Millions of Americans watched the debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump in June. Most left sorely disappointed in Biden’s incoherence or in Trump’s baldfaced lies.
The second debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and Trump was not much more encouraging. Many undecided voters were still left unsatisfied by the lack of serious discussion on policy.
But if we go back just a few decades, we find that the public’s perception of presidential debates was quite different: they were seen as measured and truly informative. In general, politics weren’t as polarizing and divisive. How can American politics return to those days, and can Groton students play a role in effectuating the necessary changes?
The state of presidential debates today—one where partisan platitudes trump policy—is merely a reflection of the state of politics in general. We need only look to the 2022 senate and gubernatorial primary elections, where Republican voters chose several politically green candidates who were endorsed by the former president.
Two of these candidates were Georgia’s Herschel Walker and Pennsylvania’s Doug Mastriano, who ran for senator and governor respectively. Even conservative talk show host Ben Shapiro admitted that these candidates were not well qualified. He called Walker and Mastriano “crappy candidates” because they promoted “out of the box, crazy” ideas.
Walker and Mastriano lost their respective general elections. But a large part of the population still voted for them, pointing to a concerning trend: many Americans don’t care about the quality of their candidates. It should be no surprise the quality of presidential debates have degraded as well.
While the current state of politics seems quite grim, Groton students can help America return to prioritizing serious candidates in two ways. The first and most accessible way is through active participation in political life. Many members of the current Form of 2025 are eligible to vote in federal, state, and local elections. While national politics are always the most sensational, Groton students should direct their attention towards local elections. The township and county are small enough that a single person’s voice actually makes a difference.
Our Groton education has given us the tools to understand dynamics in America. And we should use them. Petition a city council or a mayor to act a certain way. Call on candidates to be less divisive, to act upright. If a candidate is not serious about his job, vote him out. As politics becomes less dysfunctional on the local level, the state of national politics will see positive changes.
The second avenue for effectuating change utilizes Groton’s elite nature. Grotonians historically have served in positions of high office in the federal government (Dean Acheson, Hugh Auchincloss, Franklin Roosevelt, and more), a fact that is still very much the case today.
It is an indisputable fact that Grotonians constantly bump shoulders with the most powerful people in America. We Grotonians must encourage the people in power to make measured and well-informed decisions. Perhaps then, American politics and presidential debates may return to their former glory.