Anyone else noticed that without Senator Sanders, discussion of issues has all but disappeared?

[Moonwalk]

100. I don't disagree that it's destructive, but let's be real here...

...if you got back to Jefferson vs. Adams, and read what one side said to the other in the newspapers (through surrogates, as it was considered uncouth for those running to attack each other personally), you'll find the back-and-forth letters remarkably like internet trolling--including being under pseudonyms! And the newspaper essays by one side or the other remarkably like some of the worst, most bias, most vile pundits we have today. Hannity's a cupcake compared to some of the late 18th, early 19th century commentators.

It was vicious, mean, personal, brutal. And barely at all on the issues vs. "entertaining." Of course, this was a period where fist-fights and, notably, duels weren't uncommon in the congress. Lincoln vs. Douglas debates were watched by picnickers as entertainment. Prior to television, this was drama. So, again, while I agree that the media, for it's first four decades (1960-2000 when Faux news influenced the Gore-Bush election) took elections very seriously and not as mere entertainment...and while I'll totally agree that being entertainment oriented is destructive....We can't really say, I think, that this is all that surprising. I think, alas, taking it seriously and focusing on the issues rather than the entertainment value was actually unique. Viewing it as entertainment seems to have been the norm from the get-go of our nation. We took a break for about thirty years, and have now gone back to what was much more common in the first 200 years of our nationhood.