Spend time on social media and you will see debates with titles like “I destroy MAGA mom on vaccines” or “Conservative philosopher owns feminist student.” These popular videos focus on clip-worthy gotcha questions, one-line zingers and screaming matches edited for virality.

These “debates” would be unrecognizable to the Founding Fathers, who enshrined debate as a primary tool of legislative deliberation. Even the passionate exchanges of Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas, whose 1858 “great debates” about slavery drew crowds of thousands, are tame compared with today’s vitriolic exchanges. While Lincoln and Douglas exchanged insults, played to the crowd and took a few logical leaps, they could still communicate respectfully.

Then, as now, Americans were deeply divided. But today’s wars of words seem designed to fuel intense polarization, not to change minds.

Debate is broken as a tool to inform, explore ideas and persuade an audience. It’s time to find another way.

That’s a difficult conclusion for me. As a communications professor, I believe presenting an argument, listening thoughtfully to the response and responding with a rebuttal is excellent critical thinking and public speaking practice. However, when I assign a shortened Lincoln-Douglas structure, many students ask when they get to “really” debate – meaning the ruthless online back and forth.

Research says that persuasion is possible in other ways. But the process requires understanding, perspective-taking and collaboration. People must choose communication, not competition.

How did even presidential debates become so combative, so filled with personal insults, that moderators have to mute microphones to stop constant interruptions?

Political scientist Lilliana Mason says a major factor is that political affiliation has become central to Americans’ personal identity. Her 2018 book,........

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