FRIDAY, March 29, 2024
nationthailand

Presidential debates are good for very little

Presidential debates are good for very little

It’s highly unlikely that presidential-style debates would be of much worth in Thailand, beyond the gimmick aspect. (Editorial, 29 September; Songdej, Letters, 30 September.)

They don’t extend much beyond the vulgarity of ‘infotainment’ in the US as it is; how many of the ‘promises’ made by recent successful and unsuccessful candidates actually became law? Besides, the level of carefully engineered orchestration suggests that there’s hardly a chance of fact-based reality breaking out. The rice-pledging scheme being exposed or abandoned, or what Songdej guesses (his word) is ‘instability being avoided’? How charmingly naive.
This media-inspired circus provides a forum for cheap name-calling, innuendo, empty points scoring, meaningless platitudes, and the like. Not much else though,
Indeed it’s hardly more than a reality game show, which begs the question: why on earth did Trump perform so miserably? It’s good for a laugh, but little else.
Dr Frank

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