******** on her own time. We’re a ****ing democracy trying to compete with China and Russia, two countries that take their governmental leadership far more seriously than we do. Putin would’ve had a candidate like Williamson drugged by an atomic isotope in the tea by now.
 
The Thriller said:
I love all the republicans making it sound like college Edu and universal health care are crazy debate topics.

I’m old enough to remember “carpet bombing the Middle East until it glows in the dark”, comparing hand/penis sizes, and Marco Rubio’s live on screen murder at the hands of Gov Chris Christie:

Click to expand...

The Republicans debates of 2016 was one of the most entertaining things Ive ever watched. Certainly for politics is was. Thats when I becane a fan of Trump. I didnt like the Republicans in the first place. Watching him destroy them and win as an underdog was an awesome sight.
 
The Thriller said:
One more critique, I love how the moderators and Never Trumpers focus on Warren/Sanders and ask them how we’re supposed to pay for their plans. Really? They don’t know? Probably the same way we’ve paid for two middle eastern wars, new aircraft carriers, bank bailouts, and tax cuts for the rich.

Also, Medicare for all is far cheaper than what we’re paying. Not a single host as brought up that we already pay 18 percent of our GDP towards health care, the highest in the world by far. Will Medicare be expensive? Hell yes, it’ll cost billions in raw dollars. But it’ll actually turn out to be savings, as we’ll spend far less of our GDP on health care.

Facts matter. Of course, it might take more than 45 seconds to explain that.
Click to expand...
Their insistence on harping on increased taxes without the context of not having premiums/deductibles/out of pocket costs, is just infuriating. Or the other night when someone (Delaney?) tried to pit union workers against supporters of m4a. It's ridiculous. Yang made a good point about the boost our economy would get if we divorced employment and health care. The benefits this would give to entrepreneurs is obvious. And of course it would be great for workers as well. Millions of people are "stuck" in the jobs they have now because they can't afford to lose their health benefits.
 
The Thriller said:
Right!

At some point we need to come face to face with our reality. And the reality is, we’ve allowed entertainment to dumb us down to the point where we can’t govern effectively. So instead of escalating the circus, lets focus on what these debates should be about:

1. Informing the public of the party’s plans/direction.
2. Informing the public on where candidates stand.

The point isn’t to entertain but to inform. Which is why williamson’s *** needs to be kicked to the curb. Let her do her dark psychic ******** on her own time. We’re a ****ing democracy trying to compete with China and Russia, two countries that take their governmental leadership far more seriously than we do. Putin would’ve had a candidate like Williamson drugged by an atomic isotope in the tea by now.
Click to expand...

I think that one way to solve this mess would be to have all the candidates, their stories, their views, their positions, and what they promise all in one spot. All formatted the same. Things can be summarized and also have detail behind it if you want to click on it. Something official like that.

This thing where the media controls who to shove down your throat is annoying.
 
Zombie said:
Their insistence on harping on increased taxes without the context of not having premiums/deductibles/out of pocket costs, is just infuriating. Or the other night when someone (Delaney?) tried to pit union workers against supporters of m4a. It's ridiculous. Yang made a good point about the boost our economy would get if we divorced employment and health care. The benefits this would give to entrepreneurs is obvious. And of course it would be great for workers as well. Millions of people are "stuck" in the jobs they have now because they can't afford to lose their health benefits.
Click to expand...

Right? Excellent points.

I’d love to know how many would be entrepreneurs stay in their regular jobs “working for the man” because of health insurance? How many would be great small business owners but don’t try because they fear losing health insurance? How many would then try and become successful entrepreneurs if freed from these bands that prevent them from innovating?

I personally have several friends who stay in the jobs they hate because they don’t want to lose health care benefits. I wonder if they’d go out and do something they’d actually enjoy doing if they knew that they’d still be able to get health care despite being not working for a company?

Probably won’t get any hot sound bytes by debating these things but damn wouldn’t it start an awesome discussion?
 
A lot can happen in 18 months, but I don't think Biden, Booker, Harris, Warren or Sanders can beat Trump in an election unless Trump does something that's so far beyond reproach that he basically takes himself out. So far, I think Biden is the most capable of posing a real challenge, but I think he'd ultimately lose. He just doesn't come off as having the fire, the passion or the vision that he needs. He's a real senior statesman though.

Personally, I actually like a few of these fringe candidates like Andrew Yang and the governor from Washington Inslee.
 
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