America Was Founded on Debate: The Death of Debate - Pt 3

0:00 Hey there friends, fans, and foes of Dad Saves America. John Paula here and welcome back to this our third episode in our sixpart special documentary series called The Death of Debate. We are exploring what has happened to debate in America, but especially what has happened with our kids in high school. Their first encounters with debating ideas, with the National Speech and Debate Association clubs that end up being the first stop for some of the future leaders of our country. And believe me, there are reasons to be worried about what this first stop has become. This week we are exploring American history, the debates that shaped our nation, the presidential debates that changed the course of history at key moments throughout the past 250 years. And of course, that fateful debate in 2024 that changed the course of our politics profoundly. It was probably the most incredible debate any of us have ever seen with our own two eyes. Now, let's dig back in to the death of debate. [music] [music] >> This is a pivotal moment between President Joe Biden and former President [music] Donald Trump in their rematch for the nation's highest office.

1:27 >> He can't hit a ball 50 yards. He challenged me to a golf match. He can't hit a ball 50 yards. >> I told him before, I'm happy to play golf with you if you carry your own bag. think you can do it? >> Who could possibly forget this night? >> I was having the same thoughts that people all over America, Democrat, Republican, and everyone in between was having. Oh, this is so painfully bad. And then it gets worse.

1:57 And you go, "Oh my god, I can barely hear him." It showed the person who was our president was not fit for the job. Oh my god. There's no way he can be president again. I'm not sure he can be president right now. [music] >> If anyone tries to tell you that debate isn't important, remind them about this debate. >> Look, if we finally beat Medicare, >> tens of millions watched as the president of the United States imploded on live TV. I've never [music] heard so much malarkey in my whole life.

2:36 >> It was absolutely the most consequential televised presidential debate in history. >> What you saw was a debate [music] that led to the withdrawal of a presidential candidate and the president of [music] the country, Biden. So for a lot of people that thought debate doesn't rate, debate doesn't matter, debate doesn't change any minds, debate isn't going to influence the outcome of the election, [music] they saw a very different result from that debate. And in fact, that debate [music] changed the course of the election, changed the course of history.

3:11 Granted, this is a very extreme example, but debate is woven into the fabric of America. And that's exactly why it was so troubling to me when I read the article alleging that radical critical theory ideology had taken over high [music] school debate. Could it really be that a club known for young academics and nerdy kids had been taken over by Marxist racehustling extremists? This wasn't just another culture [music] war issue. It wasn't a story about Cracker Barrel's logo or Sydney Sweeny's jeans.

3:44 [music] Speech and debate goes to the very foundation of what it means to be American, what it [music] means to be human. And this idea seeping into our culture that words can be violence was toxic and [music] dangerous. What we began to see in 2014 is the the arrival of a kind of a new moral matrix [music] that is a new sort of moral worldview in which in which students are fragile, the [music] world is dangerous, words and and books and ideas can be can be a kind of violence. [music] Take the phrase, "Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never harm me." I've asked kids [music] today whether they've heard that, and many have never heard it. In fact, in some cases, it is said to be a microaggression. That is, you're not supposed to say it because if you say that, you are denying the pain that words [music] have caused to other kids.

4:38 So, this has gone out of favor because the new idea is [music] sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will cut me for life. This idea that we have to watch what we say, that certain ideas shouldn't be debated at all, or that certain people, because of their identity alone, aren't capable of hearing, let alone making certain arguments. If the worst versions of that woke mind virus were spreading in high school debate clubs, I had to find out if that was true. So I went to the man who wrote those original articles, James Fishbach, and he agreed to come on the record.

5:16 >> High school debate that I knew, that I love, that I cherish, that changed my life has now fallen to an ideology where it's less about thinking, less about questioning, and more about conforming and appealing [music] to the judge before you. Just like in his articles, Fishbach started lobbing bombs at the country's largest high school debate league, the NSDA. [music] >> The way to think about it is that in debate, there's really only two sides now. There's the moderate left and there's the [music] far left. And that's the range of arguments you can make, just [music] those two. I had to see all this with my own eyes. So, [music] I did what anyone would do. I asked for an interview with the NSDA and applied for a media pass to go to their national championship.

6:05 My team did their due diligence and tried to make contact with the organizers as well. And then we waited and waited and waited. We would keep trying, but at least at first they ignored us, which was interesting. And the polar opposite, frankly, of Fishbach, who answered right away, >> "But more than anything, don't jump from A to F. go to A B C D. Let's walk through that, Rodrigo. [music] So, let's talk about >> maybe he wanted publicity. Maybe he was a genuine guy. Only time [music] would tell.

