Debate Debacle
A debate should be a debate, not a circus side show.
Did Donald Trump lose the debate with Kamala Harris? Absolutely yes! There is no getting around it. I don’t care how the Right is trying to spin it. The vice president outfoxed him (no pun intended). She was able to goad him until he took the bait, and he did. She was able to walk all over him, with not-so-subtle help, from the biased, one-sided fact checking of the debate monitors. They never fact checked her even once.
The problem with our presidential and vice-presidential debates, is they are not debates. They have turned into a modern day version of bread and circuses. It’s all part of the dumbing down process in our culture, that has been ingrained over the past 70 years, give or take a few. Andrew Breitbart once said, “Politics is downstream from culture.” There’s another part that remains to be said: “Culture is downstream from education.” I don’t know if anyone has said that, but if they didn’t, I’ll take it.
The biased press doesn’t surprise me. If you look at the 45 Goals of the American Communist Party from the 1950s you will see:
17.) Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for Socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
20.)Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
21.) Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
I saw a response to an article that I can no longer find, and I should have saved, that said something to the effect that in Communist countries the state controls the press, but in the US, the press controls the state. Think about it. Who owns the press with rare exceptions? Several very wealthy and extremely liberal old money families. Do the names Sultzberger and Graham sound familiar? And then there is Wall Street. Yes, it’s all about the Benjamins.
Here’s how I would set up another debate between Former President Donald Trump, and Vice-President Kamala Harris:
On the stage you would have the moderator’s desk, facing the candidates. For the debaters, there would be two chairs with one podium in the middle between them. The candidates would remain seated until it was there turn to speak, and then they would speak from the podium.
The topics and questions would be given to the candidates ahead of time, and possibly at the last minute, if some major national or world news event happened. However, each candidate would get, and would be answering the exact same questions about the exact same topics. There would be no “gotcha” questions from the moderators. Their job is to keep the debate on track, not skew the debate in favor of either candidate. To support their positions to the questions, the candidates would be allowed to use notes, take notes, and show supporting documents for their positions.
Both Mr. Trump and Ms. Harris would each get a five minute opening statement about their vision of the issues, and how they would lead this country. Then they would each get asked the same question, and given 2 minutes to give their answers. The candidates would each get a 1 minute rebuttal about where they disagree with their opponent’s answer to the question.
At the end, they would both get to make a 5 minute closing statement about their vision of the issues, and give a synopsis of their answers to the questions.
Ok, I can quit dreaming now. Bread and circuses.