America is in a national emergency. Will the Democratic debate ignore it?

It's time for the moderators to get serious

Democratic candidates.
(Image credit: Illustrated | Win McNamee/Getty Images, olnik_y/iStock, Aerial3/iStock, Screenshot/Washington Post)

Tonight, 12 Democrats will square off in the fourth debate of the primary season. Hopefully they'll get better questions than they have in previous debates from moderators, who have so far seemed more interested in ratings and conflict than in exploring the full range of issues facing the country today.

With the White House bent on unprecedented and illegal obstruction of the House's impeachment inquiry, and America's putative Turkish allies given carte blanche by the president to slaughter the Syrian Kurds who rolled up ISIS for us, there is absolutely no reason for moderators Anderson Cooper, Erin Burnett, and Marc Lacey to fixate once again on modest and inscrutable policy differences between the various candidates' health-care plans. Not only does this incredible monomania about health care make for dull television, it has also framed the whole debate precisely the way that apologists for the status quo would like, with language designed to appeal to everyone's fear of a sudden disruption in their health care.

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David Faris

David Faris is an associate professor of political science at Roosevelt University and the author of It's Time to Fight Dirty: How Democrats Can Build a Lasting Majority in American Politics. He is a frequent contributor to Informed Comment, and his work has appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times, The Christian Science Monitor, and Indy Week.