One of the more popular political debate shows on social media these days is Surrounded from Jubilee Media. The premise of the show is that one person will enter a ring of 20 or so people with opposing viewpoints and debate against some or all of them under a running time clock. A recent show when Ben Shapiro 'entered the ring' garnered more than five million views, and overall, episodes of the program have earned more than four billion views.
The most recent episode featured liberal commentator and media host Sam Seder stepping inside the circle to debate with some young conservatives. Clips from the episode have been going viral on Twitter because ... well, let's just say that it didn't go well for Seder.
Here are a couple of examples:
Damn in just over 3 minutes, this guy shredded Sam Seder pic.twitter.com/tgOxY8m1uG
— Sean Fitzgerald (Actual Justice Warrior) (@IamSean90) March 10, 2025
Seder was destroyed so thoroughly by some random girl who isn’t ashamed of being pro-America that he had to give up trying to debate, “agree to disagree,” and then resort to whiny name-calling. This is what leftist “debate” looks like. https://t.co/V5ANYhLmdX pic.twitter.com/Ck4M1jkePv
— Sólionath (@Anarseldain) March 11, 2025
Over on Reddit, the left was confounded as to how to even come back against the conservative arguments that America was founded on Judeo-Christian values and that is the country that conservatives want America to be.
That Sam Seder Jubilee segment has completely broken Redditors.
— Reddit Lies (@reddit_lies) March 11, 2025
They have no idea how to respond. pic.twitter.com/BzVp5DmFjr
Or, more accurately, I should say that the left was confounded in terms of coming up with an intelligent counterargument.
For the left, there is always the ability to turn to meaningless insults, as Seder demonstrated when The Daily Wire's Matt Walsh shared how thoroughly he was beaten down on Surrounded.
Im impressed how aggressively these guys from DailyWire are owning white nationalism and theocracy. https://t.co/LDo4BxcHtJ
— Sam Seder (@SamSeder) March 11, 2025
Yes, of course. We're all just white supremacists who want a theocracy. Well argued, Mr. Seder.
Or, you know, not at all well-argued. You just proved Walsh's point about name-calling being your only refuge.
The entire segment begs the question of why the left is always so inept at countering conservative arguments (or, at least, why they have become so in recent years).
The answer to that question was brilliantly explained by Business Insider columnist Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry in an outstanding thread he posted on Twitter yesterday.
In describing his 'Ideological Turing Test,' Gobry explains that the reason is quite simple. Conservatives understand liberals very well, while liberals do not understand -- or even try to understand -- conservatives at all.
Regular reminder that every Ideological Turing Test study has shown that conservatives understand liberal viewpoints quite well, and liberals are incapable of understanding conservative viewpoints. We don’t have to argue, this has been shown and reproduced empirically. https://t.co/6IO5t0mxKq
— Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry (@pegobry_en) March 11, 2025
Gobry smartly includes a screenshot in his first tweet showing that the favorite counter-argument from the left to conservatives is, 'Well, they're just stupid.'
He could have included any number of other tweets from the left that dismissed conservatives as 'Nazis,' 'fascists', 'racists,' or 'bigots.'
They would all mean the same thing: nothing.
The left doesn't get us, and it is a big reason why they are failing to reach Americans outside of their small echo chamber anymore.
In the next tweet, Gabry explains why:
This is because leftism is a form of narcissism, so they can’t help but projecting their neuroses on other people, and so they’re incapable of modeling other minds (this is also known as "empathy").
— Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry (@pegobry_en) March 11, 2025
Such a concise and accurate analysis.
The left doesn't understand religion or God because their political ideology is the religion of the self.
It also explains how they claim to be the party of 'caring and tolerance,' but they do not understand what those words actually mean. Remember how the left reacted when conservatives had religious objections to COVID vaccine mandates?
'Deny them any health care.' 'Don't let them have jobs, go outside, shop at grocery stores, or eat in restaurants.'
Yes, so very tolerant.
Just a few weeks ago we had an avalanche of libs tweeting "Did you vote for this, MAGAtards???" where "this" was something very popular with the MAGA base and explicitly promised by Trump
— Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry (@pegobry_en) March 11, 2025
HA.
