The big primary-phase debates (such as Wednesday night's) probably diminish our overall regard for the aspiring candidates if not the whole political class, and at the same time are a not entirely awful means for comparing personalities and communication skills in the television sound bite age. On Wednesday, we did get to see who was serious and who was full of it in that particular moment, even if we might disagree about the substance or weigh those values differently as voters. And, of course, the format caters to an audience that has largely lost the capacity to follow long and nuanced argument. It is hard to imagine American voters today listening to the equivalent of the Lincoln-Douglas debates even if we were confronted with an issue as important as the crisis of that era, which we are not.
I suppose your note might also be asking an implicit higher-order question: "Was Jacksonian democracy a mistake?"
There are few highly-educated and well-read people who haven't on one occasion or another wondered if it was, even if they would not dare to say so out loud in a group larger than, say, three.
Excellent post. Thank you, Sir.
The big primary-phase debates (such as Wednesday night's) probably diminish our overall regard for the aspiring candidates if not the whole political class, and at the same time are a not entirely awful means for comparing personalities and communication skills in the television sound bite age. On Wednesday, we did get to see who was serious and who was full of it in that particular moment, even if we might disagree about the substance or weigh those values differently as voters. And, of course, the format caters to an audience that has largely lost the capacity to follow long and nuanced argument. It is hard to imagine American voters today listening to the equivalent of the Lincoln-Douglas debates even if we were confronted with an issue as important as the crisis of that era, which we are not.
I suppose your note might also be asking an implicit higher-order question: "Was Jacksonian democracy a mistake?"
There are few highly-educated and well-read people who haven't on one occasion or another wondered if it was, even if they would not dare to say so out loud in a group larger than, say, three.