{"id":660,"date":"2012-10-18T20:24:10","date_gmt":"2012-10-18T20:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/joecarter\/?p=660"},"modified":"2012-10-18T20:24:53","modified_gmt":"2012-10-18T20:24:53","slug":"why-presidential-debates-make-us-dumber","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/joecarter\/2012\/10\/why-presidential-debates-make-us-dumber\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Presidential Debates Make Us Dumber"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Over on the Acton Institute\u2019s Powerblog, I explain why presidential debates make us dumber:<\/a><\/p>\n

This is why presidential debates are\u00a0designed<\/em>, albeit unintentionally, to make us\u00a0dumber<\/em>. Candidates are expected to take maddeningly complex subjects, fairly present their opponent\u2019s position and explain how their position differs all in 2 minutes or less. While such a task is clearly impossible, to even make an attempt requires stripping all relevant context from consideration. A \u201clow-information voter\u201d\u2014who by definition is already unaware of the relevant political context\u2014that watches a debate comes away, as Dylan noted, with less factual information than they stated with. They are, in a very literal sense, made dumber by watching the debate.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over on the Acton Institute\u2019s Powerblog, I explain why presidential debates make us dumber: This is why presidential debates are\u00a0designed, albeit unintentionally, to make us\u00a0dumber. Candidates are expected to take maddeningly complex subjects, fairly present their opponent\u2019s position and explain how their position differs all in 2 minutes or less. While such a task is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1213,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy Presidential Debates Make Us Dumber<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Over on the Acton Institute's Powerblog, I explain why presidential debates make us dumber: This is why presidential debates are\u00a0designed, albeit\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/joecarter\/2012\/10\/why-presidential-debates-make-us-dumber\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" 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