American election debate - October 2020

The Sylvan American election debate considered the following motion:

This house believes that the 2020 election will strengthen America’s position in the world.

The debate took place on Monday, 5th October, with Paul Carroll as the proposer and Vaughan Evans as the opposer.

The proposition supporting the view that the election will strengthen America

The proposer framed the election result in terms of undoing the damage that President Trump is inflicting on the US. Oppositions don’t win elections, governments lose them. Currently the electorate is swinging away from Trump in key demographics, and he argued that Trump is likely to lose. Trump has increased existing and created incredible new risks for the US. In the opening speech, he argued that the likelihood of losing is the reason to support the motion. In the rebuttal he argued that Trump’s term will expire in January 2021, regardless of a potentially contested outcome.

The opposition against the motion

The opposer highlighted a closer-than-it-may-appear race, with betting markets indicating tighter odds than the pundits. Trump will not concede defeat and is actively planning to steal the election through voter suppression, trashing postal voting and legal challenges (backed by a Supreme Court he will have significantly appointed). Thousands of ‘brownshirts’ will intimidate anti-Trump demographic groups. The US Postal Service is under control of a Trump appointee. Trump will declare victory when in-person votes are counted and before Biden-leaning postal votes have been counted. State Republicans will control local electoral processes. As a result, the chance of Biden winning is low, and the outcome could lead to violence, possibly even a civil war. US democracy will be shown to be a sham.

Floor speeches from the audience of the American election debate

Floor speakers picked up on a number of threads. Trump has leveraged his Covid infection to change the dynamic of the race, a symptom as much as a cause of the situation. Fewer international election monitors will attend the election due to Covid. The US has lost its position as a land to emulate, which means the outcome of the election does not really matter in terms of global perceptions. Speakers called the US an ‘international terrorist state’ and cited multiple examples of the US supporting dictators around the world. Several speakers criticised Biden’s lack of vision and results through his decades in politics, and contrasted this with Ronald Reagan’s ‘city on a hill’ rhetoric from an earlier time, when the world viewed the US more positively.

Result: in the final vote, the motion was defeated

The Sylvans concluded through the American election debate that the 2020 election will not strengthen America’s place in the world.

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The Sylvans debate the motion: this house believes that the 2020 election will strengthen America's position in the world.

Sylvan Debating Club

American election debate – October 2020