What Went Down On Night One Of The First Democratic Debates

On the plus side, these questions have been very focused on policy substance. But I’m also experiencing a little whiplash—we’re going through so many policies so quickly, it’s hard to keep track.

In response to Nate’s point about the “battle” and lack of substantive disagreement so far — American parties are as ideologically unified as they have ever been, and yet things like this 20-person field happen.

Following up on what Julia wrote: It’s tricky for these candidates to describe a failing economy when so many Americans see the economy as strong. But Democrats (the main audience here) are split on the state of the economy. And of course Trump ran in 2016 talking about all the problems with an economy that most Americans saw as strong. And one popular interpretation of the election was that he’d connected with those “left out” of the boom times.