Debate moderators need a mute button
October 7, 2020
The first Presidential Debate between Democratic Presidential Nominee Joe Biden and Republican Incumbent President Donald Trump was in the words of Jake Tapper, “a hot mess, inside a dumpster fire, inside a train wreck.”
It seemed to be out of control at points, with both Joe Biden and Donald Trump hurling insults and constantly interrupting each other.
While watching the debate, I was thinking to myself “How can we improve this? How can we make it less about one liners and more about politics?”
While watching the Democratic Primary Debates, I noticed that it seemed to be more about having the most memorable Twitter Clip than being the best politician on stage. They used the crowd for momentum and they played a crucial role in who “won” the debate.
So when I heard that the limited audience in the first Presidential Debate agreed to “no cheers, no boos, no interruptions” I was excited. I thought that we would finally be able to have a debate where the candidates would not be able to play off the energy of the crowd.
However, the next hour and a half was the political equivalent to a food fight and more regulations could certainly be put in place to ensure civil discourse.
The first of these regulations is cutting off the candidate’s microphone if they are speaking when it is not their turn, specifically in the two minutes allotted for the candidates to speak. This will bar the other candidate from speaking at all.
Furthermore, another suggestion is a “chess clock.” This model allows for a specific amount of time for each candidate to speak, say 45 minutes. Say Joe Biden is speaking, then his clock is counting down from 45 minutes. Then if Donald Trump wants to speak, he presses the clock and his time starts running down and Joe Biden’s stops.
While these changes may make the debates more informative to the American people, they will make the debates less entertaining.
President Donald Trump’s Senior Adviser said that the campaign “(does) not want any changes to what has already been laid out and what has been agreed to for the second and third debate, period, point blank.”
On the contrary, Joe Biden said “I just hope there’s a way in which the debate commission can control the ability of us to answer the questions without interruptions.”
Both candidates and their running mates intend on participating in the next debates.
