Diatribes of Jay: Why Current Multi-Candidate “Debates” Suck

For a more general discussion of how to improve debates, click here. For a review of the first Democratic Debate, click here. For seven reasons not to make war on Iran, click here. For a discussion of Warren’s ability to defend science, click here. For comment on the value of Elizabeth Warren’s intelligence, click here. For an essay on her qualifications for the presidency, click here. For brief descriptions of and links to recent posts, click here. For an inverse-chronological list with links to all posts after January 23, 2017, click here. For a subject-matter index to posts before that date, click here.

Over the years I’ve reviewed more than a dozen candidate “debates” on this blog. (For a list of some, search for “Brooklyn” in this list.) My general impression is that they offer little help in deciding for whom to vote, except sometimes when limited to two competing candidates. This essay explains why. (For detailed analysis of the first Democratic primary debate of 2019, click here.)

The most striking reason why most multi-candidate “debates” are worthless is that, as currently conceived, they are not debates at all. Instead, they are a perversion of group interviews. Too much depends upon the will and skill of the moderators, and too little on the candidates’ will and skill.

We all know how goes a classic debate—for example, in high school or college. Virtually nothing depends on the will or skill or the moderator(s). The debate revolves around a single proposition, expressed in a single, short and clear declarative sentence. Everything else depends on what the debaters do with it. The focus is entirely on the debaters, not the person(s) posing the question(s) or moderating the responses and enforcing the rules.

For example, a hypothetical current debate might begin with the proposition: “Resolved: the United States should make war on Iran.” Each debater could address this question in innumerable ways. He could discuss the theory of “just war.” She could point out the danger of Iran going nuclear and becoming another North Korea. He could note the scale of likely casualties and the inevitable unintended consequences and human misery. She could discuss the results of similar wars throughout history. And so on.

In choosing what to say about a broad, open-ended question, debaters reveal how they think, what’s important to them, and what they value. They expose their skills and their souls.

In responding to others’ arguments, a debater also reveals her or his ability to detect flaws in logic, inconsistencies in values, and possible unintended outcomes. In other words, a real debate tests each candidate’s values and skill as a strategic thinker and a leader. It also tests candidates’ ability to put their best feet forward in a comparative way, as all have to address the same open question.

Current multi-candidate debates are nothing like this. In them, everything depends upon the knowledge and skill of the questioners, and the fortuity of the questioners “having something” on each individual candidate.

Under this format, a candidate who’s a great thinker and negotiator might “lose” a debate because a questioner highlights a past gaffe that he or she committed or a past mistake that he or she made. The gaffe or mistake might be trivial in the grand scheme of things. But the fact of its emphasis in “debate” might gravely wound an otherwise worthy candidate simply because the moderators found no such dirt on the others.

This happens far more often than it should. This sort of result is an inevitable consequence of a “debate” format that puts the investigative skill of the moderators on display as much or more than the candidates’ strategic campaigning and governing skills.

In debates among primary candidates, as at present, there’s another whole class of reasons why moderator-centric debates are undesirable. Candidates from the same party may have reasons to cooperate, as well as reasons to distinguish themselves. They may have strong reasons to work together to differentiate their party from the absent opposition party, even at the cost of weakening or foregoing their own individual differentiation.

For example, consider health insurance. Democratic candidates have every incentive to distinguish themselves en masse from the Trump Administration, which has done its best to rip health insurance from millions of citizens with no visible backup. Each candidate has an incentive to “best” the others by making his or her derogation of Trump’s record clearer and more cogent. (Some might see no plausible reason for the all the ripping besides Obama’s having made fun of Trump at the correspondents’ dinner.)

All this would be good and fair politics. At the end of the day, a Democratic primary debate is the Democrats’ show.

But what can happen when the moderators rule? They can focus viewers’ attention on differences that they find important, thereby taking control of the public impression away from the party that sponsored the “debate” and the candidates participating in it.

This actually happened during last night’s Democratic primary debate. The moderators brought up the distinction between Elizabeth Warren’s plan for “Medicare for All,” which would wipe out private insurance, and those of some other candidates, which would not. That’s a big, important distinction, which I have emphasized myself. (See this post and this one.)

But whose prerogative is it to emphasize it? Even the candidates who had other plans seemed to downplay the distinction. They mentioned the advantage of leaving existing, satisfactory insurance arrangements undisturbed, but they did not highlight the drawbacks of killing private insurance all at once. The reason, I think, was that all candidates wanted to emphasize the bigger picture: the vast difference between any kind of truly universal health insurance and having millions with no insurance at all. In this respect, all candidates seemed to want to support their party. (In addition to objections on the ground of impracticability, a version of Medicare that wipes out private insurance is also vulnerable to demagoguery as “socialism”—a point that no Democrat should stoop to make.)

The point here is simple. This very first Democratic primary debate was the first chance for the public to see the Democratic candidates for president in 2020 in action. All candidates were self-evidently conscious of the opportunities and responsibilities that come with that chance. Perhaps uncharacteristically for Democrats, they were also conscious of their duty to their party and their fellow candidates, and the overriding need to oppose and resist Trump.

