CNN Was Ill-Equipped for This

[Uncle Joe]

(snip)

The melodrama, it would turn out, was fitting. Throughout the debate, the first of a two-night doubleheader set at Detroit’s Fox Theatre, the event’s moderators—Jake Tapper, Dana Bash, and Don Lemon—did what the network’s trailer suggested they would: They asked questions that might turn this fight for the heart of the party into a plain old fight.

One of their questions: “Senator Warren, you make it a point to say you’re a capitalist. Is that your way of saying you’re a safer choice than Senator Sanders?” Another: “Congressman Ryan, are Senator Sanders’s proposals going to incentivize undocumented immigrants to come into the country illegally?” Another: “Congressman O’Rourke, you live near the U.S.-Mexico border in El Paso and disagree with Mayor Buttigieg on decriminalizing the border crossings. Please respond.” The chyrons gave away the game: “QUESTION: Congressman Delaney, do you think Sen. Warren’s wealth tax is a fair way to fund child care and education?” Here was another: “QUESTION: Sen. Klobuchar, who are you referring to when you say candidates are making promises just to get elected?”

Debates are competitions, yes. They are spectacles, certainly. And the Democrats have noteworthy differences in their policy positions and their political orientations. But there is a revealing absurdity to CNN’s repeated attempts to reduce a 10-person event to a series of highly targeted duels. The moderators might have asked the candidates about health care, and immigration, and gun safety, and racial inequality, and climate change, but mostly they asked the candidates about one another. The result was cyclical, and cynical: Here were matters of life and death, framed as fodder for manufactured melees.

As the debate wore on, candidates’ individual discussions of policy proposals were often cut short (“Your time is up!” was a common refrain among the moderators); petty squabbles, however, proved less beholden to the rigid rules of the clock. “I want to bring in Governor Hickenlooper,” Tapper said at one point. “I’d like to hear what you say about Senator Warren’s suggestion that those onstage not in favor of Medicare for All lack the will to fight for it.”

(snip)

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/07/cnn-democratic-presidential-debate-warren-sanders/595150/

I agree with the content but disagree with the title of this article, CNN was/is not only perfectly equipped to promote personal division over substantive discussion of the critical issues affecting the American People but have a financial stake against it.

[UniteFightBack]

1. It doesn't matter who fucking had the debate, you all would be complaining about something.

GOOD NIGHT.

[Thekaspervote]

2. Indeed..a spectacle that doesn't really help the average voter choose

Luckily, most voters don’t rely on debates or their outcomes to choose a candidate

[dalton99a]

3. The Game Show Debates for fun and profit

The profit goes to Jeff Zucker

[msongs]

4. the candidates willingly participated in this kind of happening nt

[Duppers]

5. I agree with YOU, Joe.

Thanks!

[littlemissmartypants]

6. Modeled after the Hunger Games it could have been worse.

Both nights were painful to watch. Thanks for the post, Uncle Joe.