6:38 >> Whatever the reason, he cooperated all through the making of this series and eventually invited me to be a judge at his tournament, Incubate Debate, >> from Emergent Order, John Pola. This was great news. I'd finally actually get to see all of this up close and from behind the scenes. This is my [music] first time judging at Incubate and it really is inspiring how much you're able to dance together [music] with this and not get upset and the civility is very inspiring. [music] It's not an exaggeration to say that as a judge at Incubate I might be rubbing shoulders with future congressmen, future Supreme Court justices, maybe a future president.

7:18 Onethird of members of Congress today did high school or college [music] debate. half of our Supreme Court, lawyers, doctors, politicians all over the country participated in this activity. The very creation of our country 250 years ago this coming July was itself a debate and a battle over the principles of free speech and open dialogue. A lot of work got done in what would be considered committee meetings today, but at the time were people drinking in taverns. delaying now will cost us everything.

7:55 >> And disagreeing over how this revolution should go, whether they should break off entirely with the king and the parliament, or whether they should try to persuade them to do better. These were fights about whether our country should even exist, and if it did, what the soul of the nation should be about. Case in point, the Boston Massacre. [music] I learned all about this when I was starting to re-engage with history in my early 20s, riding the bus into New York City to my job at Viacom. David McCulla's John Adams was a really important book for me. [music] And the story of the Boston Massacre is a really important story about America itself and the importance of steelmanning the arguments of those we oppose. the tyrant.

8:38 >> A few years before Independence Day, in March of 1770, British soldiers fired into a crowd in Boston, killing five civilians. The fire brands of the revolution, Samuel Adams, Paul Rivere, and others were all over this, using it as an example of why we needed to break free of British rule. The soldiers of course were [music] absolutely despised and a fair trial seemed impossible.

9:12 But guess who came forward to defend them? None other than John Adams, one of America's founding fathers and a future president himself. >> [music] >> In his defense of the soldiers, arguing they acted in self-defense, Adam said, >> "Facts are [music] stubborn things, and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or [music] the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." Six of the soldiers and their commanding officer [music] were acquitted. Two were convicted of manslaughter. But you know what [music] won? The principles of what would become America.

9:50 The idea [music] that fair trials matter, that mob justice wasn't justice at all [screaming] and that even an American patriot like Adams could still make a strong argument in defense of British soldiers accused of killing his fellow compatriots. how that was [music] um spun afterward and the way John Adams actually created more feeling for the cause by defending the soldiers who shot thesei citizens was absolutely brilliant. It is both morally and rhetorically powerful to take the high ground to prove to everyone that you are a fair dispassionate person fighting for the truth not just your tribe. That's what Adams did. That's why his defense of the indefensible bolstered the cause for American independence. After the revolution, after we became an independent nation, the philosophical battles only continued in early America.

10:46 Ironically, as if to embody how deeply difficult it is to remain a principal defender of free speech and debate. John Adams would, as president, tarnish his own reputation by signing the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, which made it a crime for American citizens to print, utter, or publish any false, scandalous, and malicious writing about the government. It's a good thing for our country that those acts were quickly defeated and repealed. And an even better thing that they weren't in effect when our founders were debating the future of the country in the Federalist Papers. Oh, absolutely. The Federalist Papers were critical to the debate at the very very highest level. Now, they were [music] engaging with the elites and so they were influencers influencing the influencers. So, to refresh your memory, when America became independent, we really were more of a loosely bound group of states governed by something called [music] the Articles of Confederation.

11:46 After about 10 years, the articles were considered too weak to hold the young country together by a lot of national figures. Now, whether that [music] was actually correct or not is a debate for another time. But in any case, the founding fathers held a convention in Philadelphia, the city of my birth, actually, and came up with a document we now [music] know as the US Constitution. Once it was written, though, it still had to be ratified by all the states.

12:14 And thus the public fight began in the federalist [music] papers. These were articles written in colonial newspapers by people like Alexander Hamilton, James [music] Madison and John J arguing for the ratification of the constitution. Not everyone was into this idea of course which is how the anti-federalist papers were born. These were written by people like George Mason and Patrick Henry who feared a powerful central government and opposed the constitution on those grounds. So both sides of the argument were writing articles in newspapers making their case.

12:49 >> Unlike today, they only had to reach hundreds of people in order to influence things because those people they were reaching were the most literate. Those people were the ones influencing the entire town. Right out in the open, a debate over the Constitution was happening with deeply reasoned, well- constructed arguments on both sides. Obviously, [music] the Federalists won and the Constitution passed. But the process, the battle of ideas itself was important, [music] and the fight ended up making a difference in the end. One of the things the anti-federalists fought most passionately for was [music] an explicit protection in the Constitution for individual rights.

