Do Debates Still Matter?

asleep longer. The founder and owner of Mine Pillow, Mike Lindell, personally guarantees that my pillow will be the most comfortable pillow you'll ever own, and I'll add my own guarantee

as well. And right now you can get up to eighty percent off of all My Pillow products, including bedsheets, slippers, towels, down comforters, mattresstoppers, even coffee when you go to MyPillow dot com and enter the special promo code Midnight Ride no space in between Midnight and Ride and remember enter the promo code m D Night rd E and save big while getting the best night's sleep you've ever had. The Midnight Ride the home of the anti establishment movement.

This network features great programming such as Chris McDaniels, America, God and Country, The Right Side Radio Show, Paul Revere's Liberty Layer, and many more coming soon. So check out the Midnight Ride today. Head to the Midnight Ride dot com and check out all the amazing content.

If you know anything about how Chris's schedule has been going lately, I need to be prepared for the likely occurrence that something unlucky pops up last minute for Chris and I will be sitting in the conductor's chair. Again, that's not the plan. We are hopeful and excited that Chris is supposed to be back on today, but due to that unstability currently with his schedule because he's got a I think he told me at least four different cases that at any given moment can change his entire day.

So it's a lot more unpredictable at the moment what he's dealing with. So as such, I'm going to keep this show short. And basically I debated whether or not to do one this morning or wait and record one this evening or even tomorrow morning. But last night there was a mayoral debate for the city of Laurel. For those of you my national listeners, you're probably famili You're

with Laurel, Mississippi because of the television show hometown. There is an incumbent mayor, and then there are three challengers. Of the three challengers, only one bothered to show up to the debate last night. Now, because I was covering the debate for the newspaper. No, I'm not going to give my opinion on who won the debate or anything like that. I'm going to remain objective as far as that and the actual debate itself is a relevant to

the topic. Because again, I understand I have listeners outside of this general area. I've got listeners and other parts of the country. So I don't want to make my focus be on a city election that only a small number of my listeners care about. Now, my question today, and this is a question I've been asking for a while. If you go back last year during the presidential elections and we talked about debates, then this is a question that steal rings for me. Doe debates actually matter on

a national level. They can for sure, because you're going to get those thirty second sound bites. The actual meat of the debate doesn't matter they're on those national because it's all about who can get the most witty clip in. It's not about who has the best ideas. We've seen

that time and time again. But we also saw last year what a disastrous debate can do to a candidate when Joe Biden took the stage and looked like he didn't even know where he was and next thing you know, the Democrats are scrambling to kick him off the ticket. So we do know when we observe these things that they still can play a significant role when it comes

to these campaigns and the national level. But what about on a smaller stage last night, Again this being a mayor's debate, it was not open to the public due to the fact that it was done in a radio studio that was very small, so it wasn't like we had a ton of space, so basically campaign staff, media members that wanted to cover it, and the staff from

the radio station. Before I get into any talk, I do want to give a lot of props to my boss, Jim Sigelski, who helped moderates along with one of the radio hosts. Jim is a consummate professional and put together some really good debate questions I think, questions that voters

would want to hear answered. But the reason why I wanted to talk about this, what really drew me into making this a discussion point was, of course I go online after the debate, and because they streamed the debate online as well as hading it broadcast over the radio station last night, when I looked, I want to say, they were about three thousand views, which I mean, that's okay for a city election, but you'd like to see

it higher. And then you scroll down and you start looking at the comments, and that's when you start to see the tribalism that we always talk about that is set in. There was nobody that I read commenting that didn't already have their mind made up. It was either raw Rod to the incumbent or raw Rod to the challenger. There was nobody commenting that they were being swayed by

the debate. There was one absurd candidate that couldn't bother to come to the debate that kept commenting throughout, but he's relevant, But it was it's that sense that we're I fear we're losing something in our country now. Maybe of the three thousand viewers. Maybe the ones who were honestly they're hoping to see answers and see what each candidate had to offer. Maybe maybe they just weren't frequently in the comments section. I hope, but I highly doubt it.

