I haven't watched any of the "debate"-First Night yet so I don't have any opinion about what was said. I am reading that my favorite on the policies, Elizabeth Warren is considered to have done damage to her position as the first among that first ten because she stuck to substance and that Julian Castro and Cory Booker did themselves a lot of good through a mix of the media actually covering their substance, them being able to cut through the horse-race "first runner" crap that's so much easier than covering substance.
But, then I read in the Washington Post that Warren did herself good too. Which is one of the problems with these ersatz "debates" and TV as a substitute for substance, the biggest reason I don't watch them. The Post article says that Bill de Blasio did himself a lot of good by cutting in, I don't know if that's true or not but if it is true, it also points to one of the problems of politics as "good TV" which is about entertainment with the purpose of selling product, it is what gave us Donald Trump to start with. If better than that can come of it? I'm skeptical that it will.
What this kind of spectacle isn't is a debate, you really can't have a debate with ten participants and the form of a debate is about the worst venue for getting to substance which can't often fit into a set format with time limits and a formal pattern of timed speeches and responses.
One of the reasons I don't watch debates - other than that at my age getting as angry as I can while watching those is a threat to life - is that I know what actually happened at the debate will not matter nearly as much as what the media promotes as the results of the debate. And I don't trust the media, though that corporate gang of spinners and liars are what will craft the real results of any debate. It is clear that they don't like Elizabeth Warren whose policies endanger their wealth and, let's be honest, THEY WILL NOT COVER ANY WOMAN WHO IS A DEMOCRAT FAIRLY WHEN HER OPPONENT IS A MAN. They didn't with Hillary Clinton, one of the most qualified if not the most qualified candidate in our history who was running against the least qualified, and, considering that includes George W. Bush, that's saying a lot. I can't find out where I read it, but I believe it was Julian Castro's
response that his passion and substance were what the media had
not been covering over the past several months of his campaign but which was always there. Which should give the people in the media something to reflect on but they never have reformed and they never will until community and public service are serious requirements for the electronic media. The permission the courts and Republican administrations have given broadcast and cabloid media to serve their interests and not the public good is why they have delivered public bad in mountain chains of corruption and evil and treason. Trump after George W. Bush - two illegitimate losers of elections installed in the presidency.
I don't think egalitarian democracy can survive the kind of media we have. I don't think it can survive on the diet of entertainment and lies that the American media sells for the purposes of its owners and the oligarchic class they belong to. Just Wednesday, one of my oldest friends told me that he'd come to realize something I've said for a while now, he said he had a faith that education would solve all of our problems. I said that all an education did without an effective moral foundation of the right sort was to produce more efficient gangsters, crooks and liars. I've mentioned before that one of my first really serious problems with Bill Clinton was when he went to a Hollywood fundraiser - I think during his first run for the presidency- and he asked them to help him form the American culture. While, no doubt, effective for getting those so flattered to open their wallets, having Hollywood form the American culture is what got us Trump. My preferred candidate in that primary was Tom Harkin, the Senator from Iowa, who I think would have been a far better president than Clinton was but who was buried by the media. No doubt they figured Clinton was better TV.
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