Spend time on social media and you will see debates with titles like “I destroy MAGA mom on vaccines” or “Conservative philosopher owns feminist student.” These popular videos focus on clip-worthy gotcha questions, one-line zingers and screaming matches edited for virality.
These “debates” would be unrecognizable to the Founding Fathers, who enshrined debate as a primary tool of legislative deliberation. Even the passionate exchanges of Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas, whose 1858 “great debates” about slavery drew crowds of thousands, are tame compared with today’s vitriolic exchanges. While Lincoln and Douglas exchanged insults, played to the crowd and took a few logical leaps, they could still communicate respectfully.