13:31 [music] And they ended up getting it with the Bill of Rights, 10 amendments to the Constitution. The first of which included protection for debate itself. Congress shall make [music] no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom of speech or of the [music] press or the right of the people peaceibly to assemble. The Bill of Rights was controversial at the time and a big [music] concession by the Federalists who feared that enumerating such rights would suggest that the government might be free to do anything not explicitly prohibited. So, the 10th amendment did its best to leave [music] no room for doubt. And it reads, "The power not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to [music] the people. The rights we now hold dear as Americans were the direct result of [music] rigorous public debate." And so a uniquely American compromise in favor of liberty was born. [music] Those kind of things actually happened back then.

14:44 Although make no mistake, even from the beginning, political debate in America has always been far from civil. >> What a maneuver by the general. And look out, [music] it's Franklin with the electric elbow drop. What a battle of independence. Donald Trump's tweets have nothing on the founding fathers. [music] >> [bell] >> John Adams is a blind, bald, crippled, toothless man who wants to start a war with France. While he's not busy importing mistresses from Europe, he's trying to marry one of his sons to a daughter of King George. Haven't we had enough monarchy in America. Our friends over at Reason made these fake attack ads using actual statements made by the supporters of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson during their bid for election.

15:30 If Thomas Jefferson wins, murder, robbery, adultery, and will be openly [music] taught and practiced. The air will be rent with the cries of the distressed, the soil will be soaked with blood, and the nation black [music] with crimes. Are you prepared to see your dwellings in flames, female chastity violated, children writhing on a pike? Clearly, brutal mudslinging debates are as American as it gets. I mean, high school debates actually have an event called Lincoln Douglas, named after, well, you guessed it, the real Lincoln Douglas debates. Those 1858 mental gladiator matches really were the standard bearer, and in many ways led to political debate as we know it today.

16:16 Abraham Lincoln and Steven Douglas had a series of seven debates across Illinois, each lasting hours with no moderator. They were fighting for a US Senate seat, but really they were grappling over the soul of America. [music] Slavery and what we were going to do about it inevitably dominated those debates. Obviously, they weren't televised or on the radio, but transcripts were printed in newspapers and they were the first political debates to get sustained national coverage. Believe it or not, though, actual presidential debates are relatively new. For a long time, they were considered beneath the office. Oh, how far we've fallen. I didn't realize this until now, but the first primary debate wasn't until 1948.

17:03 It also happened to be on the radio. Former Minnesota Governor Harold Stassen versus New York Governor Thomas Dwey. Both [music] Republicans. And the topic, I love this. Shall the Communist Party [music] be outlawed? Stasson argued to keep the commies out of America. And frankly, I can relate. If >> we are to have the best chance of winning through for freedom without the horror of a third world war, the free countries must take action to protect themselves against this fifth column in this unsettled period which has been called a cold war. There's now no law in America to prevent these communist organizations from secretly developing organizations of hidden members from carrying on secret conspiracies to promote strikes to stir up hatred between races and religions in America and from following their directions from Moscow.

18:01 >> Stassen sure had a point as time would definitely [music] tell. Dwey, on the other hand, took an idealistic free speech stance. I am unalterably, wholeheartedly, unswervingly against any scheme to write laws outlawing people because of their religious, political, social, or economic ideas. I'm against it because it's a violation of the Constitution of the United States and of the Bill of Rights. And clearly so, stripped to its naked essentials, this is nothing but the method of Hitler and Stalin. It is thought control borrowed from the Japanese war leadership. It's an attempt to beat down ideas with a club.

18:41 >> I got to say, a compelling and principled argument even for my deeply anti-communist ears. Now, anyway, the press watched the Stassen Dwey debate from behind a glass wall. As many as 80 million people listened, and that's a lot. The country only had 150 million people in it back then. Dwiey's deeply constitutional case carried the day in the public and helped win him the chance to lose to Harry Truman. [clears throat] A few years later came the granddaddy debate of them all. The first presidential debate ever between two opposing parties live on television.

19:21 >> The candidates need no introduction. The Republican candidate, Vice President Richard M. Nixon, and the Democratic candidate, Senator John F. Kennedy. The debate is famous and still talked about to this day. JFK looked tan, handsome, and relaxed. >> I don't believe in big government, but I believe in effective governmental action, and I think that's the only way that the United States is going to maintain its freedom. >> Nixon looked kind of like a sweaty, shifty mess.

