Worst election ever

Successful democratic government requires citizens to have enough knowledge and information to guide legislatures. Popular sovereignty can only produce good outcomes if the public accepts responsibility. Our poor choice of candidates in 2016 shows what happens when the voters are uninformed and misinformed.

Misinformed and uninformed voters are one part of the problem of choosing leaders in our modern democracy. Media bias is another. Newspapers, magazines, television, and the Internet are the principal sources of information that people use to decide for whom to vote. A few media venues try to present useful information, but most let their opinions influence their reporting.

Since 1960, presidential candidates have “debated” on television. Prominent journalists ask questions to ostensibly elicit substantive remarks from each candidate. But three debates before the 2016 election show how little information is conveyed. In the first debate, the moderator asked questions to generate disagreements. The media followed by emphasizing personal disagreements. Almost nothing about programs or policies to deal with major issues could be ascertained. In the third debate, the moderator asked questions that required thoughtful answers from the candidates. He had modest success.

But instead of reporting on their policy positions, the media bombarded viewers and readers with stories about an 11-year-old crude and disgusting conversation by one of the candidates—the one that most journalists opposed. Surely, candidate character is important, but reporting concentrated on the character of only one candidate. And it gave much less attention to the more relevant aspects of character of each candidate, such as honesty.