Debate in America is Over
Debate in America is Over
Oratory and intellectual engagement have devolved from "debate" into car salesman charm and vomiting words at maximum WPM.
This article was originally published on November 30, 2023, the night of the Newsom-DeSantis debate. As with all of my writing, it reflects only my personal opinions, and not those of any of my employers, associates, or friends - as if they’d want my opinions, anyway.
The debate between DeSantis and Newsom is tonight, though I wouldn’t blame you if this post served as your only reminder.
I’ve only been reminded of its existence due to a persistent chevron that Fox News has kept on screen all week, as if it’s proud of the dead, rotting corpse it’s dragging in the doggie door. “Look! I’ve brought something for you!” Fox is saying while bringing in little more than a vector for disease, maximizing the exposure of a man who has turned his entire state into a drug den, circled by looters who are picking at the businesses and persons unfortunate (or stupid) enough to stay.
Why is Fox platforming Newsom? Certainly not for any intelligent political reason. For views, maybe? It isn’t easy to ascertain whether or not the Murdochs would have been personally involved in such a decision, though it seems that the media mogul is much less keen on the Governor of Florida than he was previously. Newsom has been sure to run laps on DeSantis in the meantime, which he’s only capable of because Newsom is playing the outside angle and refusing to validate rumors about his involvement in a last-minute swap plan for Biden.
The idiocy of other Fox News heads like Hannity can also not be overstated in providing him a platform in the spin room. Hannity, who should know better, tried to check Newsom on oil and gas production under Biden by quoting specific leases and amounts, to which Newsom had the higher hand on him. Nevermind that Hannity could have cited the fact that the regime (and even Biden’s 2020 campaign) had been making, and now is openly implementing, overtures about destroying all offshore oil and gas drilling. Hannity, however, still lives in 2003, and is incapable of grappling with the fact that the Democrats now have a well-and-truly psychopathic, no-shame liar as their heir-apparent. Hillary Clinton was the arch-antichrist back then for most conservatives, but even now, Newsom gives her a run for her money with his gimmick that voters fall for — slicked-back hair, smiles, and ability to lie shamelessly.
On this basis alone, combined with the fact that DeSantis has — we’ll call it less than perfect charisma — makes debating an automatic loss unless he absolutely crushes it. You see this with the analysis of everyone surrounding the DeSantis campaign, including people like Will Chamberlain, Pedro Gonzales, etc — whom I respect immensely, but simply don’t get it. You know who does get it? An anime-avi with 2,000 followers who gets banned every 6 months.
Is it crass? Of course. But, as it goes, if you come at the King, you best not miss. DeSantis can offer everything he wants to, but unless he runs on what truly distinguishes him, which is unflinching, unforgiving competency in governance, unbound by controversy, then there’s no point in him running. DeSantis cannot run a “traditional” presidential campaign in the same way that Greg Abbott could never run a traditional campaign. Voters don’t find DeSantis charismatic, and they wouldn’t find a governor in a wheelchair charismatic either.
Don’t like that? I don’t either — but the wisdom of the median voter is the arbiter of whether something “works” in American politics. This sort of politics can only survive at the state level because of the increased effectiveness of money at the state level, which is something the Presidential campaigns don’t have. This is why the idiocy of this debate frustrates me beyond total belief. I think DeSantis has realized he can’t run a traditional campaign, and is now trying to stomp Democratic governance by getting on a Fox News stage and citing numbers and statistics. If he does this, he will lose.
California businesses are fleeing en masse due to looting. Drug addicts loom on every major thoroughfare. Camps of tents as far as the eye can see under highways and in parks. Children are being mutilated at the hands of surgeons who aren’t good enough to do Hollywood facelifts, so they instead lop off genitals. Racial grievance politics and reparations schemes preparing to bankrupt the treasury. Brownouts and water shortages loom over because the state fails to build infrastructure. The HSR still isn’t built and is now 10x more expensive than was originally planned. California is a disaster zone that defies designation as such because it’s technically “self-governing” — though only just, with its endless mail-in ballots and voter delivery machines in the ghettos.
You can cite statistics of the above if you want to make the point, but it doesn’t matter. If DeSantis gets bogged down in the statistics of governance of the Biden regime or tries to talk about inflation in a technical sense and how “reduction” of inflation doesn’t reduce costs, he has already lost. If DeSantis gets bogged down in Biden allegedly “funding” Iran or Hamas, he has already lost. If DeSantis gets bogged down in anything relating to the 2020 election, he has already lost. The average voter in American democracy is too stupid to understand any of these things with nuance, and that plays to Newsom’s advantage here.
Even if DeSantis tries to press Newsom on California’s measures during COVID, Newsom will play dumb, or say that it was up to the localities, cities, or counties — as he has done previously and will continue to do. California and Florida had the same statistical outcomes after COVID, with deaths and all, but California took a sledgehammer to businesses and civil liberties. But Newsom does not care, because he aspires to be a tyrant, seated behind the Resolute. He will never repent for what he did, and will perhaps slightly pivot his current actions — play the moderate position on transing the kids, defunding the police, etc etc.
But all of this assumes that the American public even gains anything from a “debate” — as if previous presidential debates weren’t mired in controversy, such as the debate moderators playing defense for liberal frames and Biden’s pay-for-play scheme, or the denial of existence about the laptop from hell? Debates are meaningless now, even at the primary level. Few are convinced, and those that are convinced on entirely meaningless grounds.
