The Need for Debate

About 167 years ago, the first of the Lincoln-Douglas debates was held. On August 21, 1858. The two candidates traveled around Illinois, debating, focusing on the issue of slavery. Slavery was the issue that divided the nation at the time.

Nowadays, there aren’t many debates. Most of what are called debates these days are strange little affairs orchestrated by broadcast media. Back in 1858, though, the candidates gave speeches. Lengthy speeches. And those speeches riveted the nation. Newspapers of the time rushed to print every word the candidates said, even though they were running for a local office.

Trump understands that a good long speech can rivet a nation. The broadcast media understands that to some extent too.

BUT NOBODY IS DEBATING TRUMP!

No one from any alternative viewpoint is willing to get up and be willing to be riveting for a good long time and actually focus on the issue or issues that divide this nation.

Trump has won the presidency of the United States twice. And still no one is taking him seriously enough to actually debate him. To argue. To lay out a fucking argument.

Back in the 1960s, there was a sitcom called The Dick Van Dyke Show. Mary Tyler Moore played the Dick Van Dyke character’s wife. When she was mad at her husband she would say to him, when he asked why she was upset: “Well if you don’t know, I’m certainly not going to tell you!”

This is how Trump opponents have approached Trump. If you can’t see why everything he does is horrifying, then they are certainly not going to tell you why it is! That would require like getting all passionate and debating and being real and apparently they’re not willing to go down authenticity road even if it kills the fucking country.

What they do instead is warn. This that or the other horrifying thing is going to happen. They may or may not have noticed that so many horrifying things have already happened that it really doesn’t make any fucking difference what horrifying thing you say is going to happen tomorrow. Today’s horrifying things have people busy enough. A warning is not a debate!

So you don’t get Abraham Lincoln lawyer-style closing arguments laying out the case for the prosecution in a coherent and compelling way. You get dog whistles but not debate.

It’s as though everyone left of the extreme right wing has lost all ability to express anything other than Neville Chamberlain style appeasement. Apparently, they are afraid to debate Trump, perhaps on the grounds they’ll come off like a doddering Biden.

This state of affairs is, in a word, PATHETIC.

What I want to see – what I expect to see – in the next few months, is for some young non-incumbent to step up to the plate and start using his or her words to DEBATE the issues that are dividing the country. I expect to see someone writing and posting and speaking and/or whatever the heck to reach an audience.

I don’t expect anything to come of the willingness and ability to actually DEBATE right away. What I expect is for someone to lay the groundwork to take over the Democratic party or Musk’s new party or whatever the heck and get the nomination next time around.

What I expect is for someone to address Trump’s actual record. To actually DEBATE it.

All across this country, regular people are pretty fed up with all kinds of things. They are getting, as Elon Musk put it, a ‘uniparty’ in response. They are getting a complete lack of true substantive debate or argument on the issues that divide the nation.

So now, in addition, to the rest of the stuff, we regular people have to get pretty fed up with, we now have to get pretty fed up with that lack of DEBATE. And stat.