You turn on the TV ready to watch the Democratic debate. You are excited to hear what the candidates have to say about certain issues. However, as you watch the debate, you become more and more disappointed by the candidates yelling at each other. You think it’s going to get better but it never does. As the debate ends, you shake your head in disappointment: you wanted to hear about issues, but you mainly heard the candidates disparaging each other. 

Throughout the Democratic debates, there has been a recurring theme: candidates are constantly trying to bring each other down. In this year’s Democratic debate, Kamala Harris continuously brought up the past when Joe Biden opposed busing by the Department of Education, which was an effort to desegregate schools back in the 1970s. It’s one thing to bring that up once, but for Harris to criticize Biden about that multiple times was just unnecessary and unprofessional. Watching Harris attack Biden like this makes it hard for us to respect her.

In the second democratic debate, Tulsi Gabbard questioned the former actions of Harris. For example, she blocked evidence in favor of an innocent person on death row. While it may have been necessary to bring the issue to the attention of the American people, Gabbard kept going with multiple examples. While Gabbard had some valid points, continuously putting Harris down was going a little bit too far. Giving just one or two examples of Harris’ missteps would have been relevant and perfectly fine. Continuing on to give examples was just not needed since a lot of people want to hear more about current issues. 

While it is true that we should question everything, bringing up the same issue over and over again is not needed. When someone brings up a certain issue multiple times, it eventually loses its relevance. It becomes pointless and it doesn’t help anyone. This is why the candidates have gone too far. They should have just brought up the issue once and left it at that. The purpose of the debates is to inform the American people about current issues and to respectfully discuss how to solve certain problems. When the candidates turn the debate into a roast of each other they are missing the point.