All In The Family and Civic Discourse

With the recent presidential debates, civic discourse is threatened. We see this election in particular as more of a popularity contest complete with Twitter fights. These ‘debates’ are meant to give the american people an idea about who the candidate actually is, like what their policies are. After this we are meant to have enough knowledge to make an informed decision -- supposedly. Civic discourse is, in its basic form, conversation that increases our understanding. It is nearly impossible to relate this to modern politics (let alone this specific debate). According to Politifact , both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have said a large amount of overtly false statements, but Trump in particular ranks heavily in the categories of mostly false, and just plain old false.  How are we meant to understand either of our candidates if we cannot engage in the most basic form of exchange, knowledge? It’s a sad day when a nearly 40 year old television sitcom actually confronts popular issues in order to better our understanding. In fact, All In The Family has built historical importance based on their commentary regarding controversial topics. A few of the episodes we watched in class involved the Watergate scandal and interracial marriage. It’s disappointing to accept that the discourse in these episodes still feel modern in a lot of ways. They gave us information in a more appealing package then how it's delivered today.

It’s all about ratings. With the constant bombardment of news (thanks to many 24/7 news channels) we are forced to listen to whatever is most ‘popular.’ This may not all be news as history has traditionally seen it. The sad fact is ratings attract advertisers and advertisers keep a channel running, so if a thousand sound bites of Donald Trump talking about China, for instance get the most hits then that's what news will unfortunately broadcast.

As an even more unfortunate result of this Trump will get more exposure based on the increasingly ridiculous things he says. It's a perpetual and unstoppable cycle that has propelled him into superstardom. The news can never get a break. There’s no where to look (at least for the major channels) that provide any kind of real news service. I, and i hope a few others, are done with the nothing but petty back and forth between the candidates and don’t need to see it a million times across multiple stations.

We are all sacrificing civic discourse when we indulge in countless and mostly ridiculous montages involving specifically our candidates (It's a shame they are so funny). News, debates, and the media exist to promote widespread knowledge, instead they spend their time savagely curtailing even the promise of that possibility.