Christopher Hitchens, whose legacy I profiled in this magazine in January, was asked in 2009 about the state of public rhetoric and debate in America. His reply was not sanguine. Reflecting on his training in English debate and the parliamentary model, he noted that the American institutions of “debate” are misnamed:

“There’s never been a debate in the Senate. Though I’ve heard there’s been such things reported as having occurred, there’s never been one as far as I know. All that happens is that different senators or representatives get up and give the speech they were going to give anyway and then sit down. They don’t exchange. They don’t do thrust and parry, at any level at all. It’s just, ‘Here’s my view on this, and now the honorable gentleman can give his.’ There’s no interpenetration of opposites. The same is true of presidential debates now, which I think in fact are wrongly so-called. The ground rules of the presidential debates are the two candidates can’t speak directly to each other. That means by definition it’s not a debate. It’s all run through the moderator. It’s more like a joint press conference. By contrast, most TV supposed ‘debates’ are merely shouting matches, where there’s no attempt, really, to state contrasting positions.”