i do think extreme lack of entertainment value has been a practically bad aspect of american political discourse for a long time, and i trace the real total boredom to the clinton era. bill was a good speaker and better than most at presenting the focus-grouped, consulted phraseology, but he is remembered way too enthusiastically. but he got us to the position where you go with whatever's polling, and say as little as possible, and always try to short-circuit your opponents by apparently absorbing their values or exceeding them, as in the crime bill (that'd be a good nickname).
but look, was it wrong that martin luther king or abraham lincoln was a spellbinding orator? was that important in motivating and persuading and moving people? alright compare that to al gore circa 2000: taking no positions, including nothing about climate. doing absolutely nothing but focus-grouped sentences. safety, strategy, extreme cowardice, no convictions that would actually motivate him to passion, unless passion was polling, then he'd simulate. so, is it bad for democracy when it is impossible to pay attention to what leaders are saying, or when that are not saying anything, yet saying the same thing over and over? apathy is the only possible and the only rational approach. think about pericles, or the way aristotle conceived rhetoric: as bound to truth as well as to persuasion.
i'm thanking don for bringing the personality, the definiteness, for taking chances, for speaking his own words, for not having a gaggle of mediocrities feeding him strategic advice. other people can do that too; sanders comes a lot closer to clinton to having some reality or belief or...anything at all.
