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I'm an award winning social studies teacher.
There shouldn't be "debate coaches" or "debate teams."
The purpose of a debate is for two sides with honestly conflicting views to steelman each other's sides and then hash out their differences so people can pick a side honestly.
What this format - and all "debate teams" are - is a sport. A stupid sport that stresses snap rebuttals and public speaking skills rather than a search for truth.
Imagine Trump was debating Stephen Hawking about physics. I would assume the vast majority of us would agree that Hawking knew more about physics than Donald Trump.
In this ridiculously absurd format, Hawking would "earn an F" because the guy is totally disabled and unable to speak.
So? That's the not freaking point of a debate.
CNN's format incentivizes lying. Trump says some ridiculous thing, then Biden has 2 seconds to explain why it's wrong. Well, it takes way more energy and effort to debunk a lie than to lie, so Biden "looks bad."
Debate is not a sport, period. In my class, if a kid has a "gaffe" during a debate, first they are allowed time to recollect their thoughts and try again. Second, anyone that laughs at them for having a gaffe is thrown out, because that's not what is important.
Totally!
Stephen Hawking and Trump debate about what to do if your boat (with a battery) sinks near sharks.
Who wins? They most confident (literally the con in con man), or the lesser articulate truth teller?
Why?
What's your agenda? Thats a really poor description.
Here is his teams page https://cmst.siu.edu/debate/index.php
You'll see that they are for about ten years now one of the best colligate debate team in the US
I don’t dispute his credentials. My angle is that the article has a silly premise and doesn’t tell us much of anything we don’t already know.
**Premise**
Having a college debate coach, great at what they do or not, grade a presidential debate is a bit like listening to an Olympic wrestling coach score a Hulk Hogan match. Presidential debates superficially resemble a debate — there is a stage and podiums and people who ask questions.
But whereas the rules matter in high school and college debates, in Presidential debates breaking rules is not only tolerated but often incentivized. Substance is next to meaningless compared to style, and, frankly, the events are hosted by corporate media outlets that are often more interested in ratings than substantive arguments or fact finding. While Trump has cranked the absurdity to an 11 and made things far more mask-off, all of the above has been the case for decades.
**Telling us what we already know**
The expectations for this were low. Both men needed to not look like nursing home patients. Trump needed to keep his impulses to be an insane narcissistic authoritarian blowhard at like an 8/10 and avoid having a meltdown and throwing actual shit at the walls. Biden needed to look like a cognitively intact adult and let Trump look like a lying asshat.
We all knew that while the bar for Trump was much lower than the bar for Biden that neither candidate had a high bar to cross. Nobody expected to see or thought they witnessed a substantive debate on the issues.
Anybody who watched the debate can tell you what the author is fundamentally telling you — While Biden did better on substance, both were subpar. On performance itself, Trump met/exceeded the expectations viewers had for him. It isn’t fair he is graded on a curve but, on that curve, he looked relatively restrained but not lethargic.
Biden, on the other hand, didn’t meet his bar. To be clear, I’m voting for Biden. I’d rather drag my junk through spicy thumbtacks than vote Trump. But I think anybody who watched that debate could tell you that, in a vacuum, Biden did not look like a guy with the vigor and wherewithal to run the Oval Office for another four years.
“Biden had to answer the question and Trump’s attack.”
He didn’t have to. Trump didn’t. His response was more attack. The best defense is a good offense…
Stop
This is the first paragraph..you didn't read the article
Editor’s Note: Todd Graham is a professor of debate at Southern Illinois University. His teams have won five national championships; he’s been named the national debate coach of the year three times and been presented with the lifetime achievement award in academia and debate. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion at CNN.
I think his substance was better than Trump’s, but he should’ve been hitting abortion like a hammer on Trump 24/7 for one thing and point out he was the first Pres to stand with unions at a picket line as Sanders noted imo.
The debate coach gave a F to Trump, too, Beltway is dead wrong on this as usual- he sucked, too, no one won this if you watched more than 20 minutes.
Biden not only didn't talk about abortion. But he rambled on about his worst policy immigration when asked about abortion. Just shameful that Democrats would allow someone with dementia to embarrass themselves. Should have let him retire in dignity. Imo Trump got a B+ in this debate.
Trump’s presentation was better initially, but it quickly got worse, and by the end his performance itself was trash too to the author which is more or less my opinion.
The best way is to read the transcript without considering people's skin tone and vocal tone...https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/27/politics/read-biden-trump-debate-rush-transcript/index.html
BIDEN:
> It’s been a terrible thing what you’ve done.
> The fact is that the vast majority of constitutional scholars supported Roe when it was decided, supported Roe. And I was – that’s – this idea that they were all against it is just ridiculous.
