Debate has always been a crucial part of any democratic system.
Even the Founding Fathers, including John Adams, argued that a republic could only survive if its people were educated enough, and free enough, to argue through their disagreements rather than have decisions imposed on them from above.
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That idea still holds. What’s changed is social media, which has replaced substance with virality — turning debate into a popularity contest instead of a pursuit of truth.
For many modern debates, the focus is no longer on listening to the other perspective or reaching some kind of common ground. Instead, debate has increasingly become a sport — a tit-for-tat contest where the goal is to score a viral moment that can be clipped and posted on TikTok.
But this also highlights a broader problem: Not everything needs to be debated simply for the sake of debating. A real debate needs a clear contention and some purpose behind it, not just an ungrounded claim. And even with a clear objective, you should still ask: Can this actually change a mind, clarify an issue, or move an audience? If not, what exactly is the point?
Take the most recent example between Candace Owens and Andrew Wilson regarding the death of Charlie Kirk and whether Tyler Robinson was responsible for the murder.
The debate went about how you’d expect: filled with vague reasoning and conspiracy theories.
Which brings us back to the first rule — was it even worth having?
People who backed Owens were always going to keep backing her. The same was true in reverse for Wilson’s supporters. Nothing changed. The point was never clear to begin with. Even if the idea was to prove Owens’s claim was incorrect, it was never going to land, because these weren’t interpretations of facts — they were random theories that not even a courtroom would consider valid.
This isn’t to say that debates aren’t good or useful; it’s better to have those clashes than leave them in the dark. But if you come at debates with ill intent and ideas that are unworkable, then that defeats the whole purpose.
This is also evident in the way social media often rewards emotional responses over logical arguments. Jubilee’s Surrounded series is a good example, with the format being one guest — often a conservative — surrounded by a much larger group of ideological opponents. Although the format has plenty of positives, the problem is that the most viral moments tend to be the most hostile and emotionally charged, because those are the clips most likely to attract attention online.
This was evident when Ben Shapiro debated a transgender man on the Surrounded series last year. In the video, Shapiro repeatedly tries to interject and respond to what the other person is saying but struggles to.
He wasn’t struggling to rebut an argument — he was struggling to figure out what the argument even was, because there wasn’t one. What played out was a personal, emotional monologue about the woman’s life, with Shapiro being the scapegoat.
As Shapiro later put it in an interview, the other person was having an “emotional meltdown” in front of him, with no real argument underneath it.
Out of a two-hour video, that was the moment that went viral online.
What’s damaging about this framework is that it’s no longer confined to the internet or political pundits, or college students. Politicians seem to be following a similar path — not for virality, but within Congress itself, particularly through the modern use of the filibuster.
The whole idea behind it is to debate ideas and reach a middle ground on legislation together. Instead, it’s become a tool for blocking legislation outright, functioning less like deliberation and more like political theater aimed at the other party.
WHEN POLITICS BECOMES YOUR IDENTITY, DISAGREEMENT BECOMES WAR
This can be seen with the example of the SAVE America Act when Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) stated that the “Senate Democrats will never allow the SAVE Act to pass this chamber.”
Political debates matter because they’re where ideas get tested — where you find out which ones actually hold up and which ones would better serve society. That is what debate should do. And it is better to have those debates than not have them at all. But debate without good faith, driven instead by ill intent, does the complete opposite: It doesn’t ease tension, it inflames it, resolving nothing beyond driving up the click count.
William Nye is a Brisbane-based Australian student and op-ed columnist who writes about politics, culture, economics, and international affairs shaping Australia, the United States, and the wider Western world. His work has appeared in the Spectator Australia and the Washington Examiner.
