So, did you watch the first debate? According to a story in the Hollywood Reporter the next day, Nielsen’s Fast Affiliate ratings indicated that a total of 45.8 million people tuned in.

The final number of viewers, those who watched online by streaming, may not be known for a while.

What we do know is that number represents a 23 percent increase in the number of people who watched over the presidential debate in 2012. According to the story by Michael O’Connell, the record for viewers was in 1980 when President Jimmy Carter debated Ronald Reagan. At that time, with fewer channels, 80 million Americans tuned in.

It’s interesting how some news outlets promoted the debate in the same way we would expect they would promote a boxing championship or a WWE steel cage death match. The reality of this year’s election is the probability of one of the candidates throwing a verbal knockout blow is slim, in my humble opinion.

The reason for that is for such a knockout to be perceived, an audience must be open-minded. They must be willing to concede that such an event took place.

One wonders then what 45.8 million people got out of the contest: information to make a decision or simply affirmation their candidate is the best.

According to a New York Times story written by Nate Cohn, there may be a factor of 15 to 20 percent of the electorate as undecided or supporting a minor party candidate. Were any of those voters watching and were they swayed?

Looking at my Trump friends on Facebook, the day after, the consensus is the Republican nominee for president “won.” They seemed to especially like the idea that Hillary Clinton brought up the need to “follow laws,” which played into their narrative that the former Secretary of State has broken laws.

Fact-checking posts from various organizations were abundant and pretty consistent that both candidates were not always accurate, with Trump leading that particular contest.

But does any of it matter? From the beginning of this long and torturous process there have been fact-checkers researching what candidates said. There have been reports about how much money they have raised and who has donated it.

I think that for only a small percentage of voters has any of this mattered. For many, many more this has been the election of who is the better of two evils. For some this has been the election of the test of his or her true faith.

For Clinton supporters not to admit their candidate has some significant issues, shows the nature of true faith and the very same applies to Trump supporters.

I suppose I’m a political atheist this year. I cannot invest faith into either candidate.  The problem is I see politics as not an arena for faith, but rather one for facts, especially this year.

The Internet has made “facts” much more abundant and much more slippery. One website will carefully annotate sources for a “fact,” while another will simply proclaim it. If that “fact” reinforces a person’s already standing belief, it is accepted regardless of pedigree and then repeated on social media.

This phenomenon is not new, but it seems to be playing a larger role in this election cycle, thanks to the importance of social media.

I wonder what is the real point of more debates for this election. I would like to believe they would supply information to allow people to make decisions. That may be simply wishful thinking on my part, or perhaps that’s evidence of my own political faith.