2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Insiders: Bad night for Bernie [View all]thebighobgoblin
(179 posts)Nothing in the debate is changing opinions about the candidates substantially. I stopped watching the debate after 15 minutes and most people did unless they're pathologically addicted to watching people rattle off scripted answers to scripted and loaded questions.
Most people watch debates to see who looks 'presidential', to get a sense of how someone might look when they're giving press conferences in the West Wing. I can see Hillary giving press conferences in the West Wing. I could possibly see O'Malley doing that. I absolutely cannot -- not in a million years -- imagine Bernie Sanders setting foot in the White House. I actually do like Sanders a lot as a senator, but he's not presidential material.
The biggest danger threatening our democracy now is the American voter, many of whom on both sides are convinced that we need some sort of 'revolution' in order to make our democracy work better. We don't. What we need are our own virtues as citizens. We need laborers with a work ethic. We need families who manage their money better. We need executives with a conscience and who value things other than just money. We need shareholders who can see past the next earnings report and the next dividend. It starts with our own behavior first, and how we live our lives. But beyond that, in terms of our political discourse, we need to stop relying on Facebook chain mail, twitter posting (twitter trolling), and we need to get more civil. We need to get more educated, and more practical. We need to trust institutions and mechanisms that have worked in the past, but fail to work now because we don't maintain them.