If you go back to your presidential debate and you watch those, and you just watch the scorecards that people are keeping online, and usually those fall into three different camps. The first camp, of course, is going to be the I'm on team whatsoever, I'm watching this debate just so I can gloat about how much better my candidate's doing than your candidate. That's probably the most prevalent that is your try camps. It could be because they truly believe

in the candidate. It could be because they are blinded by party allegiances. Those are some of the factors that we see that go into the folks that come on to comment. The other one are the sky is following people. They are so hyper critical of their own candidate that no matter how good he or she is doing, they will be hyper critical of the very person that they are supporting. They also do this because in many ways they don't maybe fully want to don't want to admit

to their friends that therefore the other candidate. They want to still be seen as on both sides and be objective, but they clearly are not objective. But by trying to create this illusion, they're being more critical of the person that they are more inclined to support. They too, are

following into a different sect of tribalism. And the last is the pretentious crowd, the ones who just want to be critical of everyone and want to poke their chest out because they might be smarter than everyone else in the room. They want you to know that they're smart, and they want you to know that if they were on that debate stage, they would be better suited than others. But I'm not going to run for office. I just would rather sit there and point out that I could.

Those folks are their own little tribe. Most people aren't one hundred percent sure which way they're going to vote, especially if it's in a primary debate. They don't want to be caught picking sides by anyone, but at the same time they want to point out how smart they are. So that's the third segment of these debate watchers that you typically see now. If you go back in time, debates had more meaning if you go back to the days of the Lincoln Douglas debates, those were lengthy, long

debates that could have swayed elections. That's not what we're getting nowadays. What we're getting now, as I said, we're getting the rush to the sound bites. But we're also getting is a group of people that are sitting down watching these debates that have already made up their mind. They're not undecided. They're not folks that you're going going to grab that are trying to figure out who they

might vote for. Now, these people that are watching these debates mind is firmly made up, maybe with good reason, and a lot of times probably just merely tribalism. And that's the inherent problem. Because I personally think debates are a good thing. I think we need more of them. It was nice to hear that both of the candidates that bothered to show up to the debate last night both would like to do more, and I'm strongly encouraged them to do more because, for one, call me a nerd.

I enjoy debates, especially when they're civil, especially when they are driven by actually substitutive questions like last night's debate. Was I want to see more debates. But the problem is we have a public that has got such a small attention span. We've got a public that barely wants to pay attention to a show that they claim to

be invested in. So how are you going to get them to be invested in a political debate when they're probably just going to show up an election day and click the box of the name that they recognize the most, or the box of the name that sent them the most mailers attacking the other guy's name. That's the way these elections work. Substantive ideas have taken a back seat to its tacks and nonsense. That doesn't mean that there aren't substantive things that might be considered an attack that

you can bring up. Like if there's questions about a candidate's record that is substantive, it should be brought up, It should be brought to the limelight. There are questions about shady dealings that a candidate might have had in the past, substantive bring it up. But we move away from that so much, and we're just don't want to

listen to the actual debate. Our minds made up. We're going to vote for candidate A or candidate B and it doesn't matter what comes out, and it can be hard, stone cold facts, but when we look at it, we go, well, that's just that's just the other attack. Sometimes it is, but a lot of times, especially when brought up against an entrenched incumbent, they could be truthful or not necessarily

an entrenched incumbent. But if it's somebody running that has a record from a previous office and it's a record that's less than Steller, that also is fair game. But we don't want to hear it because again, we are driven by that tribalism. We're driven by our belief that our guy is infallible, that our guy is not going to be in the wrong in any way, shape or force. And that goes back to the inherent question about debates.

Are debates as meaningful as they once were? And the simple answer is no, they absolutely are not, and that's sad. Debates are probably one of the best measuring sticks we have to see how a candidate does under pressure, because whatever office they're running for is going to bring great pressure with it. Whatever office they're running for is going to be a very difficult They're going to be very

difficult decisions. There are going to be times where a spotlight is shown directly on them that they don't necessarily want to have shown on them. And by being able to show that you can deal with these moments, by being able to show that you can deal with these instances, you might be showing folks that you are more qualified for the job than may they once thought you were. So, yes, we're losing something with the loss of debates, with the

loss of attention on the debates. I enjoy them still, but they are not really swaying people when it comes to who they're going to vote for. The moment they turn on said debate, their mind was already made up. The moment they turned on said debate, they'd already picked aside. And if you don't believe me, just turn on social media read the comments nearing debates and you can see

