The Democrats just had two nights of debates. I admit, I got more sucked in than I expected to. The reality is that most of what happened will be forgotten by the weekend. The after-action reporting was predictable superficial, who "won" and who "lost" and the questions were equally bad. I keep having to remind myself that most of what we see on TV is not there to inform us, it is to entertain us in order to keep the advertising dollars flowing. It is not to say there is not some decent journalism being done, but it is too often buried underneath an avalanche of "analysis" that is really just random people giving opinions that you or I could share too.
None of that bodes well for next year. It is clear that most reporters *still* have no idea how to handle Trump. My own view has been that if you ignore him, he goes away. If you stop focusing on his Twitter vomit, if you made him explain why it is that the government he leads has failed to cover the 30 million people without health insurance, or address gun violence, or invest more in STEM, he would be exposed for the dope he is, but instead, he just says stupid shit and reporters react to it.
I have long believed (and data is starting to bear this out) that the American people may have passed a tipping point with him. Like a reality show, he got big "ratings" (attention) at first, but as the novelty has worn off, as he just keeps repeating the same antics over and over, the novelty has worn off, people are tuning him out. Of course, when this happened on the Apprentice, they made a CELEBRITY APPRENTICE to goose ratings, I guess a war or a fake trade "win" is what will replace that now that he's President. Someone who runs on attention can only be defeated if people become indifferent to him.
Follow me on Twitter - @scarylawyerguy
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