Debate Questions need "Gotcha" Questions

[jaxind]

The debates between Hillary and tRUMP should have allowed the moderators to have asked some basic questions to tRUMP: 1) What is the difference between a Suni and a Shiite; 2) Tell me a little about the history between South Korea and North Korea; 3) Who are the Kurds?, ETC. These are questions that the rethuglicans would have considered gotcha questions...but, guess what...they're not gotcha questions....they're just basic questions that anyone who is running for President of our country, should know the answers to!! A person interviewing for a job at Ford Motor Company (for example), would get asked in-depth questions about the job he/she is applying for to make sure they have the basic knowledge to do the job! A person running for President of The United States, should be treated above and beyond a person applying to a job at a corporation!

If the examples I gave were the type of questions asked of tRUMP, I know the Right would have screamed, "These are gotcha questions...why aren't you asking Hillary the same questions??!" And, the response from the moderators and the media should be "All questions need to be tailored to the person that is being asked the question....No more blanket questions where everyone gets the same question. The debates need to be a kind of test so that we can be assured you have some basis to consider yourself qualified to be President of the United States!!"

[sharedvalues]

1. You want journalists to start caring about truth?

It's so easy for journalists to report both sides. They just have to repeat what people say.

Journalists using their brains to determine truth is hard, especially when politicians are trying to lie.

Until journalists decide to give up the both sides fiction and focus on truth, we will have a broken media

[DetlefK]

2. Just handle it like any other job-interview:

"What relevant job-experience do you have for this position?"

"What was your biggest political challenge in the last 5 years and how did you solve it?"

"What do you expect this job to be like?"

"Here's a problem. How would you solve it?"

"Do you have any conflicts of interest we should know about?"

[Warren DeMontague]

3. She destroyed him in those debates. The only way for him to have looked any worse would have been

for him to take a big shit right there on the stage.

The problem with the election wasn't the debates IMHO.

[Docreed2003]

5. Sadly...

That asshole could have dropped trowel and taken a massive deuce on the debate stage, and his sycophants would be cheering the event as being so powerful and Presidential.

The debates highlighted Trump's complete lack of knowledge and his inability to understand complex facts. We saw that as being a disqualifier, and it certainly should have been, but the right saw a man who spoke their language and didn't "speak down to them". It didn't help that in the post-debate media coverage tended to highlight the times Trump was able to speak without sounding like a mental patient, rather than highlighting his complete ineptness.

I think the debates showed us that, in many ways, the antiintillectualism of the right has succeeded in not only dumbing down the electorate, but convincing them that being a complete moron is more acceptable than having a firm grasp of knowledge and facts.

[Warren DeMontague]

7. Yeah, precisely.

That's my takeaway, too. That's why more probing or 'gotcha' questions wouldn't have helped.

[unblock]

4. they do and have asked gotcha questions, though only for democrats.

dukakis was asked if he'd still oppose the death penalty even if his wife, kitty had been raped and murdered.

aside from the fact that it's completely odious to paint a target like that on someone on national television, it's an incredibly difficult question to answer in a way that works politically given how stupidly our national political media covers politics.

dukakis would have been reamed for flip-flopping had he carved out an exception to his well-established position just for his own family. as it was, he was reamed for not being sufficiently emotional and offended.

so apparently he had to walk a tightrope between being sufficiently emotional yet not appearing overly so (that's also a career-killer, look what happened to dean or muskie) yet also being consistent in his opposition to the death penalty.

muskie's actually a nearly perfect example. his vice-presidential campaign collapsed after, in response to a published smear on his wife, he gave a strong defense during a snowstorm. the press wrote that what muskie said were melted snowflakes were actually tears, and suddenly his campaign was over.

they don't ask questions like that to republicans.

[nocalflea]

6. Trump was consistently incoherent during the debates.

And yet people voted for him. The debates exposed Trump as an imbecile.And yet people voted for him.