As a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the debating community shifted its activities online, with the vast majority of trainings, coaching, and tournaments (including majors such as WUDC, ABP, or EUDC) being held on various online platforms such as Zoom or Discord. With the end of the pandemic, much of debating has begun to revert to offline events (e.g. the past three iterations of WUDC were held in-person), although online debating has not completely died out.

In the run-up to, and after the 2024 US presidential election, there have been prominent catastrophizing narratives about the Trump presidency, including but not limited to claims that Trump is a threat to democracy and may pursue suspending elections and/or the Constitution in order to become an autocrat, direct comparisons of Trump to fascism, nazism and Adolf Hitler, fears that Trump's foreign policy would destroy international stability and result in large-scale global conflict, or claims that Trump would actively allow for the breakdown of law and order, and widespread violence against minority groups. These narratives are mostly perpetuated in liberal and progressive circles.