WASHINGTON, DC—In an unprecedented development in the history of presidential debates, both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions have agreed to hold all debates in 2020 over the social media platform, Twitter. The proposal was met with near-universal agreement, given the platform's popularity in recent years.
The DNC and RNC released a joint statement together on Monday, explaining that "Given the current level of discourse we have in our politics, it only makes sense that we continue to keep it up using a platform that limits communication to 240 characters, allowing the candidates to simply repeat talking points over and over again without actually addressing any issue substantively. Although the platform is different, the practice is fully in line with past presidential debates where candidates avoid direct answers, and instead repeat focus-group-tested slogans and buzzwords until their time runs out."
The current proposal for the new debate format is to have a moderator pose a question to all invited candidates beginning at a designated time, and then the candidates can each address that question in the "tweet" format. This will be advantageous for several reasons, according to the conventions.
"This will not only allow for each candidate to have a few moments to compose their responses, perhaps actually leading to coherence, but it also lessens the tension that many candidates feel when their body language and appearance are being directly examined by audiences."
Proponents of the proposal are also excited at the prospect of not having to listen to each candidate spend a minute of each response posturing about somebody they met or thanking the person for asking the question, and other such nonsense. They hope that this format will ensure concise responses about issues and should keep candidates focused.
Opponents, however, argue that there will be no way to know for sure whether the candidate is tweeting or if it is a team composing the responses. Additionally, they worry that the debate will turn into a complete and utter horror show of personal attacks and trolling, citing literally every other interaction that has ever taken place on the platform.
In any case, the first debate is on schedule, and many candidates are exercising their thumbs to ensure they have the stamina for a full 2 hours of tweets that will not change anyone's mind about who they should vote for.
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