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Notes -
I ended up inadvertently catching a bit of the latest Jubilee surrounded video (I won't give them the dignity of a link), 1 democrat vs 25 Trump voters, and it is pretty much as bad as you'd expect. The ensuing conversation with other watchers was more interesting, as I chewed on figuring out the underlying appeal of such videos.
Certainly, in complete contrast of Motte principles, they seem to optimize for heat, not light; the format itself is designed to encourage this. This seems to lead to a dynamic not too dissimilar from other political debate, where participants frequently interrupt in order to be able to get their soundbites in for the crowd (the fact that many participants are primarily social media influencers does not help). This is what accounts for the entertainment factor I suppose; it can be delightfully schadenfreudic to see your outgroup defeated and humiliated.
My vaguely nonpolitical friends tend to enjoy the experience, saying that even if their own stances don't change (which of course with this format they never would) these videos are informative and useful to see what the opposing side believes. Ultimately the videos are quite performative, but I suppose each one contains some pieces of new information slathered in a thick exterior of ragebait to draw in the unsuspecting.
I think it's kind of interesting how much they focus on policy in the debates. Of course it makes sense for a video like this, but it struck me just how irrelevant the policy specifics are to most voters. I don't know if this is a hot take, but it seems to me that Trump and Harris are mostly going to deliver on the standard R or D policy platform and the median R or D voter will find that completely acceptable. Trump's first term or Harris' stint as VP has done little to disabuse people of this notion. I think there are some interesting conversations to be had at the margins; the R or D voter who personally dislike Trump or Harris enough that they'd break for the other side, but I don't know where those conversations are happening - certainly nowhere on Youtube.
Even beyond that fact, no swing voters are really concerned about the exact percentage of Trump's tariff proposals or what the studies say. Whether intentionally or not, Jubilee seems to present an image of an electorate incredibly concerned about the minutiae of policy and largely unphased by all the other surrounding events. The sense I get is that these Jubilee videos do reach a lot of gen Z who otherwise are fairly checked out of what's happening in the race, but that might also just be the specific audience I watched with. It belies how incredibly vibes based the election has been, more than any other in my lifetime.
It also makes me wonder just how possible it is to bridge the record wide partisan gaps of today. I think that a forum like this is leagues better than a Jubilee video for constructive debate, but is constructive debate even the right tool? It's certainly entertaining, as Jubilee watchers or obsessive Motte posters can attest to, but can it possibly change minds? My experience gives me a dim view of the prospect; it seems to me that the process of changing an opinion is a long an arduous one, requiring gentleness and firmness both applied delicately. I don't know if this is a process that scales up or even works reliably. In the meantime, at least we have chronic debaters to keep us entertained.
I don't really get these videos either. I suspect they are entirely jury-rigged to make the 1 look infinitely more prescient than the 25. My wife complains about these same types of videos coming up on her feed but they are always Charlie Kirk debating a bunch of liberal college kids. There are 'owns' galore, but does it change anything? Perhaps. If you watch these vids, at a minimum it can reveal unconsidered problems and different perspectives. Maybe that's enough to justify the entertainment value of naifs looking stupid.
I think the format is just inherently rigged, and in the opposite direction you'd immediately think. The implication of a 1 vs 25 is that the 1 is in the worse position (as in a physical fight), but I think when you have the real-time debate format the inverse is true.
Consider what participating from the 25-person side looks like. Unless you have a very non-real-time debate, the 25 need to share time between themselves and also need to carry on each others' arguments. They need to defend positions another person raised and follow through on a path of attack another person started. And being real time removes the main benefit of having numbers, which is being able to workshop a response and pull out the best ideas from all 25. The result is an inevitable mess.
In practice I suspect the single guy only needs to be moderately consistent with his own statements, not get stumped for a response on anything, and do a passable job of poking holes in the jumbled political positions of 25 people combined in an ad-hoc manner. These aren't trivial tasks but they're well within reach for an experienced debater.
I agree with that.
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