that loud and clear. And if you're trying to watch the debate with an objective open mind, even if you've already made your decision, but you're trying to objectively score the debate for the debate standpoint, there are a lot of times you're probably left scratch your head because you know the other guy might have got the better of the person you like right there, right then on that question,

and you're questioning, why why aren't they saying that. Are they that much of a homer that they can't admit when their guy got the got beat in a question? Simple answer is no, they cannot. They can't fathom it. They have to be right, and since they're right, that's a uh. That's that's the sad part, and that's why debates aren't as compelling as they once were, as they should be. It's sad, people, it's sad. But that's where we are today in our country. That's where we are

today in this day and age. How do we get the debates back? How do we draw them back to the point that they once were. How do we get them back to a level where they're impactful, where they're meaningful, where people are watching the debates and helping form decisions. I don't know. As we have more and more content to digest as a society, it may be a lost art.

It may be one of those things where the best candidate isn't always going to be the one to get elected if we fall towards debates because style a lot of times Trump's substance. But the bigger point is, how do you get people that aren't paying attention until election day? How do you get them to tune in to the debates in the first place. And then we've got the other issue when it comes to debates. As I pointed out, this mayoral race that I was talking about is a

four person race. Only two of the four showed up to participate, three were scheduled, one not showed one the one I mentioned before, who was a commentator during the debate, simply just never acknowledged it was existing when invited. This is part of the problem, especially on bigger stages, where

incumbents often refuse to debate. Maybe it's because they have such a big lead that they look at it and go, well, the only thing that could happen if I were to sit down and debate is I could harm myself, So I'm not gonna do that. Or there's an old versus young contrast, and they don't want that pictured on the

screen because they understand the style is already lost. So that's another issue is the fact that all too often we see incumbents hide behind their incumbency and hide behind their poll numbers and refuse to engage challengers in debates in the first place, So that makes debates less impactful because when they do happen, they're normally just larger races, like presidential races, and people just aren't watching or they've

already joined a tribe. It's frustrating because, for one, I think that we should be forcing candidates into debates, and I personally think that anybody seeking public office that is un willing to face their opponent on a debate stage should not be considered for the office. But sadly, we reward incumbents every year for being cowards. Sadly, every time an incumbent refuses to participate in a debate, there's no punishment to them. It is a strategy that has been very,

very beneficial for them. It's sad, it's frustrating, and again, I don't know how to fix it other than to put rules in place to force candidates on a debate stage. But until we see some substantive changes not just in the way that we consume content, but also in the way that we are pushing candidates to be as transparent as possible, I don't know that it will change. We need something that will drive these candidates to get on

that stage. I don't know what that is. Maybe there's state law, maybe there's other ideas you can come up with, but it is usually in an incumbent's best interest to avoid the debate stage because when they get on that stage, they have a lot more to lose. They have a lot more to lose, and who knows. Now, before I wrap this one up, as I said, this is going

to be a shorter show. That's the reason why all the ads were upfront today, I do want to talk about something, and some of you are gonna get mad at me, because yes, I'm going to be critical of Donald Trump here, because this was a major sticking point for me in his first term. And this is something that I was hoping that with the shackles removed of having to seek reelection, that we wouldn't see as much.

But Donald Trump is once again endorsing establishment candidates. We saw it with his endorsement of Lindsey Graham, who I know has had his nose shoved directly up Donald Trump's rear, but not necessarily the type of candidate I want to see reelected. Then, of course, in my state, we see him endorsing Cindy Hyde Smith trying to ensure that she has no challenger and that no one else jumps in

to run against her. What we need out of Trump is we don't need him Willy Nelly throwing out these endorsements of the very swamp creatures that he told us he was there to drain their existence. There's been a lot a lot more good being done under Trump's administration at the start of the second term. But as I told you a long time ago, I'm going to be critical when I disagree. I'm not going to hold my tongue,

and this is one of those instances. And I'm sure if I start to go down the list of Trump endorsements for Senate or congressional races, I'm sure I'll find others. But the most egregious by far is the Lindsey Graham. Because Lindsey Graham's a moderate at best. He is a true down the wool rhino. He is not a conservative. Yet here we have Trump standing up there and endorsing him, and that's frustrating. The Hyde Smith one's frustrating merely because

it came before an actual challenger. It came to try to discourage a challenger which tells you she was probably vulnerable. But Trump doing that and jumping out ahead of it is a protection bid for someone that I don't think has done much of anything. Now. She's egregious as the other senator from Mississippi, no, but she's also not doing anything that I would think would warrant endorsement from anyone outside of those who those lobbyists who keep her pockets lined.

