Two weeks ago on the HBO talk show Real Time with Bill Maher, there was a heated exchange that went somewhat viral. The exchange was between British journalist and television personality Piers Morgan, and Australian comedian Jim Jeffries. Actually to be fair, it was only Jeffries who became heated during the exchange. In fact, his behavior was noted by many as being over the top, and in my opinion, the exchange was the perfect embodiment of the current insanity of political discourse this past year with regards to President Trump. It has become commonplace for any defense of the new President, or even a mention of him, to be met with hysteria, swearing, and emotionally immature breakdowns, as was exhibited by Jeffries on Bill Maher’s show.

It was a comment by Bill Maher that started the argument. He said that everyone who was saying during the election season that Hillary Clinton was worse than Donald Trump needed to apologize. Maher has been an extreme critic of Trump since the very beginning of the election season. Piers Morgan responded to this remark by asking “why?” which caused him and Maher to go back and forth about the differences between Clinton and Trump. When Maher mentioned Trump’s so called Muslim ban, Piers responded that it wasn’t a Muslim ban since most Muslims were still allowed to come to the United States. It was at this point that Jim Jeffries jumped in. He didn’t exactly jump in with an intelligent rebuttal. His response wasn’t even civil. He simply told Piers Morgan to “f*** off”. He then started rambling about how it was a Muslim ban, and then randomly started attacking Piers Morgan personally, to which Piers, who was calm throughout the entire argument, replied “you’re losing your audience”, as the live studio audience had begun to boo. Jeffries then asked the crowd if he was losing them, to which some people cheered, prompting Jeffries to flip Piers Morgan off.

It is worth noting that Piers Morgan isn’t a conservative. In fact he said in this very show that he would not have voted for Donald Trump. He has been on record lately commenting on how the anti-Trump hysteria is over the top. I think the “debate” between him and Jeffries proves this. It is also worth noting that neither of these men are even American. Jim Jeffries is Australian, and even he resorts to outrage and ad hominem attacks when confronted with the slightest defense of the American President. That fact alone says quite a bit about how much pure tension and rage there is in the political scene lately.

I think that the lesson to be learned from the exchange between Piers Morgan and Jim Jeffries is that everyone needs to calm down. If politics has gotten so heated that even mild, benign statements like “it wasn’t a Muslim ban” are met with such ridiculous outrage, then we can declare open discourse and political debate officially dead. I doubt anyone was ever convinced to change their views on an issue by being told to “f*** off”.