Who told people debate was a valid form of discourse?

It's the Ivy League tier shit. A bunch of blue bloods preening at each other for decades, and now the proles have started doing it too. Serfs aping their masters.

I think even the romans knew it was for show and we are acting like the ability to talk real fast and real loud count for anything

Rhetoric is critical in building class consciousness. That's as true among the capital class as the proletariat.

The Roman Senate was all about influence peddling and deal making. It was a structure for expressing power, not the source of power itself.