To the outsider, the US elections present an absurd spectacle. How can a billionaire businessman who calls Mexicans rapists, routinely insults women, stereotypes black Americans, admires the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, threatens to bar Muslims from entering the country and to kill the families of terrorists, become a presidential candidate? Surely decent, responsible, fair-minded people would not give such a national and international menace a chance to become the leader of the free world?The rise of Donald Trump is, of course, a more complex affair than these questions allow. The outstanding book by JD Vance, Hillbilly Elegy, gives insight from his own life in a poor, rural family as to how resentful, white working-class communities, long ignored by establishment politics, became cannon fodder for crude, popular politicians who named the villains (blacks, Latinos, Muslims, foreigners) and promised the victims instant salvation if they voted for them - jobs, security, Christian faith and a "great again" US.Yet, despite the craziness of the political spectacle called the US elections, there is something of value from watching debates between the Republican and Democratic candidates for president.Monday's debate of "the class president versus the class clown", as one television host called it, attracted a record 84million viewers; and the audience at Hofstra University in New York was instructed to remain quiet for the duration of the event so the candidates could be heard.The US's potential leaders at these events get asked tough and direct questions about policy - about what they would actually do as the next president. They have to answer questions about national security, education, immigration, health, race relations, the national debt and student loans. Millions of people decide which leader to choose based on their policy positions on concerns of importance to them.How I wish we had this practice in South African politics, a practice in which leaders are not chosen by their parties but by the people directly.Just imagine if citizens could ask presidential candidates from the ANC, DA and EFF what their policies are on student funding in higher education. Instead of being satisfied with glib statements - take the money from X and give it to Y - ask the pretenders to the presidency where exactly the money would come from. Would it not be useful to press a candidate on why it is that more than 80% of children are in fee-free schools and yet the quality of learning outcomes remains disastrous? Or why we still have schools with libraries and laboratories within a short drive of schools with pit latrines and absentee teachers? What would the candidate actually do with the jobs-for-cash report on teacher appointments?And then imagine you had an electorate that made its decisions based on ideas and reason, on how candidates answered these questions and not simply on emotions, history or racial alliance. Both the US and South Africa are a long way from that pure ideal, but very few of us balance our choices in politics through a careful calculation of policy positions of candidates. Maybe the past is still too close, too painful for simple rational decisions to be made, such as policy X is better than policy Y and therefore I choose politician Z (okay, that's not exactly what I meant).But the last time I watched debates among parties contesting the municipal elections, they were a disaster and I wondered why the television stations even bothered to stage these events. When an ANC candidate spoke, the opposition audience booed and shouted them down. This happened in turn to the other parties. You struggled in vain to hear the positions of the candidates and, as they tried to be heard above the din, the politicians screamed at the audience and each other. There must be a better way of politicking that allows us to evaluate our candidates for public office based on who they are and what they believe about us, the country and our collective futures.If we had this practice we could ask presidential candidates: How are you going to resolve this dangerous standoff with militant students that is incinerating our public universities? A small number of militants want free education, which is not possible on a sustainable basis in this kind of political economy; and since they are not hearing "free education, period", they are prepared to burn down our universities. How are you going to resolve this? The candidate that can answer that question will get my vote...