The plethora of op-eds from outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, claiming that Nikki Haley now has some right to be Trump’s 1-on-1 competitor due to being more “likable” and “serious” during these primary “debates” are meaningless because those traits displayed during the debates are anything but positives. Haley’s performance is a product of a smidgen more “natural” charisma, being the only woman on the stage, and donor bucks funding endless debate prep and phrase poll-testing for maximum audience cheers, even if they don’t make any sense. They aren’t being won on a policy basis, and for that reason, they’re useless. We’re viewing a debate to see whom we would rather have govern us, not who can whip flashy quips out in their allotted 30-second intervals. In debate terms, she’d get medium-high speaks but lose the round — decisively.
The tradition of “debate” in the American sense has been corrupted alongside all of this. Presidential primary and general election debates have degraded the idea in the average American voter’s mind, not that they cared much for the substance in the beginning. American history teachers, the country over, teach that JFK won the 1960 debate against Nixon because he “looked better” on television. If that’s the metric by which JFK won an election, then should we even have debates in the first place?
American high school and college “debate” have been the creators of many of today’s politicians, lawyers, and judges — a fact that associations, such as the National Speech and Debate Association, proclaim loudly. While these organizations may have been the progenitors of “lively” debate in the era of some of their more aged and esteemed alumni, recent “graduates” of the NSDA programs and leagues — such as National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan — came about in a different era, in a way that fully encompasses and describes much of our tremendous dysfunction.
High school debate has been horrible for quite some time: probably since the 80s, almost certainly since the 1990s-2000s when people like Jake Sullivan would have been making the rounds in being “champions” in the leagues. James Fishback, of his league Incubate Debate, has done multiple pieces through the Free Press (Bari Weiss’ publication) covering the degradation of High School debate that he’s seen firsthand. I have received nothing from Fishback to promote his league, Incubate Debate, but it at least seems more promising than NSDA — and for that reason, I would suggest anyone interested to check it out.
In my high school years, from freshman to junior year, I also competed — and did reasonably well. I qualified for the state Texas Forensics Association (TFA, the state league for non-UIL debate) championship as a freshman, a reasonably difficult task, and then had two years of similar performance — state qualification, but not much advancement once there — before quitting my junior year for a variety of reasons.
One of which was that my team, and most of my competitors, seemed to dislike me personally (probably for political and personal reasons - and looking back at myself, I understand the dislike on the basis of the second reason), and the other was that the activity was no longer fun. In my junior year, I and my partner encountered multiple instances of opponents cheating (or certainly behaving in unbecoming ways - this was before they allowed internet in rounds!), judges who seemed hellbent against us (two white males), and other foul play. Our preferred event, “public forum”, is specifically intended to be publicly accessible, with minimum jargon and “debate technique” such as spreading (speaking as fast as possible while remaining barely comprehensible to even the most trained of ears: see a wonderful example here) — though, in the later years and at high-stakes tournaments, both become unbearably common.
This, combined with the increasing political polarization of judges during the Trump years (which began during my time on the team — and yes, I reveled in his victory perhaps too much) displayed just how unhinged things could get. Judges would wholesale reject arguments from any conservative think tanks they could recognize by name (by memory, I believe the Center for Immigration Studies, specifically Steven Camarota, would result in instant losses), language policing became unbearable, and race became a central point in debates that I witnessed firsthand — debaters bringing forth their identity and skin color into constructive arguments instead of actual contentions.
“Vote affirmative to dismantle white supremacy” — as if that was ever going to convince a normal person, whom PF was designed for (or maybe, given the modern, median, illiterate voter, it would). But instead of a normal person, it was a former CX or LD kid judging the round with their incessant, always-present politics and “experience”. Given the choice of rational argumentation, or voting to “end white supremacy”, of course, they’d vote affirmative. What’s the point?
For those who want to see what a typical “Public Forum” round looks like at the highest levels of national competition, please, watch the video below. You will be sorely disappointed, and even more horrified to find out these morons will find their way into Ivy Leagues, bureaucracies, and political offices and staffs, as seems to be the natural path. I can name several of my former teammates who have done exactly that — and hell, I guess I’m doing the same, though I hope I’ve sufficiently repented for the sin of being a Debate Kid. Worse still, it seems they even stopped wearing suits and ties, which I had to do in all my rounds.
In short?
DeSantis shouldn’t debate Newsom because Newsom doesn’t deserve it. Progressive ideals have destroyed California. To offer to debate a man who deserves nothing but absolute contempt, who looks you straight in the eyes and lies while he uproots everything good about the Golden State, is ill-fated. It would be more fitting for the former Navy SEAL DeSantis to challenge Newsom to combat. He’d win more voters that way. America doesn’t care about debate anymore: we hardly have the intellectual capacity for it anymore. Whether that’s good or bad, you can decide.
None of this should surprise us - American “debate” and the average intellect has been rotting from the roots up for several years now. Sane parents and coaches should look at what “debate” is, and make a serious determination as to whether or not it’s worth participating in anymore. The premise of most debates is destroyed by the “tradition” that coaches and more senior team members encourage, and judges only reinforce it with their ridiculous paradigms and overt progressive politics. It’s not about convincing, or argumentation, or logic — it’s about feelings, disclosure, and twisting oneself into a pretzel over competing pillars of progressive/communist/socleft beliefs that are now common among American youth.
Did debate teach me skills? Maybe. But if Public Forum is resembling the Policy Debate of twenty years ago, then what’s the point of “Public Forum” at all? What’s the point of formalized debate if even the most publicly accessible format is completely incomprehensible? What’s the point of debate if nobody is there to be convinced? What’s the point of debate if it’s only teaching the worst habits and means of communication? What’s the point if the debaters are only there to lie?