Are Political Debates Useful?

[Sommerswerd]

I don't find them useful at all.

Except as a good tutorial on how to dodge meaningful questions, obfuscate the truth, mud-sling, posture effectively, and flat out lie. Any would be politician can get a first rate education in only an hour. Minus the commercial breaks.

I disagree. The commercial breaks are the most important part of educating yourself about what's really important for an American Politician.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Instead I'll just link to my source, James Madison:

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/debates_719.asp

See also "The Great Compromise", also nicknamed after my home state, which in turn is why Connecticut is called the "Constitution Sate"... I digress, the discussion, in a nutshell is:

The first issue Small (population) states wanted all states to be treated as equal sovereigns with equal Congressional representation. The big (population) states scoffed at this and wanted population-based representation. Because there was no reconciling the sides, the Connecticut delegation suggested we just do both, which is why we have a bicameral legislature (House and Senate) instead of just a single House of Parliament.

The second issue was that then the southern states wanted "population" to include slaves because slaves were a large, sometimes majority share of their population so if slaves weren't counted they would lose their political power in the House. The northern states on the other hand argued that since slaves couldn't vote and also weren't considered people, but property/chattels, they shouldn't be counted (anymore than a horse or cow). The South threatened to abandon the proposed union over this issue, so they ended up making what is called the Three-Fifths Compromise, that gave the southern states a 3/5ths person credit for slaves.

 

[Commodore]

Obama won twice with more votes than the guys who lost. Clinton, had she won, presumably would have won more votes than the guy who lost.
That's democratic. The guy who got fewer votes winning is undemocratic

But Obama was still elected under the same system Trump was elected under. That means Obama could have potentially still been elected without winning the popular vote. So a system is either always democratic or it's always undemocratic. Which is it?

If the president has so little power, why do you care so much about him being elected one way or another ?

Personally, I don't. I follow congressional elections much more closely since they hold the real power in the US due to the fact that they control the purse strings. As for Americans in general caring so much about presidential elections, well there's a number of reasons for that. Part of it is Americans themselves overestimating how much power the president has. Another part being we Americans do seem to love all the fanfare that comes with a presidential campaign. It's more like another source of entertainment for us. You just don't get that with congressional, state, or city level elections.

Plus, I think a lot of people pretend to care a lot more than they actually do. This is evidenced by our somewhat embarrassingly low voter turnout.

 

[inthesomeday]

@Commodore

I'm an American and I can confirm the electoral college is less democratic than most classrooms.

Land having political power is a very good way to put it. I live in California where your vote matters less than the blood type of your dog. Wish that wasn't the case but hey at least folks in poor ol-3 electorate Alaska get a voice. About 180 in fact.

States aren't real and shouldn't have more power than people. No organization should.

And a system can yield democratic results despite behaving undemocratically. Obama won democratically twice. Trump won undemocratically once. Bush won democratically once, the other time through straight up cheating.

 

[Commodore]

I'm an American and I can confirm the electoral college is less democratic than most classrooms.

Not if you look at our system in the light of federalism. And since our nation is a federal republic, that is really the only way to look at our system. Now you could certainly argue the merits and failings of federalism, but as long as we remain a federal republic, our electoral system is really the only fair way to elect the president.

I mean, at least we still get to vote for our president. Canada, which is also a federal republic, doesn't get to vote for their prime minister.

 

[inthesomeday]

I think federalism is super obsolete in a day where I can have this sort of minute-by-minute discourse with somebody I presume to be on the other side of this vast continent.

 

[Tahuti]

So I watched two things recently: the Le Pen / Macro debate, and John Dickerson's interview with Donald Trump. This got me thinking of something I have been wondering a lot: are debates a good tool for voters to learn about political candidates?

Our democracies have this Athenian ideal of debates as the marketplace of political opinion, where different point of views face off against each other and try to sell themselves. In principle, it is very appealing, it provides room for argument and counter-argument, and you ideally get both arguments for political ideas as well as insight into the personalities of the candidates presenting them.

In my experience, that is very rarely the case in practice. "Debates" seem mostly focused on accusations and character attacks, canned talking points that are pre-tested for focus groups and deliberate vagueness. It's always easier to make (false) claims than to refute them. Rules that are initially agreed upon (time limits, topics) are often bent or breached over the course of the discussion. And even if followed, they often seem designed to exacerbate the problems I mentioned rather than prevent them ("you have time for a 2 minute statement and a 1 minute reply"). Usually I wish for moderators to fact check candidates or turn off their mics. And that's under the most favourable conditions with two participants. Often the format even gets extended to many more people than that (US primaries, first round of French presidential elections, multi party parliamentary elections ...), which usually leads to everyone only getting a couple of lines in, or a big mess where people dogpile on each other.

Yet we traditionally place a huge emphasis on debates. They're usually the climax of an election season, and the point in time where previously uninterested or undecided voters are supposed to tune in and make their decision. Is that really the best way to do it? Or should we look for better ways to present political discourse to voters?

(That's where the Trump interview comes in - I personally found separate long interview with political candidates much more illuminating than direct confrontation)

I've stopped watching political debates in a serious fashion some time ago since I feel that politicians simply debate to position themselves for the biggest electoral audience they can muster. Swing voters are not interested in air-tight logic in debates and they decide elections. If swing voters stay put, the parties and candidates with the most numerous demographic groups behind them win. As to political debates, positioning yourself for the most numerous electorate almost inevitably means dogpiling your opponents.

That being said, I've started voting on niche candidates of centrist parties who represent issues I believe are underrepresented. However, democracy is still a very imperfect system precisely because it embodies the Athenian ideal: A marketplace of ideas. Yet ideas are simply not to be 'sold' on a marketplace. Besides, some ideas - when put to practice - will overwhelmingly benefit certain groups at the expense of others. If you happen to belong to a group that benefits from certain ideas, you will be blinded to the negative implications.

While Athenian democracy obviously had pitfalls compared to Modern Occidental democracy (by which I'd describe democracy in America, EU, Commonwealth countries, Norway, Israel, et. al.), the limiting of voting franchise being one, its advantage was its small-scale enterprise. One voter simply cannot make a difference: We vote either because we feel it to be a social obligation to our peers or to make a connection with the politician you vote for.