Erie, pa., September 17, 2024/Midnight – Last week’s debate between former president Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris was a spectacle to say the least. Whether you watched it on your own, went to one of the numerous watch parties or even just opened social media, you probably got the gist of it. I personally was able to watch it live in the Knight office, which is partly why I decided to write so passionately about this topic.

It started off innocently enough, with a few pokes at the opposing side and then it got fired up and chaotic. First, it was the bashing of the rallies and who gets more attendance, how one side pays for people to show and how the other bores them with talk of cancer-causing windmills?

What is the point of a debate if it feels like the only reason they even showed up is to bash the other opponent? Again, there were some generally civil topics but if you listened closely to the actual conversation, it was, “my opponent did this wrong” instead of, “what I am going to do right.”

Now, I knew that by willingly opening the browser and searching the debate that I was I for a real show, but what I didn’t realize was the fact that there would be dead puppies involved or that there would be a constant avoidance of questions.

Not only has the internet been highlighting this topic every day on my ‘for you’ page feed, but it has just been playing repeatedly in my head. According to former President Donald Trump there are immigrants eating pets in Springfield now. Excuse me…what?

Even though Vice President Kamala Harris did not accuse cities of eating poor little puppies there were some questions that I thought were completely jumped over, like the show dogs you see on TV.

When did our presidential debates become a performance based on how much each party hates the other party? Maybe it would be beneficial for the entire nation, and the future voters, to have real facts given to use and actual meaningful debates instead of what happened last Tuesday.

I am not saying that, by any means, I am an expert politician, but I don’t think that when we decided to have presidential debates we expected back and forth banter on who has more attendance at their rallies.

If I wanted to watch two grown adults go for each other’s throats while fighting for the same thing, I would watch the Bachelor. If I wanted to watch two people going head-to-head in a competition to win, I would watch Survivor.

Now to be fair, when I clicked on the link to watch the debate, I figured there would be some petty back and forth between the two presidential candidates, but never did I expect to be embarrassed by my own country’s presidential candidates.

Truly and honestly, as the next generation of adults, I think we deserve better.