The public Congressional debates are performative, intended to curry favor with key voters, campaign donors, and media personalities. The substantive debates happen in private using completely different rhetoric. This is mostly fine in that it allows for policy decisions to move forward with compromises. The problem is that some members of Congress are unable to shut off their deranged public personas even in private back room negotiations.
> The public Congressional debates are performative, > The substantive debates happen in private using completely different rhetoric.
If we can't hear the substantive debates, voting becomes meaningless and performative too. Are we supposed to believe that we vote better when we don't know the truth?
While I accept that this is how it is done in practice, I think the unintended consequence is it raises the partisan temperature and further ruins the already abysmal trust of Congress.
There was always a performative aspect to the public debates but it really escalated after C-SPAN started televising everything. In principle citizens should be able to watch their legislature in operation but the effects haven't been entirely positive.
