Don’t Give Up on Presidential Debates
More than 70 million people tuned in to the presidential debate Tuesday night, and the political commentators among them found the event appalling, even excremental. “That was a shitshow,” CNN’s Dana Bash declared. “We’re on cable—we can say it. Apologies for being crude. But that is really the phrase I’m getting from people on both sides of the aisle on text, and the only phrase I can think of to describe it.”
During the debate, Donald Trump had relentlessly interrupted and talked over Joe Biden and the moderator, Chris Wallace. In media coverage, a consensus quickly formed. Yesterday’s episode of the podcast The Daily came with the warning “This episode contains strong language.” The host, Michael Barbaro, reported that his own mother—“not someone who curses in text messages”—had texted to say, “This is a shitshow.” A teaser for a BuzzFeed News story read, “DEBATE NIGHT: THE GREAT AMERICAN SHITSHOW.”
All of that revulsion fueled calls to . “Tonight was the first presidential debate of the 2020 election, and if there is any sense or mercy left in this nation, it will be the last too,” in . James Fallows said the chaos “ the value of having
