A closer look
American television networks in 1968 decided to boost their abysmal ratings by hiring conservative William F. Buckley and liberal Gore Vidal to debate each other live during the political conventions. The intellectual discourse quickly devolved into raw chaos, culminating in Vidal calling Buckley a crypto-Nazi on national television, which caused Buckley to completely lose his mind and threaten to smash Vidal in the face. This legendary broadcast essentially invented the modern political punditry format, where serious ideological debate is permanently replaced by furious name-calling and escalating personal threats. We can directly thank these two supposed intellectual giants for laying the groundwork for every terrible, screaming-match cable news panel that currently haunts our television screens
