Debate as a sanctioned sport has been like this since before any of us were probably alive. Its just a game of teaching people how to do politician rants, where you manipulate the audience into think "you good, other side bad" and then handing you the W off that. Its got about as much depth as the Family Guy episode where Lois wins all political debates by saying 9/11 over and over to rile people up and ignore her actions.

The only thing that stopped this kind of political angle prior was probably stricter rules against doing it this directly on the nose. But as we know from the "say trans rights" meme, you can't even cite "we don't wanna get into it" against the trannies.