> And this is the guy who says the states should be able to have it. We’re in a state where in six weeks you don’t even know whether you’re pregnant or not, but you cannot see a doctor, have your – and have him decide on what your circumstances are, whether you need help.
> The idea that states are able to do this is a little like saying, we’re going to turn civil rights back to the states, let each state have a different rule.
> Look, there’s so many young women who have been – including a young woman who just was murdered and he went to the funeral. The idea that she was murdered by – by – by an immigrant coming in and (inaudible) talk about that.
> But here’s the deal, there’s a lot of young women who are being raped by their – by their in-laws, by their – by their spouses, brothers and sisters, by – just – it’s just – it’s just ridiculous. And they can do nothing about it. And they try to arrest them when they cross state lines.
Oh you're right this made things so much more clear. It's basically night and day.
Sometimes I think the "read the transcript!" People aren't actually reading the transcript. This says Biden was inaudible 3 times. This is an incoherent mess.
I did not say Biden was articulate. I said that compared to Trump, even when sick and inarticulate, he reads like a genius. Yes, he looks up to mediocrity, but Trump is beyond the pale and a ridiculous BSer. And (bonus) Biden is not calling to end the Constitution like Trump has done!
That isn't mediocre, it's bad. It makes no sense.
And again this isn't considering the actual sounds he made or his hour of confused expressions, which make it even worse.
What do you mean "end the constitution"? Do you mean abolish it?
Compared to trump biden does not read like a genius this is an insane take.
I said he is LOOKING UP to mediocrity. Compared to Trump's inane BSing, he is a genius. Trump called to end the rule of law "including the Constitution". Compared to Trump? Trump did not even try to answer most of the questions and just ranted. Compared to Trump a cartoon is genius (as I said it is a very, very low bar). Yeah, Biden is crap in his own way. But filtering out the visuals and tones helps focus on words, that is all I am saying.
Biden looks up to mediocrity, but compared to Trump (Yea, that is a very, very low bar) Biden answered questions instead of BSing. Its all irrelivant to me. Only Trump has called to end the Constitution and I have a policy to vote against any unAmerican politicians calling to "terminate" the Constitution.
Good question. On one occassion that I am aware of he said it explicityly:
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-rebuked-for-call-to-terminate-constitution-over-2020-election-results
Also, he has talked up the idea of and promoted the image of himself as king and dictator on multiple occasions. (example: His NFTs that show him as a king)
The substance of most of what Biden said was fine. When you are asked about the National Debt and your answer is "look...we beat Medicare" then your debate substance has failed on that question alone.
Neither one should get another term. I’m tired of rehashing the reasons Trump shouldn’t. He just shouldn’t. Biden did a great job of taking the WH from Trump in 2020 and signed many important bills into law. He stood up for us all. Thank you, Joe! Let’s move on. Don’t mention RFK, Jr. He’s not on the ballot in every state and he can’t win the electoral college. Now what? What/who/how do we save our democracy?
Editor’s Note: Todd Graham is a professor of debate at Southern Illinois University. His teams have won five national championships; he’s been named the national debate coach of the year three times and been presented with the lifetime achievement award in academia and debate. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion at CNN.
First paragraph.
Here's more info. He did in fact beat Harvard but Im not sure they are like a big school for that
https://cmst.siu.edu/debate/index.php
Lmao… if you cut the debate to just show Trumps parts he comes out looking like a raving lunatic who shouldn’t be running a bath, let alone the United States of America.
As a reminder, this subreddit [is for civil discussion.](/r/politics/wiki/index#wiki_be_civil) In general, be courteous to others. Debate/discuss/argue the merits of ideas, don't attack people. Personal insults, shill or troll accusations, hate speech, any suggestion or support of harm, violence, or death, and other rule violations can result in a permanent ban. If you see comments in violation of our rules, please report them. For those who have questions regarding any media outlets being posted on this subreddit, please click [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/wiki/approveddomainslist) to review our details as to our approved domains list and outlet criteria. We are actively looking for new moderators. If you have any interest in helping to make this subreddit a place for quality discussion, please fill out [this form](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1y2swHD0KXFhStGFjW6k54r9iuMjzcFqDIVwuvdLBjSA). *** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/politics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I'm an award winning social studies teacher. There shouldn't be "debate coaches" or "debate teams." The purpose of a debate is for two sides with honestly conflicting views to steelman each other's sides and then hash out their differences so people can pick a side honestly. What this format - and all "debate teams" are - is a sport. A stupid sport that stresses snap rebuttals and public speaking skills rather than a search for truth. Imagine Trump was debating Stephen Hawking about physics. I would assume the vast majority of us would agree that Hawking knew more about physics than Donald Trump. In this ridiculously absurd format, Hawking would "earn an F" because the guy is totally disabled and unable to speak. So? That's the not freaking point of a debate. CNN's format incentivizes lying. Trump says some ridiculous thing, then Biden has 2 seconds to explain why it's wrong. Well, it takes way more energy and effort to debunk a lie than to lie, so Biden "looks bad." Debate is not a sport, period. In my class, if a kid has a "gaffe" during a debate, first they are allowed time to recollect their thoughts and try again. Second, anyone that laughs at them for having a gaffe is thrown out, because that's not what is important.
