• DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe
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    10 months ago

    Kennedy famously trounced Nixon because he crushed him in the debate (mostly by looking better, but, also, he was Nixon and his ideas sucked)

    Lincoln straight up master debatered his way to the White House after the Lincoln-Douglas debates made him famous.

    The problem is not that America hasn’t had a debate tradition. The problem is that the last forty years it’s been neoliberals debating each other about how to suck less until now it’s neoliberals vs fascists and they’re, ya know, fascists.

    There isn’t a debate. They just lie and rage about their made up enemies.

    • WoahWoah@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      No offense, but if you’ve got to go back to Lincoln/Douglas for your most convincing argument for how the United States has a tradition of debate, I think you’ve lost the argument before you’ve finished your point.

      Nixon/Kennedy, while often represented as a style vs substance debate (it wasn’t, Kennedy largely one on both based on broader polling than is generally trotted out, but his good looks to a televised audience certainly helps) is still more than two DECADES before the timetable you’re trying to lay out here.