You Shouldn’t Waste Time Watching the First Democratic Presidential Debate. Here’s 10 Better Things to Do Instead.

Photo by Miguel Henriques on Unsplash

The first debate of the Democratic presidential nominating process is happening this month, and I’m so devoted to winning in 2020 that I don’t plan on watching the debate at all. I don’t suppose that I’ll manage to avoid every tweet, article, and post about the debate, but I will do my best to ignore the debate entirely. There’s just too much other work to do. Yes, I want to defeat Donald Trump in 2020, but watching two nights of debates between twenty candidates vying for the opportunity to be the Democratic nominee for president doesn’t help accomplish that objective. I don’t think you should waste your time watching the first round the Democratic Presidential debate either. There are better things to do with our time.

Watching the debate won’t serve any useful purpose. Even if I thought that a single debate would let me identify the “best” Democratic candidate, I don’t believe that our nation will be doomed to another four years of Trump if the Democratic Party nominates our third or fourth best candidate instead of our best candidate. While I don’t put much stock in general election polling over a year before the election, there’s polling showing that each of the well-known Democratic candidates beats Trump in a head-to-head race. And bear in mind that there’s every reason to believe that as the less well-known Democratic candidates gain a bit more name recognition they’ll poll ahead of Trump, too. Even acknowledging the imprecisions of polling and the huge amount of time between now and the election, it seems that we are blessed with multiple candidates well positioned for the general election.

Most of all, though, I’m not going to watch the first Democratic debate because I don’t believe that there is a single Great Woman or Great Man amongst the Democratic candidates who will singlehandedly save America. That’s not because I hold the Democratic candidates in low regard, but because history teaches me that Great Movements matter more than Great Men. We remember the names of those who led strong movements of Americans, people like Lincoln and FDR, but we only remember those people because they were both up to the task of leading and blessed with sufficient support to be given the opportunity to lead at all. While I certainly intend to cast my own primary ballot for the candidate I determine to be best suited to leading a movement to change the direction of America, I think it’s much more important to work building the movement for them to lead than that we select the perfect leader.

My chief concern in June of 2019 is that, while Democrats have many candidates who are more than capable of leading our nation well, we may become so captivated by the drama of selecting between those capable candidates that we won’t do the hard work of building the movement we need to give any of those candidates a shot at winning and governing.

If we nominate the ideal candidate but don’t build the movement she or he will need to both win the election and govern, then we’ll be worse off in 2021 than we are in 2019. In the American system of government, with two chambers of congress and state governments that can slow or entirely stop a presidential agenda, it takes more than winning a single election to make change possible. Making change possible requires winning many elections, over and over again. That takes a Great Movement, not a single Great Woman. Sitting at home watching the first Democratic Presidential Debate isn’t a productive use of my time because it doesn’t help build the movement that we need, and that’s why I daresay it’s not a productive use of your time.

Rather than watching the Democrats debate and agonizing over small differences between the candidates, here are some other ways to spend your time more productively:

1. Register to vote. I suspect that most people reading an article are likely registered to vote, but if you aren’t registered, or if you’ve moved and haven’t registered at your new address, then devoting a bit of time to registering to vote is a far better use of your time than watching a debate. It wouldn’t hurt to help a few friends and family members register to vote, too. It’s easy to register using online resources.
2. Find out when your next election is. America is so into representative democracy that we have a crazy-quilt pattern of elections happening all of the time. Voting isn’t a one-time thing you do every four years, or even every two years. In many states 2019 features elections for city councils, county commissions, school boards, and other local offices. There are so many elections that there isn’t a single place online that does a good job of consolidating all of that information, but it is easy to type the name of your state, county, and town into an internet search engine along with the word “election.” If you do that, in 30 minutes or less you can know when your next election is happening and how to vote in it.
3. Volunteer for a local candidate. The president is on the news a lot, but your local government matters more to your day-to-day life than anything a president does. The people running for local office are the folks who will govern your kids’ schools, figure out how to fix neighborhood potholes, and administer the local justice system (among many other things). After you’ve figured out when your next election is, you’re probably just a click or two away from a list of candidates who have already filed for those elections. A little bit more time with a search engine will let you find a candidate near you worth supporting.
4. Be a local candidate. Local government is too important to leave to other people. If the filing deadline hasn’t passed, consider running for a local office in the next election. If you have missed the filing deadline for the next local election, consider running in the election after this. If you’ve located your local election office as part of finding out when your next election is, you also have online information or at least a phone number for a local election official that can be used to learn you you can be a candidate yourself.
5. Locate your local Democratic Party organization and get involved. If you’re passionate about electing as many Democrats as possible, you need to get involved with your local Democratic Party organization. Local Democratic groups are the people doing the work it takes to win elections, things like registering voters and offering rides to the polls on election day. You can track down your local Democratic Party organization by selecting your state from this handy online list of State Parties and then finding local party information on your State Party’s website.
6. Join an issue-oriented group, and then get to work. If you’re more motivated to work on a specific issue than you are to help elect Democrats in general, then you should join a group that’s working to advance the issue(s) that you care about. Sometimes this work is strictly educational, and sometimes it’s more political. There are so many issues that are critical to our future that I am hesitant to even attempt to create a list of the options, but I’m pretty confident that with a few minutes of searching you can find a group dedicated to the cause you care about most. If you can’t find a group dedicated to that cause, start one!
7. Donate to a local candidate. The mostly poorly funded segment of electoral politics today are progressive local candidates, and they tend to be running against relatively well funded opponents. Local candidates who support crony capitalism have a natural donor base — namely, the crony capitalists — but local candidates who want to make their communities better for ordinary citizens lack that inherent financial support structure. If you don’t want you city council to be in the pocket of wealthy interests, the best thing you can do is to donate what you can to a candidate for city council that isn’t in the pocket of wealthy interests. Local campaigns need donations. It costs money to print campaign literature, to pay for phone services, and to buy well-deserved donuts for volunteers. If you are able to make even a small donation to a candidate for local office, it will make a difference for our democracy.
8. Donate to your local or state Democratic Party organization. For reasons of both choice and necessity, Democratic Party organizations have been relying on small-dollar donors more and more and large donations (like the kind corporate PACs can give) less and less. If you want this trend to continue, you need to be a part of it. Many Democratic Party organizations have recurring donation programs, and those are well worth joining if you can. One of the most heartwarming donor conversations I ever had was with a young man who donated $3.00 a month to the Kansas Democratic Party. He couldn’t afford to donate any more than that, but he knew that by combining his donations with small contributions from hundreds of others the Democratic Party could hire field organizers to win elections. Your state, county, or other local Democratic Party relies on small donors like you to do things like hire staff, provide office space for campaign work, and turn out the vote on election day.
9. Donate to the Democratic National Committee. I know the Democratic National Committee hasn’t been many people’s favorite organization in the wake of the 2016 election, but after a change in leadership and a shocking amount of staff turnover, the DNC is actually organizing to compete nationwide all across the ballot. That’s expensive, and it’s going to take support from ordinary Americans like you if it’s going to succeed.
10. If you simply must watch the debate, do it at a watch party. Since a lot of people are interested in the first Democratic Presidential debate, many state and local Democratic organizations are holding watch parties. If took me up on suggestion number 5, you have tracked down a local Democratic group that may very well be hosting a watch party. Go join it! Or organize your own watch party. That’s a great opportunity to get to know the people you’ll be working with for the next election cycle and beyond!

I bet that you don’t have the time, resources, and energy to do every single one of those ten suggestions, but I’m sure that you can do one or two. If you do that, you can make a big difference for your country and your community — a much bigger difference than you can make sitting at home on your couch watching a debate.