Dumbed-down presidential race does a disservice to democracy

Dumbed-down presidential race does a disservice to democracy

By: Rachel Marsden

PARIS — Am I the only one who had to stop paying attention to the endless bombardment of U.S. presidential election rhetoric recently and actively seek out the relative “boredom” of written platforms for some actual substance?

Back when I was involved in running North American political campaigns, one of the most basic rules was that you developed a point-by-point platform, then you spent days on end hammering on a mere few of those points over and over again, in various ways, as a means of conveying to the electorate the contrast between your policies and those of your opponent. It’s called message discipline. Grassroots supporters would discuss, debate, and compare the issues with those of the other team. By Election Day, after months of ad nauseam campaigning, no one said, “Guess I’d better go read their platforms now to figure out what’s going on.”

Here’s a fun exercise. Go up to a random person – friend or stranger – and ask them which candidate they prefer and which of their platform points they like. Chances are that they either blurt out in frustration that they don’t care about trivial details like “policy” – or that they’re simply voting against the other candidate and riff on what a clown they are and, by extension, you. Or they’ll bring up some points they’ve heard, but that aren’t actually part of the platform.

Elections have largely become about comforting one’s feelings or belonging to a team. Ever try to interrupt a red-faced rant by someone who was triggered by either a criticism of “their” political team/candidate, or by a defense of the other side? Think they’re really interested in rational debate? Hardly anyone is anymore. At least not those who are making the most noise, including the candidates themselves. No one can hear anything of substance through all the noise.

If an alien suddenly landed on Earth right now, here’s what they would think were the critical issues for the future of America:

Whose crowds are bigger? Who has more celebrities on board? Is Trump working too hard, or not hard enough? Does he have trauma from almost being shot? What’s with Trump’s vice president candidate JD Vance’s obsession with single “cat ladies”, and does he wear eyeliner? Why does Kamala laugh so much?

Granted, it’s hard for the average voter to get a grasp of the issues from the candidates themselves when both have proven to be incoherent.

Trump, for instance, has railed against the “migrant invasion”, with a platform that promises to “seal the border” and “carry out the largest deportation operation in American history.”

He would also “stop outsourcing, and turn the United States into a manufacturing superpower.” Yet he said earlier this month that he was “going to let a lot of people come in, because we need more people, especially with AI coming. … And the farmers need, everybody needs, but we’re going to make sure they’re not murderers and drug dealers.”

Wow, what a high bar!

Upping migration for cheap labor that drives down wages is basically the same thing as outsourcing to the developing world. In both cases, the tech bros donating massively to Trump’s campaign through political action committees just happen to be the main benefactors of the cheaper foreign labor. Incidentally, rapidly developing artificial intelligence actually reduces that need – think the elimination of cashiers in favor of self-checkouts – so Trump would have been better off making an argument that actually aligned with his platform rather than contradicting it.

Harris, meanwhile, has promised to secure the border – which is like someone with multiple divorces preaching about marriage. She was appointed by President Joe Biden, in a March 2021 press conference, to lead the administration’s efforts in “stemming the migration to our southern border.”

Migrant encounters at the border have since risen drastically according to US Customs and Border Protection data, hitting a record high at the end of 2023.

So, clearly, Harris’ mission to get other countries to curtail migrants – in the same way that the European Union has made deals with Tunisia, Morocco and Turkey to do the same – hasn’t done very well. You’d never know that from listening to her, though.

The candidates themselves are drowning so badly in the muddied waters of their own campaigns that mainstream media reporting, which historically tends to lean overwhelmingly left, has taken the liberty of helping them out with framing. Or rather, helping out one side, in particular. “Kamala Harris unveils populist policy agenda, with $6,000 credit for newborns,” headlined the Washington Post, in apparently spelling “socialist” wrong. Because that’s exactly what one would call government handing out taxpayer-funded subsidies for every aspect of life from childbirth to home buying – if one were objective.

Neither of these two candidates can shut up about democracy, which is only possible with an informed electorate. Both are doing it a disservice by burying it – and their platforms – under a giant clown show with endless rhetorical balloon animals.