system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: The fact Ben Shapiro is being mocked for issues in his personal life is demonstrative of a huge issue in politics today - that point scoring and “burns” are becoming more important than addressing political stances.

Let me just preface this by saying I personally cannot stand Ben Shapiro - I feel like his “debating” is based on punching beneath his intellectual weight and arguing in bad faith. However, recently, my social media and friend groups have been flooded with memes, tweets, jokes and burns about how Shapiro is unable to satisfy his wife. The amount of glee and attention it’s getting, however, makes little sense to me. It doesn’t stop Shapiro being a major political voice to the American public, nor does it have any effect on his views. 

I’ve seen similar things with a lot of politicians - Donald Trump misspeaking, Obama and his “fancy mustard”, and closer to home, Boris Johnson’s full name sounding pretentious. Each time, floods of attention and content are produced mocking something, which to me at least, seem trivial. All of this has brought me to the conclusion that political discourse in the present has devolved into political point scoring and personal attacks, rather than actually debate over stances and issues. 

I’d love to hear more views on this, especially from people who feel otherwise!
gpt
>I’ve seen similar things with a lot of politicians - Donald Trump misspeaking, Obama and his “fancy mustard”, and closer to home, Boris Johnson’s full name sounding pretentious.

Do you notice a pattern in the types of people you're labeling here (with the exception of Obama)? All of them have a history of personal attacks or similar behavior. Shapiro is high up on that list. That makes people feel a lot less bad about returning the favor.

Basically, if a public figure engages in something, it's ok to give them a taste of their own medicine. You don't get to dish it out if you can't take it.

>It doesn’t stop Shapiro being a major political voice to the American public, nor does it have any effect on his views.

It's not supposed to. That said, there is plenty of political commentary on his actual views and otherwise, so it's not really getting in the way of anything.

>All of this has brought me to the conclusion that political discourse in the present has devolved into political point scoring and personal attacks, rather than actually debate over stances and issues.

Just because there is some amount of personal attacks, doesn't imply that there is no actual discourse. You can actually have both. You'll tend to see the former on social media (it's a lot easier to meme a joke about Shapiro's wife than a nuanced discussion of capitalism), but that has more to do with the format.

The issue is not that there isn't political discourse- it's that the places you're looking (social media, friend groups)- generally tend to be mediums for posting things like jokes. Not high brow, in-depth political discussion.