Debate cartoons from the Fitz vault

Of debatable merit

Debates are not debates. They aren’t conversations. They aren’t discussions. There is no give and take. Debates are compressed sound bite skirmishes, punctuated with insults and volleys of unverifiable lies. The combatants generally use generalities irrelevant to the issues that are often poorly framed within asinine frameworks such as “Big Government” versus “Small Government”. Who wouldn’t prefer a discussion about the virtues of “Smart Government” versus “Stupid Government.”

And the issues. Honestly, I recall few of the great issue moments from debates. I do remember “There you go again”, “Where’s the beef?” and “You’re no John Kennedy.”

The cartoon below is just a cheap shot from this cheap shot artist about America’s discomfort with literate intellectuals. We’ll reject a brainiac for a maniac, to the sufficiently entertaining clown goes the spoils.

The cartoon below is from back in 2010 when I saw the future at a local debate I attended between Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, a smart sane centrist candidate and Jesse Kelly, an empty suit spouting right wing talking points. Kelly was backed by Tucson’s local right-wing talk radio loser and an army of evangelicals. Kelly brought with him to the debate his rowdy pro-life and Tea Party base, the kind of Republicans who would gut their party of moderates in the years to come. I saw the early power of the church-based Christian Nationalists on the local level nearly 15-years ago.

By the time McSally was debating the Kyrsten-1000-Sinema-X5 Android Arizona’s GOP was totally MAGAfied and McSally went McTrump on Sinema and came off as rabid as a bit bobcat while Sinema stuck to her automaton persona and won on the facts, and much more important to voters, she won on cool.

and we Americans know if you lose your cool…you’re history.

I expect Trump will bellow, bluster and howl like a WWF wrestler on speed. If Trump doesn’t gnaw on his podium and beat Biden over the head with his stool, I’ll lose a bet and I’ll have to unload the dishwasher for a week.

I am always wrong when it comes to judging the winners of debates. But then again I’m cursed with the progressive belief facts matter.

Some folks like my adult daughter will be playing debate bingo (see below).

While a few of my other friends will be playing drinking games, like the one I played a few years back and regretted.

May the best decent man who isn’t an authoritarian convicted felon win.