In May, candidates for office in the U.S. Congressional District 14 held their first virtual debate ahead of the June primaries in New York using the Zoom video conference platform as the stage for the four contestants, including incumbent Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and a moderator.
Now that the U.S. President Donald Trump has contracted the coronavirus, it’s not immediately clear how the remaining two debates which has been scheduled for Oct. 15 and 22 will hold. But, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is pushing for them to hold, but remotely.
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“It should go forward,” McConnell said in a radio interview, The Hill reported Friday. Hopefully, the president feels up to it and, you know, they can work this out remotely.”
The idea of a Zoom debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden is not that outlandish, as calls for Zoom debate was on the rise even before Trump tested positive for the coronavirus.
Looks like that will work very well considering that Zoom has a muting feature, and that can be used to control Trump’s interruptions and moderate uncontrolled anger. The Commission on Presidential Debates had announced it was looking at changes to the format “to ensure a more orderly discussion of the issues.”
It won’t be surprising if the change becomes moving from an IRL space at a university or event hall to computer screens, that to an extent will bring in control.
Moreover, U.S. House of Representatives Congressional districts has been using Zoom as a debate stage since in-person gatherings were deemed unsafe starting in March. The University of Mary Washington hosted the Virginia 1st Congressional District debate last week.
Florida’s Congressional District 19 debate also held on Zoom in May. The Massachusetts 4th Congressional District had a Zoom debate in July that was organized by students in the district, which was also streamed on social media like Facebook and Instagram as Live event.
More so, Connecticut’s 5th Congressional District will be hosting a Zoom debate next week. Watching the District 14 debate ‘Ocasio-Cortez won the primary election, btw’ on YouTube shows these Zoom events aren’t that noticeably different from a televised, in-person event.
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Wondering how the security aspect will be handle, no worries as Zoom has tightened it loopholes considering that since the start of the pandemic more and more critical events rely on Zoom for their meetings. Immediately the president is strong enough to debate, Zoom may likely be the stage.