But here we are, and this is the very thing that I wanted to see less of. And here we are, not even one year in, only a few months in, and we're already getting our first round of bad Trump endorsements. Hopefully he'll get away from that. Hopefully some of this is just friendships that have been formed personally, unless it's taking down a swamp creature. I'd love to see Trump stay out of some of these. I definitely wish he would not endorse before the field has been made clear.

But that's the game, and he is still playing the game even though he can't seek reelection. That's a major issue I have with Donald Trump. It is an issue I'll continue to have because I just don't like how the guy that wants to drain the swamp constantly endorses it. Does that mean I think he's a bad president? Does that mean I don't like Trump? No, not in the slightest. But we have to call out any politician when we

disagree with him. We have to point out the times when they are wrong, and in this instance, endorsing Lindsey Graham is wrong. Endorsing Rhino's is wrong, especially when we look back at the history of some of your bad endorsements Graham, Mitch McConnell, John McCain. We can go down a list and you have multiple bad endorsements, and yet we had a hope that you would steer clear of some of these bad endorsements that go around. But you're not. I mean, right out the gate, you're already giving us

a couple of bad ones. I'm sure they're more out there that I just hadn't seen yet. But this is the problem. And again, I would love to see politicians already elected office to stay out of endorsing within primary elections. I would love to see them stay on the sidelines, let the primary play out the way that it needs to.

We're never gonna get that. And I can assure you that if there is a strong challenger to either of the two senators I mentioned, I can assure you they're not going to step on the debate stage with them, especially not now, because they've got the endorsement from Donald Trump. That endorsement still carries a lot of weight. And because they have that endorsement, they know they can hide behind it. They've probably already made sure that they're going to get reelected.

And it's frustrating because, again, if we're ever going to change, if we're ever going to take back this country, there are certain incumbents out there that we need to get out of office. Lindsey Graham is at the top of that list. But sadly, as long as Donald Trump plays this game with incumbent establishment Republicans and the public still values his endorsements the way that they have proven to in the past, we're not going to see us swamp drained.

We're not going to see a substantial change. And that's sad to me. That's extremely frustrating because again, we expected more, We expected a lot different. Maybe that's on us. Maybe we shouldn't expected more, Maybe we shouldn't expected a lot different than the first term when it came to these endorsements, But we did, and maybe we'll see it down the road, But the first two I hear of looked way too much like more the same Anyway, guys, this has been

the right Side Radio Program. Next week hopefully we'll be back to normal with a full hour long episode. I wanted to keep this one short again. Check it out hopefully if you're listening to this on Thursday. Later today, you'll be able to watch the newest episode of Chris McDaniel's America and we'll be able to sit back and

talk about more stuff. But ask yourself that question. Do you watch the debates you still that they help you make your decision or you're one of the ones just jumping on social media to make sure you're seen with your tribe clamoring your support. I think we know what most people fall into in that camp. This has been the right Side Radio Program. We'll see you again real soon.

Escape tomorrow, River Resort. Hey, everyone, and this is Jack fairshawd SO the right Side Radio Program and license reviewed and I want to talk to you for a second about my pillow. My pillow is quite simply the finest pillow on the market. My pillows patented interlocking fills adjust to your individual sleep needs regardless of sleeping position. This innovative fill then holds that position all night, helping you

fall asleep faster, stay asleep longer. The founder and owner of Mine Pillow, Mike Lindell, personally guarantees that my Pillow will be the most comfortable pillow you'll ever own, and I'll add my own guarantee as well. And right now you can get up to eighty percent off of all my My Pillow products, including bed sheets, slippers, towels, down comforters, mattress toppers, even coffee when you go to MyPillow dot

com and enter the special promo code Midnight Ride. No space in between Midnight and Ride, and remember enter the promo code m I D N I G H t R I d E and save big while getting the best night's sleep you've ever had. The Midnight Ride the home of the anti establishment movement. This network features great programming such as Chris McDaniels, America, God and Country, The Right Side Radio Show, Paul Revere's Liberty Layer, and many more coming soon. So check out the Midnight Ride today.

Head to the Midnight Ride dot com and check out all the amazing content