Opinion: 3 Important Questions You Won’t Hear Asked in the Presidential Debates

In November 2020, Common Dreams published my op-ed “Three Questions That Didn’t Get Asked During the Presidential Debates (and Probably Never Will).” The article offered several probing policy questions that (I surmised) would never make it through the corporate media’s screening process. Sure enough, none of those issues were addressed in the widely televised debates in advance of the 2020 election.

But here we are again. As we approach the November election, I find myself once again reflecting on some of the urgent policy issues that always seem to get buried in the corporate media’s constant supply of irrelevant distractions. This includes but is not limited to endless and often relatively inconsequential and inconclusive polls, the character assassinations of the day, gratuitous speculation from talking heads supplying what one of my old college professors used to call “graceful monuments to the obvious,” and whole buckets of information overload that lack perspective and thoughtful analysis. The now nearly universal proclivity of large news organizations to emphasize horse-race politics combined with infotainment and political theatrics has produced conventions and debates that sometimes seem to have more in common with rock concerts or sporting events than venues offering the kind of thoughtful analysis of issues that are supposed to be the core of democracy.

Back in the day, all this character assassination used to be called muckraking journalism and it was primarily bottom-feeder publications that engaged in it. Now, we have supposedly well-regarded mainstream media outlets digging up as much dirt and negative trivia as they can find on candidates who are now expected to pass impossible purity tests. While, on the one hand, our reigning cultural amnesia almost guarantees that the lessons of the past will get memory holed, paradoxically, the unforgiving permanence of the digital realm and the internet also guarantees that no act or mistake on the part of any public figure is either forgotten or forgiven. It seems to go without saying that all of this turmoil generates far more heat than light. Given this sorry state of affairs and offered as a simple thought experiment, here are some questions that the corporate media should be asking candidates, not only in the presidential debates but also as a matter of course given the dizzying events of this most unusual presidential campaign.

Question 1: The Role of AI in the Economy and the Job Market

Although there’s a widespread public perception that AI was only developed by Big Tech, for many years the federal government has sponsored a huge AI development program working closely with and even funding the private sector. In 2024, Big Tech unleashed powerful but still poorly understood AI capabilities into the economy before their implications and impact on labor markets could be fully assessed. The federal government lagged even further behind industry in trying to come up with sound regulatory policies so that AI would not severely disrupt an already tenuous and unstable economic picture. It now seems abundantly clear that AI is indeed displacing all sorts of jobs ranging from customer service to professional positions in marketing, accounting, entertainment, and many other fields of endeavor.

Rather than facing and managing a problem that government itself helped create, Congress and the executive branch seem content to allow unelected technocrats such as Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, to formulate policy proposals and other much needed guardrails. In addition, it’s troubling that rogue AI is already acting as a chaos agent, can undermine the foundations of democracy by empowering hackers, and is further aggravating the crisis of information quality and validity that haunts our political landscape. In the larger picture, both robots and AI—with the apparent blessing of both corporations and government—are beginning to intrusively inject themselves into society, culture, and politics. Given all of these trends, what is your position on how AI and robotics will impact the economy and the quality of life in the U.S.?

Question 2: Privatizing the Healthcare System

The mass closings of Steward hospitals nationwide has dramatically highlighted state and federal governments’ failure in allowing for-profit and private equity companies to take over many aspects of the healthcare system. This company, which operated 31 hospitals in eight states, has now filed for bankruptcy and has been selling its hospitals to pay off creditors after years of mismanagement and profiteering by its executive team. Private equity firms have been making acquisitions in healthcare for years including ambulances, hospitals, and, more recently, primary care practices.

The corporate greed of these companies is appalling. They see the decline in healthcare offering opportunities for monetary gain even as they themselves contribute to that decline and government regulators do little to ameliorate the situation. Many citizens, through no fault of their own, are mired in medical debt. Reportedly, the largest use of gofundme in the U.S. is now for paying medical bills. In addition, the way that the Covid-19 crisis was handled—a topic now seemingly memory holed during the campaign—has also been a major factor in the downward spiral of healthcare quality. Given these realities, what is your plan for restoring reliable and affordable healthcare in the U.S. and getting for-profit companies out of the healthcare system?

Question 3: Out-of-Control Corporate Influence in U.S. Politics

The longstanding ripple effects from the Citizens United Supreme Court decision have dramatically altered the political landscape. Not only has it opened the door to outsized influence from dark money and billionaire donors but it has also allowed corporations to wield wildly disproportionate influence on government policies and legislation. This is a problem that threatens the very core of our democratic processes. Over the last few decades, corporate power has increased many times over and the takeover of U.S. politics has opened the door to corrupt practices and allowed corporations to place their interests over and above the collective interests and well-being of the public. Public opinion polls show this is one major reason why Americans now have such little faith in all three branches of government.

Because the most powerful and influential companies tend to be in the Big Tech sector, equally concerning is how technological control is being used to advance and consolidate this new “behind the scenes” power structure. We might view it as technologically-enhanced “back door” politics. The overall privatization of the public commons and the sweetheart deals that take place behind the scenes are now deceptively coded as “public-private partnerships.”

Many current and challenging societal problems can be traced to this corporate takeover. Further, a huge part of this scenario is the information control wielded by Big Tech and Big Media which have become our primary sources of political news and information. Given this situation, what is your position on the disproportionate control that corporations now exercise over our political system? What will your administration do to eliminate pay-for-play politics, and restore the kind of democratic governance that Americans deeply long for and deserve?

In what is undoubtedly one of the oddest and most convoluted elections in U.S. history, we seem to be in the position of choosing not only two presidential candidates but two alternate realities. It’s all the more important therefore that responsible and responsive probing of the top-of-mind existential issues faced by the American public be thoughtfully and proactively addressed by the media. Many Americans are already asking these hard questions in their minds and hearts. If this process can be broadened to embrace the public commons of debate and vigorous discourse, then perhaps we’ll see a glimmer of hope for real transformative change at this unprecedented crossroads in our nation’s history.

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Tom Valovic is a journalist and the author of Digital Mythologies (Rutgers University Press), a series of essays that explored emerging social and political issues raised by the advent of the Internet. He has served as a consultant to the former Congressional Office of Technology Assessment. Tom has written about the effects of technology on society for a variety of publications including Columbia University’s Media Studies Journal, the Boston Globe, and the San Francisco Examiner, among others.