But that's the thing about Republics and Democracies. Debates have nothing to do with educating people on beliefs and policies (or at least the specifics of it), and everything to do with catering towards the ignorant mass that our founding father's feared. I LOVE reading about everything and being informed, hardly ever watching TV news because of nonsense like this. Looking further at politicians political history only verifies this. They all change policy stances drastically based on what voters want. Bill Clinton was anti-illegal immigration, and so were the Democrats in the 1990's. Hillary Clinton used to think abortions should be "safe, legal, and rare." Now she is ok, as are Democrats, with it being common and as often as you'd like, regardless of the standards of the facility (look at the dems fighting to keep the St. Louis branch of Planned Parenthood open despite the MASSIVE numbers of women that have had to be rushed to the ER due to botched operations and safety conditions). The Obamas started their presidency out respecting traditional marriage before ultimately coming out swinging in support of LGBT. And it doesn't just happen with Democrats. Trump went from pro-choice to pro-life and mostly silent on LGBT issues (for fear of his voters turning on him). Both parties do it and the debates are where they test the waters with things to figure out which way their voters want them to go. They are the puppets and we are the puppet masters, but we know not what we do.

It seems the question of external policy was way more relevant to the public with the news these days than many people thought it would be, so Gabbard lucked out in the debates.

Warren did exactly what analysts wanted the most popular candidates to do: play your hand carefully and escape the debate unscathed. So I think she did well too.

I think it's clear that the overall "winners" of the night, in terms of whose poll numbers will likely improve as a result of their performance last night, were, in order, Julian Castro and Cory Booker, while Elizabeth Warren enjoyed a solid showing that will sustain her as well, and that if anyone truly "lost" last night, it was Beto O'Rourke, particularly for his early use of some combination of Spanish and pig Latin to answer a very simple question (to which end, I thoroughly enjoyed it when the Telemundo anchor later inquired of him in Spanish in a way that sounded sarcastic to my ears).

Julian Castro was the surprise of the evening for me, getting my attention early on by pledging to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment for women, and then sustained it throughout the debate over immigration and refugees, calling out Beto's opposition to decriminalizing illegal border crossings flatly. A couple really strong moments there that will definitely get him a well-deserved boost in visibility going forward. Cory Booker's emotional comments about gun violence in his community and argument for a national (optional) gun buyback program were another standout moment in the debate for me that I thought was powerful. Another was Elizabeth Warren's robust defense of trust-busting, which no other candidate is advocating the same volume of that she is. Those were some standout moments for me.

That said though, I also found the contents of this debate more alienating than I thought I would. I mean the candidates (most of them anyway; I'm not sure what exactly Amy Klobuchar and John Delaney were doing) clearly were tacking left this time around, unlike in any other of these debates I've seen to date, and that pleased me in a way, but also was weird in that, really for the first time ever, I felt like some of what the Democratic Party stands for today is just too fanatically left wing for my taste (which is saying something), just speaking purely for myself here if I can. I noticed, for example, that the audience cheered and applauded Tulsi Gabbard's robust defense of the Taliban and felt absolutely disconnected from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party in that moment. I mean yeah technically she was correct to differentiate between the Taliban and Al Qaeda, but to be frank, as far as basically everyone in my Poor Trump Town USA community is concerned, the Taliban is best known for harboring Al Qaeda in the lead-up to the 9/11 attacks and refusing to hand over the organization's leaders afterward, so it's not actually viewed as a good and positive organization whose intentions are especially trustworthy. Or another example would be Bill De Blasio's particularly striking 'anti-war' moment when he implied that perhaps we shouldn't have participated in World War II and just let the Nazis cook the rest of the Jewish people in their ovens; WW2 being one of only two military conflicts we've involved ourselves in to date that the general public doesn't regret.

It went beyond foreign policy though. I really disliked the talk of a carbon emissions tax, I mean just as a low-income working person who still uses a gasoline-powered car and has bills to pay. I think that the candidates should focus on addressing global warming through the expansive public works programs that have been proposed, not by making the lives of working class people needlessly harder than they already are. I also just don't agree with the candidates' proud and popular-in-the-room support of the Equality Act, which is the legislation that would outlaw all single-sex public spaces in America: single-sex restrooms, locker rooms, athletic teams, rape crisis centers, women's shelters, etc. Legislation similar to that was been passed in Canada last year some of the consequences have been really startling, like the de-funding of Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelter because they only hire women and only serve women and children. I highlight that case as a rape survivor myself because I wouldn't have gone to a shelter had it meant having to spend the night with grown men I didn't know. Not right after something like that.

