Bina Venkataraman needs to understand how the candidates would preserve Individuals protected from climate-change disasters. Leana Wen injects some Ozempic into the race with a thought-provoking query on whether or not Medicare ought to cowl weight problems medicines, contemplating that it might cut back downstream medical prices however “upend all the health-care system” alongside the way in which.
And Molly Roberts and Josh Tyrangiel double-team on tech, with Molly asking about social media’s hurt to kids and Josh mulling a digital privateness regulation. The latter writes of the thorny problem: “If a platform distributes dangerous details about an individual, out of negligence or malice, ought to we penalize it? How would we implement these penalties? Good luck, guys.”
A dozen-plus different questions await within the compilation, however it would take luck on all our elements to get to greater than a smattering of them.
Longtime political analyst Jeff Greenfield writes that if the talk isn’t going to be substantive, it would as nicely be entertaining. By ditching conventional questions, we would even get a greater glimpse of the candidates’ character and cognitive means. His recommended questionnaire is actually unorthodox.
- Title the members of your first Cupboard.
- Full this sentence: “Trying again at my life, the one factor I want I had by no means finished is …”
- Beginning at 100, depend backward by sevens.
In contrast, former Democratic senator Bob Kerrey writes in his personal op-ed that one query issues greater than every other on this debate (and race): What are you going to do in regards to the debt?
“Debt — the nationwide debt — will not be the elephant within the room,” he writes. “It’s the herd of elephants within the room, accompanied by braying donkeys. A rising shame for years, it’s now a nationwide nightmare, an ever-increasing blight on the nation’s financial and social future.”
Kerrey cites loads of statistics about how our debt path is unsustainable. Must you want extra convincing, revisit final yr’s Editorial Board collection on the issue and all of the inventive methods the nation would possibly sort out it.
Karen Tumulty holds out hope that this night will probably be productive. To start with, there will probably be no whooping studio viewers, a change she has lengthy advocated. She’s additionally intrigued by (if skeptical of) CNN’s plan to unmute candidates’ microphones solely through the strict time durations throughout which they’re allowed to talk.
After all, if issues do go off the rails, we are able to maintain on to George Will’s comfort: One among these candidates will lose.
In a column on the outstanding Biden achievement of manufacturing “Trump nostalgia,” George writes that “the one soothing certainty is that when the boil of this yr’s election is lanced, politics will probably be cleaned of 1 deeply disapproved candidate.”
To not burst George’s bubble (or his boil), however — ought to he be so positive? Say Biden wins; Trump may have misplaced, however he’s not more likely to say he misplaced, and our politics actually gained’t be rid of him. Certainly, the board exposes in an editorial the various methods Trump’s backers are probing for weak spot within the nation’s electoral system.
Chaser: For commentary on the talk delivered in actual time, observe together with a dozen of our columnists right here starting at 8:45 p.m. ET. And in order for you updates proper to your cellphone inbox, signal as much as obtain texts from Karen, who will probably be there on the debate.
Additional commentary on Trump/Biden
- From Catherine Rampell: Individuals ought to be skeptical of Trump’s inexperienced card proposal, which solely sounds nice when you ignore his total document.
- From Marc Thiessen: Trump’s isolationism is usually a fable, and his supporters need the US to remain a world chief.
- From political historical past professor Jeff Bloodworth: Rural voters don’t belief Biden. Do progressives even care?
- From Jen Rubin: Trump’s unqualified VP faves would possibly imply a redux of the Sarah Palin catastrophe for the Republican Get together.
Perry Bacon thinks we’re seeing the boundaries of centrism. All around the world, he writes, “the downsides of this method are more and more eclipsing its upsides.”
Fast, not-for-nothing upside: Centrism will get folks elected. However does it enable them to manipulate nicely? And does it even preserve them elected?
Perry doesn’t assume so, citing particularly the “détente with the rich” and whole subjugation to polling as limiting elements that make centrists “solely fair-weather buddies to causes.” After sufficient of that, it’s no marvel voters flip to right-wingers with a wrong-but-strong narrative.
Chaser: In Britain, the Labour Get together is within the get-elected section of this cycle, however Edith Pritchett delightfully cartoons it as already immobilized by polling worries.
- Thirty years in the past, Paula Jones and O.J. Simpson modified America’s tradition, writes Vainness Honest editor David Good friend, and we’ve been residing within the freak present ever since.
- That clock ticking on our border coverage deadlock might flip right into a terrorism time bomb, David Ignatius warns.
- As Indian creator Siddhartha Deb asks, why is Arundhati Roy being prosecuted for a 14-year-old speech? (Trace: Blame Narendra Modi’s embarrassing election.)
It’s a goodbye. It’s a haiku. It’s … The Bye-Ku.
Does watching this debate depend?
Have your individual newsy haiku? E mail it to me, together with any questions/feedback/ambiguities. See you tomorrow!