That approach was entirely sound and appropriate. It ought to suffuse all the Dems’ intracameral “debates.” But if the moderators control the substance of questioning, it can’t. The party loses control of its “show” and the ability to adjust the delicate balance between cooperation and competition among its candidates.

For these reasons, I think the Dems, if not both parties, should get rid of “professional” news people as moderators. They should prepare short, simple open questions beforehand and let the candidates’ see them several days in advance. Then the answers should be open-ended, entirely up to each candidate, with chances for each candidate to ask others further questions and make short rebuttal answers.

The party should not dictate the balance between cooperation and competition, which should be up to each candidate. It, too, can reveal their souls.

This summer’s so-called “debates” are the very beginning of what promises to be the most arduous primary and general campaign in our nation’s history. These primary “debates” are crucial for introducing the candidates and their party to portions of the public that many know nothing about them. What the candidates say—and how each makes the delicate balance between self-distinction and party—should be up to each candidate. Those crucial decisions should not depend on moderators with other motives, let alone personal ambition or commercial greed, both of which can prompt sensationalism.

For a review of the first Democratic Debate, click here.
For a more general discussion of how to improve debates, click here.

Links to Popular Recent Posts

For a more general discussion of how to improve debates, click here.
For a review of the first Democratic Debate, click here.
For a third, simpler look at why Trump won in 2016, click here.
For seven reasons not to make war on Iran, click here.
For discussion of Warren’s ability to defend science, and why it matters, click here.
For comment on the quality of Elizabeth Warren’s mind and its relevance to our current circumstances, click here.
For analysis of the disastrous effect of our leaders’ failure to take personal responsibility, click here.
For brief comment on China’s Tiananmen Square Massacre and its significance for our species, click here.
For reasons why the Democratic House should pass a big infrastructure bill ASAP, click here.
For an analysis why Nancy Pelosi is right on impeachment, click here.
For an explanation how demagoguing the issue of abortion has ruined our national politics and brought us our two worst presidents, and how we could recover, click here.
For analysis of the Huawei Tech Block and its necessity for maintaining our innovative infrastructure, click here.
For ten reasons, besides global warming, to dump oil as a fuel for ground transportation, click here.
For discussion why we must cooperate with China and how we can compete successfully with China, click here.
For reasons why Trump’s haphazard trade war will not win the competition with China, click here.
For a deeper discussion of how badly we Americans have failed to plan our future, click here.
For an essay on Elizabeth Warren’s qualifications for the presidency, click here.
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For a discussion of how the West’s fall and China’s rise affect the chances of our species’ survival, click here.
For a discussion of what the Mueller Report is and how its release could affect American politics, click here.
For a note on the Mueller Report as the beginning of a process, click here.
For comment on the special candidacies of Beto O’Rourke and Pete Buttigieg, click here.
For reasons why the twin 737 Max 8 disasters should inspire skepticism and caution with regard to potentially lethal uses of software and AI, click here.
For my message to Southwest Airlines on grounding the 737 Maxes, click here.
For an example of even the New York Times spewing propaganda, click here.
For means by which high-school teachers could help save American democracy, click here.
For a modern team of rivals that might comprise a dream Cabinet in 2021, click here.
For an analysis of the global decline of rules-based civilization, click here. For a brief note on avoiding health lobbying Armageddon, click here.
For analysis of how to save real news and America’s ability to see straight, click here.
For an update on how Zuckerberg scams advertisers, click here.
For analysis of how Facebook scams voters and society, click here.
For the consequences of Trump’s manufactured border emergency, click here.
For a brief note on Colin Kaepernick’s good work and settlement with the NFL, click here.
For an outline of universal health insurance without coercion, disruption of satisfactory private insurance, or a trace of “socialism,” click here.
For analysis of the Virginia blackface debacle, click here. For an update on how Twitter subverts politics, click here.
For analysis of women’s chances to take the presidency in 2020, click here.
For brief comment on Trump’s State of the Union Speech and Stacey Abrams’ response for the Dems, click here.
For reasons why the Huawei affair requires diplomacy, not criminal prosecution, click here. For how Speaker Pelosi has become a new sheriff in town, click here.
For how Trump’s misrule could kill your kids, click here.
For comment on MLK Day 2019 and the structural legacies of slavery, click here.
For reasons why the partial government shutdown helps Dems the longer it lasts, click here.
For a discussion of how our national openness hurts us and what we really need from China, click here.
For a brief explanation of how badly both Trump and his opposition are failing at “the art of the deal,” click here.
For a deep dive into how Apple tries to thwart Google’s capture of the web-browser market, click here.
For a review of Speaker Pelosi’s superb qualifications to lead the Democratic Party, click here.
For reasons why natural-gas and electric cars are essential to national security, click here.
For additional reasons, click here.
For the source of Facebook’s discontents and how to save democracy from it, click here.
For Democrats’ core values, click here.
The Last Adult is Leaving the White House. Who will Shut Off the Lights?
For how our two parties lost their souls, click here.
For the dire portent of Putin’s high-fiving the Saudi Crown Prince, click here.
For updated advice on how to drive on the Sun’s power alone, or without fossil fuels, click here.
For a 2018 Thanksgiving Message, click here.

Diatribes of Jay

27 June 2019

Why Current Multi-Candidate “Debates” Suck

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Links to Posts since January 23, 2017

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