3 ms·

Oh darn - will our elections be less of a circus? Will news channels be unable to milk election momentum coverage for nine straight months during the primaries

by munk-a 7y ago

Oh darn - will our elections be less of a circus? Will news channels be unable to milk election momentum coverage for nine straight months during the primaries? How will we ever survive? /s I moved up to Canada from ye olde US and their elections are so nice and simple. There are limits on the amount of time you can advertise as a campaign so no four year presidential campaigns up here. Additionally it's considered generally distasteful to excessively advertise during campaigns and, while you'll certainly get lots of phone calls from Liberals, Conservatives and the NDP - it's for a short window and then you're done. The US runs it's elections like a game show because everything in America must be prime-time entertainment.

krapp 7y ago
>The US runs it's elections like a game show because everything in America must be prime-time entertainment. You might get downvoted for the snark but you're not wrong at all. I remain convinced that entertainment value is the most important qualifier for a President in modern times, and that probably goes back to JFK. Americans no longer trust government and don't believe in political leadership but they love celebrities and a good show.
asdff 7y ago
This is exactly it. Elections have the same tone of reporting as the NBA draft. Look at how they butchered the debates. The first televised debate with Nixon was a deep dive into the inner workings of public policy, you practically had to have a polysci degree to keep up. Now it's just whoever is the loudest. They actually used to cut mics if it wasn't your turn to speak. Now they keep them open because a mean-spirited debate where everyone is cutting each other off to get their soundbite, and tearing each other apart on anything but policy is better for ratings. It was a complete joke to have that many Dems on the stage, only joe and bernie turned out to be the only viable candidates out of that crowd once primaries started happening, and it became clear who actually had voters and who just had smoke and money for airtime on major networks. It's all for the ratings now, not to educate the public on policy. So shameful, but at least I can still just read the policy positions myself instead of watching a debate produced by Jerry Springer.

by munk-a 7y ago

krapp 7y ago

>The US runs it's elections like a game show because everything in America must be prime-time entertainment. You might get downvoted for the snark but you're not wrong at all. I remain convinced that entertainment value is the most important qualifier for a President in modern times, and that probably goes back to JFK. Americans no longer trust government and don't believe in political leadership but they love celebrities and a good show.

asdff 7y ago

This is exactly it. Elections have the same tone of reporting as the NBA draft. Look at how they butchered the debates. The first televised debate with Nixon was a deep dive into the inner workings of public policy, you practically had to have a polysci degree to keep up. Now it's just whoever is the loudest. They actually used to cut mics if it wasn't your turn to speak. Now they keep them open because a mean-spirited debate where everyone is cutting each other off to get their soundbite, and tearing each other apart on anything but policy is better for ratings. It was a complete joke to have that many Dems on the stage, only joe and bernie turned out to be the only viable candidates out of that crowd once primaries started happening, and it became clear who actually had voters and who just had smoke and money for airtime on major networks. It's all for the ratings now, not to educate the public on policy. So shameful, but at least I can still just read the policy positions myself instead of watching a debate produced by Jerry Springer.