Debate Illusions

For the second debate, which has a town-hall forum, the audience members submit questions to the moderator, who then approves which audience members get to participate. If audience members stray from their questions, the moderator is to cut them off.

Thus read the rules for the third of four farces the be perpetrated upon us, aka “debates”. Much attention is paid to the illusion of discourse, and in the town hall forum, the illusion is even grander – they want us to believe that the questions originate below, from the audience. But notice the brute force – if someone asks a question that is not pre-approved, that is, if someone says something confrontational, their mike will be cut. O’Reilly would be proud.

Our two party system is a very fragile illusion fostered by those whom it protects – those already wealthy, already powerful. Debates used to be run by the League of Women Voters, and they did a credible job with the material they were given – after all, a debate between Walter Mondale and Ronald Reagan could only yield a few surprises – well, none, actually. Candidates carefully rehearse their performances, and questioners are selected from the corps of ‘respected’ journalists, to make sure that real give-and-take is avoided. Each candidate wants assurance that he will not really be have to think on his feet, and each wants but one thing from the the debate – a carefully rehearsed spontaneous and memorable one-liner.

Oh, there I go again.

In 1987, the League pulled out of the debates, complaining of the two parties’ micromanagement of every aspect of the show. The parties took over. In 1992, with Ross Perot allowed in, there was a populist revolt of sorts. After a series of three debates, he climbed in the polls and threatened to unseat the two parties. They have since that time written their rules in such a way that third parties, no matter how popular, are excluded. That is the whole point – to maintain the illusion that when we have two parties that are really one, that we actually debate anything.

The old Soviets had it easy. They could enforce their system of privilege with a jackboot and billy club. Here in the USA we have to go to great trouble and expense to foster illusions. We have to promote freedom of speech, yet not allow it. We have to debate within the narrow confines of ‘acceptable’ opinion. Thus we saw in the first debate between Obama and McCain that the candidates were tripping over one another to claim that each was tougher than the other, each believed in making war against weak countries, each thought that we were threatened by these people we call “terrorists”, neither questioned our bloated and out-of-control military budget … it wasn’t a debate. It was a groveling contest.

And the American people, dumbed down by television news and weak from substandard education anyway, have enough innate smarts to ignore all of that and go right to the core issue: Which candidate is more likable? Obama won. McCain is kind of an asshole, and it comes through.

I’ll be surprised if Obama doesn’t “win” again tonight – McCain just can’t hide that mean streak. And just as I grimaced at Sarah Palin’s inability to answered the simplest of questions with Katie Couric, so too will I tighten up as I see the ‘questioners’ read their scripted lines.

I hope one of them does something unpardonable – asks a real question. I want to see a microphone cut off. I want to know that some of us are still thinking.