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Rule #1 of Winning Debates: Work the Audience (Cenk Uygur fail)
Who is going to decide who's won the debate?
Certainly not the debaters themselves, as they'd both say they won.
Certainly not the interviewers, no matter how biased they might be.
Who decides, then?
Simple:
The audience will decide who has won a debate.
And to win the audience, you have to win the audience over.
Even more than beating your opponent, you gotta focus on getting the audience on your side.
Obvious, right?
Indeed, this should be obvious, and yet you'd be surprised at how many experienced folks fail this basic law.
Look at Cenk Uygur.
What he says is true. Yet, the way he says it is wrong. Is he so condescending towards the audience that I would have booed him as well:
Cenk Uygur: Guys, try to follow along, OK? It's called logic
He is basically telling the audience: you are a bunch of dumbasses, so listen to me, the only one here who can use logic.
And a little bit later:
Cenk Uygur: This is hilarious. If you're uneducated please don't make it obvious
What a great way of losing a debate.
These smug, "holier than though" liberals are exactly the type of people who gifted Trump the presidency. And they are still handing over to Republicans the votes of the least educated folks.
And I understand the people who'd vote Republicans just because they can stand people like Cenk: they speak in a way that implies that whoever disagrees with them is stupid.
But less-educated is not synonymous with stupid.
And they can smell a smug from a mile.
And they will not like, support, or vote a smug man.
Hillary Clinton had a similar attitude across the 2016 campaign. Culminating with her famous definition of Trump voters as a "basket of deplorables".
They call themselves liberals, but they're helping the Republicans.
