The Debate Disaster That Is Coming

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Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 09:09 pm

What worries me the most about the debates are not the moderators, even though they worry me a great deal. I’m most worried about the people watching them. The older I get, the more knowledge and wisdom I acquire as I travel through life, the more disappointed and dejected I get about our citizenry. I can’t believe how unbelievably stupid, gullible and ignorant large sections of the population are. I’m not talking about rubes, hillbillies and poor people. I’m talking about many that went to college, or have decent paying jobs and appear to be high functioning. But yet, they swallow the most ridiculous lies, contradictions and even insults directed at them and beg for more.

This entire campaign has devolved into a slime bath of the cult of personality. Trump projects toughness and a can-do attitude, even though he really doesn’t know how to do anything or know much about anything. His followers love him for that even as he insults them and praises dictators. Hillary projects extreme intelligence, competence and worldly experience, and gets ridiculed because she doesn’t come across like the host of a preschoolers TV show.

Here’s another way to enlarge on how contemptible, despicable, and dishonest Trump is showing himself to be, with smug condescension to his betters, in particular in this case, to “the generals”, Obama, and Clinton, among others.

The military regards climate change as a threat multiplier. Bingo!

Trump is a threat multiplier. He is a conscienceless marketer, ready to steal language to appeal to different groups of people: one example is Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sander’s word “rigged.” He steals language without intending to deliver, just to persuade and incite.

He is digging deep to create hostility. He encourages his fans to blame the less fortunate and those who are different. He suggests that all our problems can be solved with simple violent solutions, and questioned why we couldn’t nuke those he regards as our enemies. He admires dictators, even Kim Jong Un, Saddam Hussein, and most definitely Putin. He had Roy Cohn, Joe McCarthy’s evil genius, as an adviser. He’s taken on Roger Ailes and others who demean and exploit women.

A few of days ago I watched an episode of Jeopardy’s Power Players program. This one had Anderson Cooper, Lara Logan and Michael Steele. I do not consider myself at all Jeopardy material. If I were on a regular episode (not Power Players) I could maybe come close to answering questions as well as the least winning contestant. However during the Power Players episode with the three people I mentioned I performed as well if not better than they had. I performed better on current events, geography, science, history, language, sports, and pretty much everything else.

I was perplexed how the two seasoned journalists- Anderson Cooper and Lara Logan missed so many easy questions and seemed to become nervous and flustered (forget Michael Steele, he was terrible all around), and this was only a Jeopardy show, not a Presidential debate. This got me to thinking, are the main stream news media journalists really all that knowledgeable? Maybe they know how to report a news story, but seem to fail at easy Jeopardy questions they should know. Maybe that is why that type of journalist, Chris Wallace immediately comes to mind, would not make very good Presidential debate moderator.

There’s no doubt that Clinton can handle whatever Trump throws at her. If moderators treat both candidates equally. No more of giving Trump more leeway cause he is an outsider. This man wants to be our leader. Do you think he will get a free ride from other countries,corporations or military. If he needs special treatment now?

TV journalism has long crossed the line of melding news with entertainment. So much so that when people are polled as to what “news” shows they watch, they equally equate the broadcast networks with Entertainment TV outlets like E-TV and TMZ.

Can you believe it? Well, since most of these shows follow on air at the same time that nightly news shows broadcast the delineations have morphed into a massive blur on the TV screen. Spot the difference, if you can.