We all know having discussions with our families during the holidays can get pretty rough, and you cannot often avoid the subjects that cause the largest divisions. Debating is super fun, but it can also turn south really quickly if you let the discussions move from who you voted for and why to telling your uncle to eat shit, or that cousin you can never remember the name of screaming "Lock her up!" instead of actually trying to talk it out. Even outside of family discussions, debate devolve into an ugly series of ad hominem arguments. The whole point of debate is for both sides of an issue to express their opinions and for both sides of the issue to leave with a better understanding of their differences and how to compromise; personal attacks have no place in a forum like that. Instead of explaining ways to overcome someone being an asshole and get the discussion back on track, I will let Lauren Duca handling Tucker Carlson's personal attacks perfectly after he attacked her on his show do the explaining. She retains focus on the issues at hand rather than letting personal attacks kill the discussion. Andy Campbell is the author of The Huffington Post article that is linked above, and it adds some context to the clip. He also provides several tweets in framing the discussion in the clip, so all the information you need to understand the points in the clip are all together in his article.

So when you get into a situation where you have to debate with someone, please please please do not under any circumstance degrade yourself or your opponent by attacking your anyone personally. If you're in a situation where someone is using those types of trivial arguments against you, Duca's response is exemplary. And if you are tempted to use personal attacks, just remember you are going to end up looking like a pretentious jackass like Carlson does in this example and absolutely no good can come of looking like an asshole.