I hear you @razgueado but don't you agree that debates in recent years have gotten exponentially sensational. It's probably necessary given the state of our collective ADHD.
Not exponentially, and not proportionally. What has changed are society's expectations. The transformation begins with the first televised presidential debate - which is not what you think it is. The first televised presidential debate took place in 1956, but didn't involve the actual candidates. Eleanor Roosevelt stood in for Adlai Stevenson, and Maine Senator Margaret Chase Smith for Dwight Eisenhower. Smith took great care to prepare for the debate, from content to appearance.
Roosevelt spoke the most, but Smith looked the best and got the zinger at the end, and Roosevelt was so pissed about it that she refused to shake hands with Smith.
Four years later, John Kennedy learned the lesson, Nixon didn't. Nixon was the better debater and the more seasoned politician, but took no care about his appearance. If you read the transcript of the debate, it's pretty clear Nixon won. But he looked like s**t, so guess who viewers thought won the debate?
From there it's been one long, steady race to the bottom, until we get to Donald Trump. And here's the thing about Trump - he didn't make America bitterly divided, he exposed the division, and the simmering resentment, for what it was. That he did it like a WWE huckster was a direct result of the influence of broadcast media. Trump fit right into what broadcast media - including the internet - as a whole had become. He ripped away the last vestiges of the rosy illusion of gentility in politics. Americans as a whole had abandoned the notion of gentility sometime around 1968, but the notion of "gravitas" still held sway over presidential politics, until Trump v. Clinton. Neither candidate had any gravitas. Hillary tried desperately to project some, always failing. Trump didn't bother to try. He knew it as an antiquated notion. He was a real estate hustler, a casino investor, a beauty pageant promoter, a WWE promoter, and a reality tv star. He knew for certain what the electorate valued, and gravitas was no longer it. Americans, regardless of political persuasion, wanted a streetlight. Trump gave it to them.
That's interesting. I guess that was just my perception. It's normal that every generation feels like things worsen with time. For example, they don't make music like they used to.
We went from a handshake refusal to where we are today. I feel like at least some of the feeling things have gotten much worse is legit.
Okay, but compared to what? J. Edgar Hoover being the source of rumors that Adlai Stevenson was gay? The Cuomo campaign against Ed Koch posting ads saying "Vote for Cuomo, not the homo"? Davy Crockett's implication that Martin Van Buren was either gay or liked to wear women's corsets? Thomas Jefferson's 1800 campaign alleging John Adams was a hermaphrodite? William Randolph Hearst's Yellow Journalism? Nixon's Plumbers and "ratfuckers?" Lyndon Johnson mucking about with the 1968 campaign? Joe Kennedy's shenanigans in JFK's various campaigns - everything from payoffs to ballot-stuffing?
What is so much worse now?
I'd suggest it's actually gotten better, at least better than the 19th century. In the 1800s you could get away with almost anything. Now? Can you imagine what would happen if Donald Trump asserted someone was a hermaphrodite? The lawsuits? The investigations? The interminable news cycles? Look at what Hillary's "Basket of deplorables" got her.
