Tomi Lahren vs Trevor Noah

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This video is quite interesting:



It's conservative vs liberal in a debate, and in the comments we have comments with lots of upvotes on both sides in about equal measure. The conservatives think Tomi destroyed Trevor and vice versa. There are videos to this effect as well made by people on both sides. And I think I can see why, because the two kind of dance around each other rather than landing blows on each other. So both sides will be looking at it and seeing their representative putting out their views seemingly unchallenged and seeing it as a victory. I first became aware of it through Sargon doing a video laying out his case for why she destroyed him, and while I haven't watched a video from the other side, having watched the video itself, I can easily imagine how the video would look, and it wouldn't be wrong, just as Sargon's isn't wrong.

Overall I see it as a missed opportunity, because this debate lacked the venom you often see when the two sides meet. There was some banter between them, but that's all it was. I'd love to see them meet again for longer, with a neutral moderator there to stop them from dancing around each other and make them address each other's points directly. And ideally get rid of that awful partizan crowd.

Anyway, I'm curious what you think of it, any of it.

They both looked amateurish, Noah couldn't respond to a statistic Lahren brought up, and Lahren couldn't answer a simple question Noah asked 3 times. They both closed by making below the belt comments.

Lahren is a spoiled brat who makes more inflammatory statements than actual points.

I think you brought up several reasons why what you wanted to see happen couldn't happen.

It's a studio audience, a corporate television event, and they both had too much to lose by 'getting low' and slugging it out. The other problem with any sort of banter debate format like this was; there's zero guarantee that the side with the correct facts or the correct points will win the debate. The side who will win the debate will more likely have the more clever debater and to a large extent have points of view that can be rattled off in one sentence because anything much longer won't make the same emotional impact with the debate audience. If you have a rebuttal that needs to go on longer than a few sentences you're screwed - you either take a swing at the other side in turn and not answer their question or, if you try to oversimply the actual issue and evidence to fit a three sentence limit you'll dumb the reality of the situation down so badly that what you'll be saying - by omission - will be patently false on the order of 'Evolution is a monkey turning into a man'. When you're dealing with religious zealots and/or entrenched political ideologues even absolute perfection of your diction and structure of arguments won't be enough; if they're willful enough not a single point you've made will make it past their shield of belief.

This is part of why I really don't like pop debates or debates between youtubers/bloggers and media, media vs. media, or youtubers vs. youtubers - they can't behave with full professionalism and if they do they'll alienate their base. Trevor was constantly taking jabs at her partly by disagreement and knowing what she believed ahead of time but I'm sure also in part because it made for sexier TV and whoever had advertisements before, during, or after this interview felt like their advertising time was more valuable for her banter. College professors and long term think-tank members having these same debates is a lot less sexy or combative but it's far more valuable, just that you run into the problem that the average person needs something shiny and also I really get the impression that maybe only 20 or 30% of the viewership would have the intelligence to keep track of such a debate.

I watched this when it first ran on The Daily Show. If anything, while Noah hadn't handled Lahren nearly as well as a much more seasoned Jon Stewart would have, I thought he still won the debate. Especially since Lahren came close to almost sounding racist a time or two, but caught herself.

The other thing I can't stand with these kinds of debates is when people put on their monocles and get super erudite and nuanced about their own side and then just lob bombs at the other as if nuance is completely unneeded in the case of those they disagree with. It seems like proof positive that someone's a weasel.

while i don't think she defended her position exceptionally and didn't punish noah as much as she could've on BLM, she came out ahead as i think not only as is she the one in the right, but she displayed more class than noah who appeared dishonest throughout the interview such as when he responded to her 'what did the kkk do' rhetorical question which was drawing a comparison with blm and the kkk, with 'did you just say what did the kkk do?' as if she was unaware or downplaying them.
of course you can see it as a cheap attempt at comedy but that doesn't improve the situation.
he accused her of having to defend herself as not a racist so much, while almost in the same sentence essentially asking whether or not she's racist.
he was just going through the modern leftist motions really, while she presented facts that he was unable to even respond to.

This is a good point. I would have really liked to see Stewart pick apart the things Lahren said, which he's always been good at since he's such an analytical commentator/comedian. Noah did come out on top because by giving the slightest prompt he was able to get Lahren to basically expose how hideous her rhetoric is, but because he failed to really engage her this all felt very surface-level. Lots of missed opportunities and points to be made. Lahren is literally just a tool for the far right narrative, a pretty face who's willing to parrot out whatever Limbaugh/Breitbart/Ailes/Trump want. That makes her very easy to pick apart. Noah is not the witty comedian Stewart is - he got where he is because he's a likable, pleasant, charismatic host, but nothing beyond that.

The most obvious missed point may have been when Lahren brought up suffrage/women's voting rights, then said she wouldn't protest when Noah asked how people were supposed to. Women got those rights in large part because of massive protests. If people acted how Lahren wants, there would be no social change and no American democracy. That's because people like Lahren don't believe in American democracy - they're authoritarians.

I absolutely agree.