May 4, 2017
Last night’s presidential debate in France was full of personal invective and angry gesturing. Emmanuel Macron called Marine Le Pen a liar who says stupid things and “the high priestess of fear.” “You are the France of submission,” Le Pen said to Macron, interrupting him to insist that he not lecture her. She associated him with Islamic fundamentalists and Angela Merkel; he tied her to her father Jean-Marie and Vladimir Putin.
So it’s not just our debates that have turned nasty. Three drivers seem at work: the fading of broadcast television standards and practices, the rise of women candidates and gendered confrontations, and the rumblings of a populist-cosmopolitan clash that cuts across the left-right spectrum.
I expect to see the debates in the Virginia gubernatorial race get more heated, even without a female candidate.
And I don’t regard this trend as a good or bad development. In some exchanges between candidates, what’s lost in civility is compensated by a gain in substance.
