Politicon is a convention held every year for politics enthusiasts, and this year's headliner event generated quite the buzz: a debate between Cenk Uygur and Ben Shapiro.
Uygur is the founder and host of The Young Turks, a left-wing news organization, and Shapiro is the host of The Daily Wire, a right-wing news organization. Both these men have renown online in their own rite and have drawn significant crowds to their panels at previous Politicons.
Last night the two debated on stage for an hour, the topic initially centered around healthcare and transitioning into the economy as the debate thundered onward. Here are my objective thoughts on the opinions expressed and the quality of the performances delivered.
As far as debates go, this was definitely one in which facts played a significant part, which was something I enjoyed. Too often I watch or listen to debates on political issues in which the facts are omitted and the speakers resort to empty rhetoric and crowd pleasing. I'm there to listen to a debate, not a screaming match.
While Uygur and Shapiro were both armed to the teeth with facts, unsurprisingly (they are both lawyers), objectively speaking, Shapiro gets the point in terms of his accuracy and relevancy of facts.
Accuracy because one of Uygur's main points was that the economic crash of 2008 was caused by greedy banks, which is objectively untrue, Shapiro corrected, because the crisis was actually caused by government incentives for banks to lend high-risk loans. Relevancy because many of Uygur's facts presented were not directly correlated and shot down.
In terms of rhetoric, Uygur gets the point because he knows how to appeal to a crowd more. This was very evident in how often he was stopped mid-sentence by applause from the crowd. His jokes were slightly sharper and he never seemed fazed when he arguably 'took a hit' from Shapiro a few times.
In terms of argumentative logic, I give Shapiro the point. He seemed much more ahead of the competition and was able to recognize several red herrings in Uygur's points. Shapiro's argument was overall much more coherent and clear, and his understanding of the material at hand arguably trumped that of Uygur's. In several instances, Shapiro called out Uygur's misrepresentation of facts, red herrings, strawman devices, and lack of information on the facts.
Overall it was an entertaining and engaging debate to watch, and I hope the two debate on other topics in the future. In terms of declaring a winner, while the moderator declined to state one, I would say Ben Shapiro won the debate.
In fairness, it was not one-sided whatsoever. Cenk Uygur is a very intelligent man, and I hope from a purely objective standpoint that he'll be better informed and more confident in his facts in the future, rather than falling back on empty rhetoric and fallacies like he did at Politicon 2017.
Watch the debate here:
