The assumptions of questions

Reporters like to think that any question they ask is inherently objective, but this is not how it works.

Reporters actually know quite well that it's possible to embed assumptions into how they ask a question to lead someone into a particular kind of response.

Last night, Presidential Debate Moderator Chris Wallace did exactly this. He repeated the propaganda line long-used by Democrats that Republicans “have no plan” for replacing the Affordable Care Act.

President Trump was having none of it. He didn't let that incorrect assumption stand for a minute, even if it meant interrupting the moderator.

Chris Wallace tried to recover claiming he wasn't part of the debate, but he had made himself part of it with that question and its assumptions. While he claimed to desire to be as invisible as possible in this process, he was, in fact, preemptively fact-checking the President even before he had a chance to respond.

The Affordable Care Act does not need a replacement any more than the Stamp Act that led to the Boston Tea Party needed a replacement. Tyranny is something to be thrown off, not refined.

Removing the individual mandate, as President Trump cited, indeed throws off much of the excess control of the American people imposed on them by ACA.