There was also the specter of gun confiscations raised for the first time in a Democratic debate that I've seen this time around. Nobody supported such a policy, but I was caught off guard that one of the moderators actually suggested it. A ban on the future sale of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, universal and rigorous background checks for all gun purchases, and a voluntary federal gun buyback program are one thing, but I'm afraid I would have to object to an actual federal confiscation of firearms. I happen to be a hunter. There are woods nearby my house and, frankly, it's a common lifestyle in my particular community to take advantage of that fact to save money on food because we're not really the wealthiest people, generally speaking. Taking away options like that might make some urban areas safer I imagine, but it would be disastrous for the livelihoods of many people in smaller, rural communities like mine, including for my own.

On the other hand, one thing that very much pleased me about this debate was the attention that it drew to opioid addiction. Alcohol and opioid addiction are by far the most serious problems facing my community. I've lost a close friend to it. Yes, these drug companies that pass off some of the deadliest and most addictive drugs there are as just normal, harmless painkillers have blood on their hands and should absolutely pay a price for it! A very high price that includes imprisonment for their executives as far as I'm concerned. People here will listen to anyone who has ideas about how to address drugs, so I'm glad that was a topic of discussion. I sincerely hope it continues to be one in these debates going forward.

I'll add one more thing: I watched the debate with a small group friends and family and while my personal opinions were as stated above, the prevailing view in that small group was that the most agreeable candidates were Elizabeth Warren and Tim Ryan. Consider that a small sample of the Trumpland opinion. I mean for those who are interested in swaying a certain number of Trump voters to the Democratic camp anyway. No one here cares about whether things like trust-busting, increased access to health care, and increases in the minimum wage are framed as capitalist or socialist, nor does anyone here relate to talk of "Latinx's" with an X or the impending hippie dippie Age of Aquarius. What people here want above all is to be convinced that the given candidate for president understands and sincerely cares about them and is on their side. And yes, there are sides in life, to this community's lived experience. Warren and Ryan convey that aura. I'm just pointing it out.

Yeah, this bit is surreal. I mean it also has the old Assad-smear for Tulsi. Overall I have the impression this video and the comments were preproduced before the debate and they only cut in remarks from the candidates. That's all it had to do with the debates. And really, the show Beto and Klobuchar with citations about immigration, although it was the topic Castro really was killing. And Catro didn't get cited with that. Yeah, that video is a comment from bizarroland. Well done Washington Post, good report about this alternative reality.

I've been thinking about what John Delaney said about MAA and hospitals closing. NBC didn't fact check the statement on TV. Destiny anyone know if whar he said is true?

Julián Castro’s campaign said he’s received a “four-digit-percentage spike” in contributions to his campaign from last night. At least in the 2000% range. They’re still figuring out exactly how much.

— Alexandra Jaffe (@ajjaffe) June 27, 2019

That's also true for the school systems in the US. I read a report a couple months back that in a state in the US between 1985 and 2015 the teacher staff was stable (-1%), but the administration staff rose by 1200% and surpassing the teachers in numbers despite the latter  doing the actual work. No wonder the schools and hospitals ask for more and more money if they waste everything on excessive administration.

It's like an old Luxembourgish joke about why parking enforcement officers appeared in groups of 3:

So yeah, bring those down and the costs will go down significantly.

OMG, the comments to this made me cringe. Do we need Andrew Yang to put on his 'Math'-hat and explain that 2000% is not 2000 times the amount, but 20 times?

"so he went from $50 a day to $10,000?" - this guy takes it 200 times

"what's 2000 x 0"

But yeah, about the message, I think all probably got donation spikes given the exposure, but Castro did very well so he probably got more.

Yang mentioned this in an interview a few months ago when he was outlining his higher education plan. A big reasons for schools increasing their tuition is because there are more administrators and administrators take in a good paycheck. He basically wants universities to go back to the amount of administrators they had in the 90s/80s or they will lose federal money.

From $100 to $2000 (it's even obvious with your example, as 100% is 100$, so 2000% are ...).