It's very hard to have honest intellectual debates. Too many people go in there to find an enemy and a team.
I think that's pretty much just how people are sadly.
When debates involve issues on the current bipartisan political spectrum, people just tend to assign "us" vs "them" to others and then any hope of discussion is pretty much over.
I had a debate with a guy on a gun control issue, literally
went into the scientific literature on the topic and wrote summaries on the commonly accepted views, and then he brushed it off and insulted my critical thinking abilities
ok