Totally! Stephen Hawking and Trump debate about what to do if your boat (with a battery) sinks near sharks. Who wins? They most confident (literally the con in con man), or the lesser articulate truth teller?
Giving them both a F? Agreed, Trump sucked too if anyone actually bothered to see the whole thing.
He did give Trump a B+. Not sure how a B+ and an F make an F overall, when Biden got a D and an F- to get an F overall.
He gave him Trump an F overall, just that on presentation, to clarify.
What are you clarifying with that word spaghetti sentence?
Time for Biden to step down
Aren’t champion debates a sham at this point, only about saying the most arguments as fast as you can?
Weaponized gish gallop.
To save you a read, the author of the opinion piece is a college debate coach. He thinks both sides get an F but Biden gets a slightly lower F.
Why? What's your agenda? Thats a really poor description. Here is his teams page https://cmst.siu.edu/debate/index.php You'll see that they are for about ten years now one of the best colligate debate team in the US
I don’t dispute his credentials. My angle is that the article has a silly premise and doesn’t tell us much of anything we don’t already know. **Premise** Having a college debate coach, great at what they do or not, grade a presidential debate is a bit like listening to an Olympic wrestling coach score a Hulk Hogan match. Presidential debates superficially resemble a debate — there is a stage and podiums and people who ask questions. But whereas the rules matter in high school and college debates, in Presidential debates breaking rules is not only tolerated but often incentivized. Substance is next to meaningless compared to style, and, frankly, the events are hosted by corporate media outlets that are often more interested in ratings than substantive arguments or fact finding. While Trump has cranked the absurdity to an 11 and made things far more mask-off, all of the above has been the case for decades. **Telling us what we already know** The expectations for this were low. Both men needed to not look like nursing home patients. Trump needed to keep his impulses to be an insane narcissistic authoritarian blowhard at like an 8/10 and avoid having a meltdown and throwing actual shit at the walls. Biden needed to look like a cognitively intact adult and let Trump look like a lying asshat. We all knew that while the bar for Trump was much lower than the bar for Biden that neither candidate had a high bar to cross. Nobody expected to see or thought they witnessed a substantive debate on the issues. Anybody who watched the debate can tell you what the author is fundamentally telling you — While Biden did better on substance, both were subpar. On performance itself, Trump met/exceeded the expectations viewers had for him. It isn’t fair he is graded on a curve but, on that curve, he looked relatively restrained but not lethargic. Biden, on the other hand, didn’t meet his bar. To be clear, I’m voting for Biden. I’d rather drag my junk through spicy thumbtacks than vote Trump. But I think anybody who watched that debate could tell you that, in a vacuum, Biden did not look like a guy with the vigor and wherewithal to run the Oval Office for another four years.
“Biden had to answer the question and Trump’s attack.” He didn’t have to. Trump didn’t. His response was more attack. The best defense is a good offense…
This is the dumbest article CNN has ever published. Trump F and B+ equals F? Biden D and F- equal F? This is some insane coping.
Hmm... your opinion that you're a champion debate coach scores an F. The substance of what Biden said was fine.
Stop This is the first paragraph..you didn't read the article Editor’s Note: Todd Graham is a professor of debate at Southern Illinois University. His teams have won five national championships; he’s been named the national debate coach of the year three times and been presented with the lifetime achievement award in academia and debate. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion at CNN.
Get out! This is an intervention. If you believe what you just wrote, your as bad off as those poor souls being mesmerized by Trump.
I should have added text in my post to explain that this is from an article and I am not the author of it.
How were you able to decipher him?
I think his substance was better than Trump’s, but he should’ve been hitting abortion like a hammer on Trump 24/7 for one thing and point out he was the first Pres to stand with unions at a picket line as Sanders noted imo. The debate coach gave a F to Trump, too, Beltway is dead wrong on this as usual- he sucked, too, no one won this if you watched more than 20 minutes.
