Piers Morgan is much like many of the “Trump apologists” that have been labelled and lambasted by the left wing. He will dispute very specific points of any argument that is presented in opposition to Trump, and side-tracks the argument into details that can be easily picked at, rather than focus on the problem at hand. It is very easy to become incredibly frustrated with this style of opposition, you get bogged down in arguments that you never expected to have, while the real issues get ignored.

Take Piers Morgan and Jim Jeffries back and forth on Bill Maher, Jeffries was becoming obviously frustrated with Morgan’s defence of Trump’s “don’t call it a Muslim ban” as Morgan constantly re-iterated the Sean Spicer talking point that “it isn’t a Muslim ban”. Piers Morgan has successfully managed to redirect the argument, so now rather than discussing the horrendous human rights abuses that have taken place as a result of Trump’s executive order on immigration, the argument becomes bogged down in how to define these abuses.

Jeffries should just agree to call it whatever Morgan wants, and then proceed to have him justify it – because I know who would come away looking worse in that situation. What happens instead is that Jeffries gets lambasted by the right for telling Piers to fuck off, and praised by others for how he shut down Piers Morgan. But this doesn’t advance the argument, it doesn’t foster actual discussion about a serious issue, it just gives us another emotionally charged moment to cheer or get angry about.

This is not an isolated incident, the same thing happens time and again. Piers and JK Rowling had a similar exchange on Twitter in which she “destroyed” him or “owned” him, or whatever way you want to spin it. But once again it resorted to name calling, insulting, and pushing the other side further and further away. There is no doubt that Piers Morgan deserved to be told to fuck off, but for so many other reasons – just because you don’t agree with us calling it a Muslim ban does not make it legal – if it was just morally problematic the courts couldn’t have struck it down.

So next time you see celebrities or politicians insulting each other because of their political leanings, don’t just laugh and agree with whoever you align with, demand better of them! A lack of intellectual arguments and objective thinking got us to the absurd situation we are in now, and if we don’t demand better of our representatives, the media, and the public figures/celebrities we support, then our situation isn’t going to get any better