I can't lie. I actually love it when a leftist comes at the right with 'Is this what you voted for?'
Then, they always act shocked when the conservative response is, 'Yes, absolutely. Not only did I vote for it, but I want more of this.'
Or every month some lib idiot goes viral saying "Well if you’re going to ban abortion, the dad should have to provide for the child" which is, of course, exactly what social conservatives want.
— Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry (@pegobry_en) March 11, 2025
Hence the "Your terms are acceptable" meme
— Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry (@pegobry_en) March 11, 2025
Etc etc etc, ad infinitum
This is usually the point where the left will stop arguing and just start yelling.
'You're just stupid, and you hate women! You want to turn them all into Handmaid's Tale broodmares.'
And, because conservatives understand liberals, most pointedly that most of them cannot take a joke, the response usually is, 'Correct. Your scarlet robe and white wimple are in the mail.'
The funniest part of Gobry's thread is how many liberals chimed in to prove his point.
Thanks for proving my point 👍
— Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry (@pegobry_en) March 12, 2025
Thank you for confirming it
— Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry (@pegobry_en) March 11, 2025
LOL. Talk about instant validation of a theorem.
Gobry also pointed out how conservatives really are not that difficult to understand if the left would just try or be capable of understanding -- what he accurately calls 'empathy.'
It really isn’t. What’s more, it’s rooted in human nature, which makes it intrinsically intuitive. Which only tells you the amount of neurosis which is required for the delusion to maintain itself.
— Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry (@pegobry_en) March 11, 2025
It's not difficult. All that is required to understand conservatives is some basic common sense and the ability to relate to people of differing opinions, something sorely lacking in the 21st-century left.
This is part of why the Democrats lost in November. A complete inability to correctly sum up an opponent's position results in statements that are so absurdly wrong that no one outside your bubble can take you seriously. https://t.co/l7yryxXy1T
— Verity Bites Back 🇺🇸 🇮🇱 (@VerityAnneBrown) March 12, 2025
It also explains why the left is losing young men (including black men) at a record pace and why they think that David Hogg or 'White Dudes for Harris' is a way to fix that problem.
Normally you'd solve this by talking, but liberals have ended debate on politics. You either agree with them or get punished with emotional hysterics and labeled a "bad" person. https://t.co/k9EO6ZQlRo
— Jackson Sheehan (@JacksonSheehan) March 11, 2025
Yep. Debate shows between conservatives and liberals used to be quite common. Remember Crossfire?
And while conservative politicians and pundits will frequently still step into leftist arenas on cable news, when is the last time you saw, say, Adam Schiff agree to a difficult interview on Fox News or Newsmax? Hell, Joe Rogan isn't even really a conservative, and Kamala Harris was terrified of the idea of having to talk to him for three hours.
It's one of many reasons why the legacy media is dead (and why new media shows that feature debate like this, such as Rogan's podcast or Surrounded, are increasingly popular).
This is one of the basic truths of our time:
— Joe Waldmann (@J58039716) March 12, 2025
Conservatives have a far better theory of mind of Progressives, than vice versa. It's the progs who are lacking here. https://t.co/RvCzkBy54Z
All of this is not to say that conservatives don't love to troll and insult the left. After all, it's kind of what we do here at Twitchy. And social media is filled with memesters, 'sh*tposters,' and others on the right who will happily laugh at and dismiss many leftist positions, usually hilariously.
(I, ahem, may even be one of those 'sh*tposters' on Twitter.)
But the reason that conservative trolls and memes are so effective is that we understand the left. We know what makes them tick, including their trigger points, which, of course, we love to press.
The reason 'the left can't meme' is that they do not understand conservatives even a little bit. They don't even want to. So their memes usually start from a place of anger and absurdity, then careen off of a cliff from there.
And the narcissism that Gobry describes as fundamental to the left is why we don't think they're likely to learn from the last election or the plummeting approval ratings of the Democrat Party anytime soon.
They'll just keep calling conservatives 'stupid, racist MAGAts.'
That's fine by us. We'll just keep winning.