19:49 >> Senator Kennedy has suggested that he believes he knows the way. I respect the sincerity with he which he makes that suggestion. We were all still figuring out how TV worked back then. And to that point, Nixon refused to wear makeup because, well, he didn't want to look fake. Big mistake. Legend has it that Nixon's appearance cost him. It's been widely reported for 65 years that the people who listened on the radio thought Nixon had won, but people watching on TV thought JFK had won. It turns out that's more myth than fact. The only evidence for it appears to be based on a poll with an incredibly small sample size.

20:26 That said, it's undeniably true that Nixon did himself no favors, [music] and we were entering into an era of optics and performance that has dominated our discourse through to today. The age of TV political sophistry was born. >> Mr. President, I want to raise an issue that I think has been lurking out there for 2 or 3 weeks. >> Our presidential debate moments are legendary. You already are the oldest president in history. >> Ronald Reagan diffuses the biggest argument against his re-election in one brilliant line.

20:58 >> I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent's youth and inexperience. [cheering] [applause] >> Senator Lloyd Benson torches a young Dan Quail. I served with Jack Kennedy. [music] I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy. [cheering and applause] Bush 41 gets hammered by the press for looking at his watch. Al Gore frankly acts like a complete weirdo looming behind George Bush during a town hall.

21:40 But can you get things done? >> And I believe [clears throat] I can. All right. and sighing at every answer W gives. I've had a record of appointing judges in the state of Texas. That's what a governor gets to do. It's practicing fuzzy math again. There's differences. And Texas Governor Rick Perry goes down in flames. [music] >> It's three agencies of government when I get there that are gone. Commerce, [music] education, and the uh what's the third one there?

22:09 >> Let's see. >> You can't name the third one. >> I can't. The third one I can't. Sorry. Oops. It's hard to chronicle all the moments that have been burned into our consciousness, especially in the era of Donald Trump. >> Are you wrong? >> No, I'm that is absolutely proved over and over again. >> But in this last election, 2024, we went into uncharted waters. First of all, the organization that had presented all of the presidential debates since 1988, the Commission on Presidential Debates, ended its strangle hold on control. Both camps lost faith with the commission and I actually think for good reason although they didn't see it that way.

22:52 This organization was something that was permitting to my mind a narrow range in the debates. >> The commission is bipartisan which I guess is good although they've notoriously shut out third party candidates most of the time and they've often been accused of picking biased moderators. The commission has presided over a whole series of debates that have become [music] really divisive that have created a platform and set up candidates in a [music] lot of times for failure with moderators that have an agenda and changing the spotlight from their policy positions to you know all these other factors whether it's your moderator your opposition or gotcha questions.

23:33 Moderator bias, as we'll see later in our analysis of high school debate, is one of the most insidious ways debate competitions become skewed. But whether or not the commission was actually biased, in this last election cycle, both sides decided enough was enough. And for the first time, the candidates negotiated the general election presidential debates directly with each other and with networks. So, President Biden's notorious meltdown happened in a debate run by CNN. >> Making sure that we continue to suppren strengthen our health care system.

24:06 making sure that we're able to make every single solitary person eligible for what I've been able to do with the uh with with with the co excuse me with um dealing with everything we have to do with uh look if we finally beat Medicare. >> Thank you, President Biden. >> Who knows what the future holds for presidential debates in this country and whether the commission itself is permanently defunct. Maybe it's better if it is. My gut tells me that there's more hope for better debates with different groups vying for a chance to host them and trying out different formats. No matter what, we all know after 2024, how high the stakes truly are and why the corruption of debate at any level, including high school, matters so much to our country.

24:59 [music] >> [music] >> I I really don't know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don't think he knows what he said either. [music] [music] I hope you enjoyed that trip down psychotic memory lane with us because frankly it's worth reminding us just how important these seemingly silly presidential debates actually are. They really do shape our country and our future for better or for worse. So what does the future hold for us? Well, next Friday we are going to be going back to school to college and it literally is a Rodney Dangerfield kind of intellectual exercise because we will be exploring the kind of broken postmodern Marxist philosophy that has polluted the idea of debate in our kids' school experience and filtered back down to the high school debates that we see at the National Speech and Debate Association.

26:05 This is the source of the philosophy of speech is violence. And the only way you can confront those ideas is to look them head on and see what they have produced. Let me know what you have to say. Be sure to head down to the comments where there's always a lively debate going on here. Be sure to hit that like button, subscribe to the channel, head over to dadsavesamea.com where you can find a lot more resources. Follow me over at x um johnapola. And of course, have a great weekend.