Many of the bullshit explanations politicians give are perceived as perfectly acceptable to the wider public.
Some of them are, but a lot of the them aren't. Opposing gay marriage because you think it's violates a your religion is a straightfoward thing. There no lying or deception involved if the politician fulfills his promise and votes against gay marriage after the election. If you don't like those politicans you can elect other ones. The debate did it's job of accurately informing the voters about the politicians.
On the other hand a lot of things politicians evade questions and don't accurately inform the voters about their positions.
Right, tougher debate moderators could make it clearer what each candidate really believes by reducing deception and vagueness, but probably wouldn't have any effect on making straightforward dumb-but-popular views any less popular.
See this Newsroom clip.
Basically, their news network is trying to change the way political debates work by having the moderator force the candidates to answer the questions that are asked of them, not interrupt each other, justify arguments that are based on obvious falsehoods etc.
How big of a positive impact do you guys think that this would have on society?
My initial thoughts are that it would be huge. It would lead to better politicians, which would be a high level of action. The positive effects would trickle down into many aspects of our society.
The question then becomes, "can we make this happen?". I don't see a way right now, but the idea has enough upside to me that I keep it in the back of my mind in case I come up with a plausible way of implementing the change.
Thoughts?