Verbal Sparkles In L.A Debate Between Dean Withers, Progressive and Trump Supporters
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| Steven Bonnell, left, a streamer known as Destiny, in Los Angeles this month during a stop on his debate tour.Credit...Mark Abramson for The New York Times |
The New York Times
Let me just say no one has a mind to remember facts like Dean Withers, My hot off to Him if I wore one. Dean Withers:
ABC reporter Jonathan Karl asked Trump why he "lied" to the American public right to his face. Trump's face immediately sagged when he heard the word "lie", and flipped out. GOOD. EVERY reporter needs the guts to confront the liar with the truth.
On a recent Saturday night, more than 200 people crammed into a Los Angeles studio to watch Steven Bonnell, known online as the progressive streamer Destiny, debate supporters of President Trump.
The attendees, who each paid $39 to be there, grew excited when a behavioral therapist in a Trump T-shirt took the stage to criticize the far left as hypocritical and fragmented. The only mistake the president ever made, he argued, was conceding the 2020 election.
The room groaned, loudly. Then Mr. Bonnell, who has 850,000 subscribers on YouTube, methodically went to work on his opponent, calmly cataloging actions by Mr. Trump that he categorized as errors and abject failures. The audience, mostly young and male and decidedly left wing, switched to cheering and laughing, thirsty for the action like a crowd at an Ultimate Fighting Championship match.
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For years, the political right has leaned hard into debate videos, producing carefully staged contests pitting conservative stars against liberals and then clipping moments when their side came out on top. Because online algorithms favor outrage, those clips often go viral, reaching audiences that may not have engaged with other kinds of political content.
Few exemplified the power of this format like Charlie Kirk, the right-wing activist who earned a reputation as a free speech warrior with his college campus debates, even as he pushed Republican talking points and — as the titles of his YouTube videos proclaimed — roasted, destroyed, demolished and dunked on countless “woke libs.”
Now progressives are trying to get a bigger foothold in this world, hoping that they, too, can use debates to rack up millions of views on social media, draw fans to live events like Mr. Bonnell’s Anti-Trump Tour — which sold out in a half dozen cities this fall — and appeal to potential voters. Although a handful of left-wing voices have participated in debates for some time, few, if any, have had the same reach as their conservative counterparts.
Even traditional media has been trying to get in on the frenzy for combat. Bari Weiss, the new editor in chief of CBS News, reportedly plans to bring a “debate-style program” to the network. This month, C-SPAN, which is run by a former producer of the famed CNN debate program “Crossfire,” premiered a debate program called “Ceasefire.” The first episode featured the longtime Democratic insider Rahm Emanuel against former Vice President Mike Pence.
Conflict attracts attention, and “we live in an attention economy,” said Adam Mockler, a 23-year-old contributor to the left-leaning MeidasTouch Network.
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Mr. Mockler, who has 1.7 million subscribers on YouTube, has offered himself up for the open role of an adversarial, sometimes inflammatory online star for the Democrats. He regularly argues with conservatives on CNN and “Piers Morgan Uncensored” and took the stage on NewsNation this month to debate the spokesman for Turning Point USA, the organization co-founded by Mr. Kirk, about the roots of political violence in the country.
Standing in front of three director’s chairs, Adam Mockler speaks into a hand-held microphone. Logos on the blue wall behind him promote the MoveOn organization and its Won’t Back Down Tour.
Adam Mockler, a YouTube personality and contributor to MeidasTouch, during the MoveOn organization’s Won’t Back Down Tour in August.Credit...Ginnie Coleman/Getty Images for MoveOn
Though typically a more grounded rhetorician, Mr. Mockler recently called the president a slur for the mentally disabled while debating the conservative podcaster Michael Knowles at a packed Nashville saloon for “Bar Fight,” a digital series hosted by Mr. Knowles that debuted this month.
“I’m not someone who’s an aggressive person, but I think at some point there needs to be some sort of reciprocal energy, where we’re not being stepped on all the time,” he said, referring to Democrats.
But Mr. Mockler would be the first to admit that liberals had a long way to go.
As far back as 2017, Steven Crowder, a right-wing influencer who now has 5.8 million subscribers on YouTube and 2.5 million followers on X, began inviting college students to debate him while sitting at a table decorated with a sign that read, “Change My Mind.” Mr. Kirk was also engaging in debates around that time, and other right-wing personalities with large followings, including Ben Shapiro and Candace Owens, began adopting the format, recognizing its power to expand their following and influence.
