I’ve always been a little bit of an attention whore.
When I was in 3rd grade, I ran for student council on an anti-recycling platform. I made the argument that every time you recycled something, somewhere a puppy was dying. (Technically true!) I lost terribly, and deservedly so. But I wasn’t deterred.
In high school, I joined the mock trial team, where you argue as lawyers in fake cases. In my very first competitive trial, I went up to give my opening statement, and I completely froze. I gaped silently for several minutes in an incredibly awkward screw-up and scored a 3/10. My team lost by an amount within the difference of my individual score. Yikes!
Yet as embarrassed as I was, I didn’t quit or give up. If anything, I was more determined to crush our next competition and make up for my mistakes. I would go on to captain my high school team to its most successful season ever, compete for my college’s mock trial team, and co-captain my college team for one of its most successful seasons in recent history.
I loved the clash of ideas. Thinking on my feet. Responding on the fly. The mix of presentation, logic, and rhetoric. All this has naturally carried into my career as an opinion journalist. I live for intellectual combat. I don’t even really get nervous anymore when going into a hostile interview, duking it out with another panelist on TV, or putting a controversial column out there into the interwebs.
But, apparently, many people on the Left who do what I do—intellectual advocates, content creators, and journalists—have no interest in real debate. I’ve come to this realization over the last year or so, as I’ve increasingly tried to reach out to folks on the left to have civil, substantive debates—and almost uniformly been rebuffed.
Here are a few people I’ve recently asked to debate and been rejected:
David Hogg
Nina Turner
Paul Krugman
Matt Yglesias
Briahna Joy Gray
Mehdi Hasan
I want to do more debates with folks on the Left, I really do. But it’s really hard to get anyone of note to agree to do them. I recently had this insanely frustrating experience with Nina Turner, in particular. She is a very prominent progressive activist who calls for student debt “cancelation.” She recently tweeted this:
Turner said she hasn’t ever heard an argument against her position other than pure cruelty. So, I offered to debate her on it. She declined.
That’s fine! Turner has no obligation to debate me. Maybe she thinks I’m not worth her time. She does have far more followers than I do, to be fair.
But as it turns out, she’s actually unwilling to debate anyone on this subject.
To me, it’s the height of arrogance to believe you have the right to spend trillions of taxpayer dollars without even debating the merits of your position. That, or, it reveals a deep ideological insecurity—the other reason to fear debate would be knowing how easily your position could be dismantled if allowed to face public scrutiny outside of your echo chamber.
A combination of these two noxious influences has rendered debate a lost art among much of the modern Left. And that’s a tragedy for us all.
Anyway, here’s what I’ve been up to over the last week or so.
Articles
The Democrats' 'Inflation Reduction Act' betrays their progressive values
America is experiencing a self-censorship epidemic, study reveals
How to lower insulin prices without Democrats’ big government price controls
Rents for one-bedroom apartments in Manhattan hit a record high of $5,100 in July. Here’s why
LOL: Even 52% of Democrats don’t believe ‘Inflation Reduction Act’ will work
GOP governor unveils plan to mitigate harm from Biden’s tax hike
Podcast
On the most recent episode of the BASEDBrief, Hannah & I discuss the “Espionage Act,” a teachers’ union racism scandal, Marjorie Taylor Greene’s latest viral moment, and Andrew Yang’s clash with CNN over his new 3rd party. Listen now on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or watch on YouTube.
I also host my friend, Reason writer and Rising host Robby Soave, on the podcast for a bonus interview (30 mins) discussing whether the panic over social media “addiction” is overblown—and why Big Government “solutions” are a bad idea. Listen now on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or watch us on YouTube.
YouTube
Hannah & I did a fun bonus video reacting to Kamala’s latest woke word salad. Check it out here or below: