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In today's special discussion,
Expect tonight's presidential debate to last seven and a half hours, because Post Opinions has questions.
First, we asked 21 reporters what they would like to ask President Biden and former President Donald Trump if they had the chance. The results were a much more productive debate than we would have seen, touching on benefits, NATO, and the crises in Myanmar and Sudan, with very little mention of sharks or shorted batteries on boats.
Bina Venkataraman wants to know how the candidates will protect Americans from the disasters of climate change, while Leana Wen brings Ozempic to the race by asking the thought-provoking question of whether obesity drugs should be covered by Medicare, which has the potential to reduce downstream health care costs but “upend the entire health care system” in the process.
Molly Roberts and Josh Tyranjil also double-teamed to discuss technology, with Molly asking about the harms of social media to children and Josh pondering digital privacy law. The latter wrote about this thorny issue: “When a platform negligently or maliciously distributes harmful information about an individual, should we punish them? How do we enforce those penalties? Good luck, everyone.”
There are over a dozen other questions waiting for you in this roundup, but we’ll all need good luck to answer even a fraction of them.
Longtime political analyst Jeff Greenfield has written that if debates can't be substantive, they might as well be entertaining. By abandoning traditional questions, Greenfield could learn more about the candidates' personalities and cognitive abilities. His proposed questionnaire is certainly unconventional.
Name the members of your first cabinet. Complete the following sentence: “When I look back on my life, there's one thing I wish I had never done…” Start at 100 and count backwards by sevens.
In contrast, former Democratic Senator Bob Kerrey wrote in his op-ed that one question in this debate (and election) matters more than any other: “What are we going to do about the debt?”
“The debt — the national debt — is not the elephant in the room,” he writes. “It is the elephant in the room, accompanied by a neighing donkey. What has been a growing disgrace for years is now a national nightmare and an ever-growing stain on the country's economic and social future.”
Kelly cites a host of statistics that show our nation's debt path is unsustainable, and if you need a more compelling explanation, re-read our editorial board's series from last year that discussed the issue and all the creative ways the nation can tackle it.
Karen Tumulty is hopeful the night will be productive: There will be no cheering from the studio audience, a change she's long advocated for, and she's also intrigued (though skeptical) by CNN's plan to unmute candidates' microphones only when they are allowed to speak.
Of course, if things go off the rails, we can take George Will's comforting words that “one of the candidates will lose.”
“The only reassuring certainty is that when the furor of this year's election subsides, one deeply reviled candidate will have been wiped from the political scene,” George wrote in a column about Biden's remarkable success in generating “nostalgia for Trump.”
Not to dash George's dreams (or his anger), but is he really so sure? If Biden wins, Trump will lose, but he won't say he lost, and our politics will never get rid of him. Indeed, in its editorial, the committee exposes the many ways Trump supporters are probing the weaknesses of the country's electoral system.
The Chaser: If you want to hear commentary from the debate in real time, follow our 12 columnists' comments here, starting at 8:45 p.m. ET. And if you want updates straight to your mobile inbox, sign up to receive text messages from Karen, who will be at the debate.
Further commentary on Trump/Biden
Catherine Rampell: Americans should be skeptical of Trump's green card proposal. It only sounds great if you ignore his entire record. Marc Thiessen: Trump's isolationism is mostly a myth, and his supporters want the U.S. to remain a world leader. Political history professor Jeff Bloodworth: Rural voters don't trust Biden. Do progressives care? Jen Rubin: Trump's unqualified vice presidential nominee could mean a repeat of the Sarah Palin disaster for the Republican Party.
Perry Bacon believes we are seeing the limits of centrism: “Around the world, the downsides of this approach increasingly outweigh the upsides,” he writes.
An immediate and not-so-useful benefit: centrism gets people elected. But does it help them govern well? And will they stay elected?
Perry doesn't think so, specifically citing “détente with the wealthy” and total subservience to the polls as limiting factors that make centrists “stop-gap allies of the cause.” If that continues long enough, it's no wonder that voters turn to the right, who have a wrong but powerful point.
The Chaser: In the UK, the Labour Party is still vying to win this election, but Edith Pritchett hilariously lampoons it for being already bogged down in worries about the opinion polls.
Thirty years ago, Paula Jones and O.J. Simpson transformed American culture, writes Vanity Fair editor David Friend. And we've been living in a freak show ever since. The ticking clock on border policy impasse could turn into a terrorism time bomb, warns David Ignatius. Indian author Siddhartha Deb asks why Arundhati Roy is being prosecuted for a speech she gave at 14. (Hint: Blame Narendra Modi's disgraceful election.)
It's a goodbye. It's a haiku. It's… “goodbye.”
Does watching this debate count?
Have a newsy haiku of your own? Email me with any questions, comments or concerns you may have. See you tomorrow!
