Biden’s woes prove TV debates are not X Factor politics
Joe Biden’s Democratic Party continues to push him to exit the US presidential election all because of a disastrous performance in the June 27 televised election debate with his political rival Donald Trump. What this shows is that TV election debates are NOT X Factor politics. Excerpts from This Week, Those Books on how televised political infotainment took off some 70 years ago, with crucial context from two , great reads. Sign up at https://thisweekthosebooks.substack.com/ and get the post and podcast the day it drops
The Big Story:
Four TV election debates in the same week — sequentially, for president of Iran, prime minister of France, UK prime minister and US president — showed how popular this form of televised political infotainment has become around the world since the 1950s. But does the TV debate trivialise an election and reduce it to X Factor politics? Is it good for anything other than viral TikTok clips and Instagram memes?
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Some 60 countries around the world, including established democracies such as France and Canada, as well as relatively new democracies such as Mongolia and Ghana, hold TV election debates… Guess which country actually pioneered the TV election debate? (Answer in The Backstory at the end of this post.)…
This Week’s Books:
Routledge International Handbook on Electoral Debates
By: Julio Juárez-Gámiz, Christina Holtz-Bacha, Alan Schroeder
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2020
My rating: Insightful
Key questions are addressed in this easy-to-read book: Are televised election debates no more than thrilling spectacles meant to simplify political choices? Or do they help with collective democratic reflection? Can they be both?
The authors, one of whom was a former TV journalist, explore popular ideas about television as a tool of the culture industry, “a machinery of narcoticising distraction”…
The Best Man
By: Gore Vidal
Publisher: Little, Brown
(Audio book available)
Year: 1960
My rating: Entertaining
A popular play that made it to the big screen, this satirical political drama belongs to the very period that TV election debates went mainstream. It is Philadelphia 1960 and we see, up close and personal, the machinations of two frontrunners as they vie for their party’s nomination for US president. Senator Joe Cantwell presents himself as the people’s candidate. Secretary of State William Russell is supposed to be the principled one. Both men have something to hide…
The Backstory:
Experts say that in 1956…
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Ready for another read? Happy 2024, the year of elections
