Good morning!
It’s debate night for Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. Much has been written about their differences in style and substance: the planner vs. the unpredictable, personal stories vs. personal attacks, the prosecutor vs. the property tycoon. Tomorrow, we can focus on the substance of what our presidential candidates said. Today, let’s talk about why the debate style matters.
The highlight of my college debating career was becoming a Canadian national champion by defending the right of the CFL to exist—without knowing the rules. This was about identity, not football. Luckily, my partner Paul Paton was an Argonauts fan. I learned to think on my feet, become less terrified of public speaking, and appreciate the value of humor and understanding other points of view.
Owen Tripp, CEO of Included Health, debated as a student at Trinity College in Connecticut and now uses it “as a centerpiece for how we make our executive decisions.” In his view, “debate is the single best pre-professional preparation,” helping to hone talents that are hard for an AI chatbot to replicate. “You can ask why something is true, given a known body of evidence, or what happens in the future, given probability that you input,” Tripp argues. “But if you ask it to construct an argument for or against something, given an evolving and dynamic set of arguments, it can’t.”
Responding to a series of questions is not the same as parliamentary debate, of course. And viewers hope that Harris and Trump will address the substance of each other’s remarks. Are voters right to be down on the economy, as polls suggest, or is Yale’s Jeff Sonnenfeld right in saying rhetoric is allowing a false narrative to take hold? What they say matters most.
But how they say it matters, too. Instead of a mute button, debaters and politicians have rules designed to promote civility and avoid ugly exchanges like we saw in Congress earlier this year. At a dinner the other night hosted by Dina Powell McCormick, Trump’s former deputy national security advisor, Baroness Dambisa Moyo reminded me that the convention in the House of Lords is for members to address each other by their titles. “It takes away the tactless lack of decorum and low-ball zingers of other debates,” the influential economist says, adding that requiring Harris and Trump to do the same “could maybe bring it down a notch.”
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Diane Brady
diane.brady@fortune.com
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