“I wondered if you could just sit down with someone and have a real, unedited conversation with them,” said Mr. Crowder, whose most recent debate, at Southern Methodist University last month, proposed the idea that the left is inherently violent. The video has racked up more three million views.
Mr. Crowder said he welcomed the idea that progressives were looking to engage more actively in debate. “Where were they all this time?” he asked.
On “Bar Fight,” Mr. Mockler was paired with another progressive, Cecilia Rae Davis, a Los Angeles hairstylist, and together they tried to outargue Mr. Knowles on topics including immigration policy, tariffs and gay marriage.
Ms. Davis, 38, said she aspired to be a full-time creator with an emphasis on debate and so far had accrued about 1,100 subscribers on YouTube. (Mr. Knowles has 2.5 million.)
“I found myself watching debates and yelling at the screen, and I thought I wanted to get involved,” Ms. Davis said. “What the left needs right now is fighters who are authentic.”
Over the summer, Priorities USA, the Democratic super PAC, conducted interviews of 1,000 young voters to gauge their viewing habits on YouTube. It found that a meaningful cohort were watching debates — about the same share as those who watched beauty and fashion content or videos with financial advice — and that they felt the format was more authentic than other political material.
“A debate format doesn’t necessarily have as much of a propaganda feel to it,” said Danielle Butterfield, executive director of Priorities USA. “That could bring in a lot more viewers who don’t feel like they’re being spoon-fed political talking points but instead are laying out an entertaining way to have a political dialogue.”
She added: “Democrats are doing a better job of starting to infiltrate existing popular spaces and not just focusing on creating content on our own channels. It’s a shift we’re excited to see.”
Mr. Knowles, 35, who also has a popular Daily Wire show, considers left-wing influencers entering the debate fray to be a “good thing,” he said. “Finally the other side of the aisle wants to get involved in this, too.”
From left, Michael Knowles and his audience at the University of Minnesota during a tour last month, and Steven Crowder in 2020. Credit...Stephen Maturen/Getty Images; Nicole Hester/Mlive.com - Ann Arbor News via Associated Press
By Mr. Knowles’s estimation, the online left is still “trailing years behind” the online right, which used debate to activate its political base when Democrats held more power. “Debates are wonderful for underdogs,” he said.
No company has fueled or benefited from the modern debate boom more than Jubilee, a Los Angeles-based digital media studio. Its YouTube series “Surrounded” features one person debating a rotating cast of 25 opponents; Mr. Kirk’s episode has 38 million views, and he was scheduled to appear in another before his assassination last month.
The explosive popularity of these videos has minted several young stars. Jubilee videos starring Mr. Bonnell, Mr. Knowles and Mr. Mockler have together amassed more than 16 million views.
Two and a half years ago, Dean Withers, 21, debated on livestreams for an audience of about 40 viewers, he said. Today he regularly attracts 25,000 concurrent viewers, with a TikTok following exceeding 4.6 million. A committed progressive, he credits a Jubilee episode with launching his career.
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| Dean Withers, wearing a black T-shirt and jeans, holds a microphone while leaning back at a desk with his feet up. |
Dean Withers’s livestreamed debates regularly draw 25,000 concurrent viewers.Credit...Michael Noble Jr. for The New York Times
Yet Mr. Withers has developed complicated feelings about these videos. Debate can “politically engage people and serve to fight for a positive future,” he said. But debate content “isn’t always benevolent,” he added. “It actually raises a lot of questions of: What’s an appropriate way to go about these conversations?”
Noah Goldman, a graduate student in Los Angeles who attended Mr. Bonnell’s Anti-Trump Tour, said he believed that debates rarely got at the core issues affecting Americans and could promote division. But, he said, Democrats need to be in the arena nonetheless.
“I sort of see it as a survival or a self-defense kind of thing,” he said. “I don’t think that punching is a great way to solve problems, but if the other person punches first, you kind of have to punch back, you know?”
When his two-hour debate in Los Angeles ended, Mr. Bonnell, 36, sipped a Red Bull and signed autographs at a merchandise table where T-shirts featuring Mr. Trump portrayed as a domesticated bird were available for $30.
After nearly a decade sharpening his debate chops against the likes of Mr. Shapiro, the Daily Wire co-founder, and Jordan Peterson, the right-wing Canadian author, Mr. Bonnell understands the popularity of oral combat in very simple terms.
“People like to hate people,” he said.
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