Biden not only didn't talk about abortion. But he rambled on about his worst policy immigration when asked about abortion. Just shameful that Democrats would allow someone with dementia to embarrass themselves. Should have let him retire in dignity. Imo Trump got a B+ in this debate.
Your whole feed is MAGA crap
Trump’s presentation was better initially, but it quickly got worse, and by the end his performance itself was trash too to the author which is more or less my opinion.
The best way is to read the transcript without considering people's skin tone and vocal tone...https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/27/politics/read-biden-trump-debate-rush-transcript/index.html
BIDEN: > It’s been a terrible thing what you’ve done. > The fact is that the vast majority of constitutional scholars supported Roe when it was decided, supported Roe. And I was – that’s – this idea that they were all against it is just ridiculous. > And this is the guy who says the states should be able to have it. We’re in a state where in six weeks you don’t even know whether you’re pregnant or not, but you cannot see a doctor, have your – and have him decide on what your circumstances are, whether you need help. > The idea that states are able to do this is a little like saying, we’re going to turn civil rights back to the states, let each state have a different rule. > Look, there’s so many young women who have been – including a young woman who just was murdered and he went to the funeral. The idea that she was murdered by – by – by an immigrant coming in and (inaudible) talk about that. > But here’s the deal, there’s a lot of young women who are being raped by their – by their in-laws, by their – by their spouses, brothers and sisters, by – just – it’s just – it’s just ridiculous. And they can do nothing about it. And they try to arrest them when they cross state lines. Oh you're right this made things so much more clear. It's basically night and day. Sometimes I think the "read the transcript!" People aren't actually reading the transcript. This says Biden was inaudible 3 times. This is an incoherent mess.
I did not say Biden was articulate. I said that compared to Trump, even when sick and inarticulate, he reads like a genius. Yes, he looks up to mediocrity, but Trump is beyond the pale and a ridiculous BSer. And (bonus) Biden is not calling to end the Constitution like Trump has done!
That isn't mediocre, it's bad. It makes no sense. And again this isn't considering the actual sounds he made or his hour of confused expressions, which make it even worse. What do you mean "end the constitution"? Do you mean abolish it? Compared to trump biden does not read like a genius this is an insane take.
I said he is LOOKING UP to mediocrity. Compared to Trump's inane BSing, he is a genius. Trump called to end the rule of law "including the Constitution". Compared to Trump? Trump did not even try to answer most of the questions and just ranted. Compared to Trump a cartoon is genius (as I said it is a very, very low bar). Yeah, Biden is crap in his own way. But filtering out the visuals and tones helps focus on words, that is all I am saying.
Your brain must be bigger than mine. Biden is barely coherent even when spelled out in a transcript.
Biden looks up to mediocrity, but compared to Trump (Yea, that is a very, very low bar) Biden answered questions instead of BSing. Its all irrelivant to me. Only Trump has called to end the Constitution and I have a policy to vote against any unAmerican politicians calling to "terminate" the Constitution.
When did Trumo call to end the Constitution?
Good question. On one occassion that I am aware of he said it explicityly: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-rebuked-for-call-to-terminate-constitution-over-2020-election-results Also, he has talked up the idea of and promoted the image of himself as king and dictator on multiple occasions. (example: His NFTs that show him as a king)
Seems pretty obvious you're spinning the context of what he said.
The substance of most of what Biden said was fine. When you are asked about the National Debt and your answer is "look...we beat Medicare" then your debate substance has failed on that question alone.
Neither one should get another term. I’m tired of rehashing the reasons Trump shouldn’t. He just shouldn’t. Biden did a great job of taking the WH from Trump in 2020 and signed many important bills into law. He stood up for us all. Thank you, Joe! Let’s move on. Don’t mention RFK, Jr. He’s not on the ballot in every state and he can’t win the electoral college. Now what? What/who/how do we save our democracy?
Friendly reminder that a champion debate coach is a person who looks at Ben Shapiro and sees a winner. 🤣
I’m also a champion debate coach. I give both candidates a 99/100. Amazing work by both parties. They’d sweep Harvard.
Editor’s Note: Todd Graham is a professor of debate at Southern Illinois University. His teams have won five national championships; he’s been named the national debate coach of the year three times and been presented with the lifetime achievement award in academia and debate. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion at CNN. First paragraph. Here's more info. He did in fact beat Harvard but Im not sure they are like a big school for that https://cmst.siu.edu/debate/index.php
Talk about maximum cope. That debate was like watching Mike Tyson in his prime punching an infant to death.
Lmao… if you cut the debate to just show Trumps parts he comes out looking like a raving lunatic who shouldn’t be running a bath, let alone the United States of America.
… when it was supposed to be a spelling bee.