Twelve Days of “CX-Mas” - Generic Generics

“On the third day of Christmas my true love sent to me

An overview of generic generics”

For any given topic there are core generic positions that ought to be generally applicable for most, if not all, affs regardless of plan specifications. For instance, a taxation resolution (like the 2024 LD Jan-Feb wealth taxes topic) has the economy DA which is readable in almost any circumstance. All affs potentially influence economic growth, so the economy DA is readable the overwhelming majority, if not all, rounds (and til the degree to which it's not applicable, the aff likely is untopical). However, a generic topic DA is near exclusively applicable only towards that particular topic, necessitating another generic topic for a new topic. A space industry DA is entirely useless for a healthcare topic (and vice versa). These are generics for that particular topic, but they are not a generic for most all topics.

However, many negative positions are broadly usable regardless of the resolutional context - it matters not if it's an immigration, environment, international relations, or domestic topic. These are what I’ll refer to as “generic generics.” They're fairly generic arguments that are generic to all topics.  

The easiest example for a generic generic is the federalism disadvantage (which argues the aff negatively impacts the balance of power between states and the federal government) and the states counterplan on domestic policy debate topics which usually mandate federal action. Except for international topics, the potential warrants for the necessity of federal action over state action are debatable, meaning policy debaters ought to commonly expect the federalism DA to one of the most debated disadvantages during the course of their debate career 

The states CP is also paired with the generic generic politics and/or elections disadvantage. These disadvantages argue the aff has negative political implications, such as lowering a politicians political capital, causing party in-fighting, decreasing their public popularity before an election. These effect of the aff is causing a good politician to lose (or a bad politician to win) or prevent the passage of a highly beneficial bill in Congress.

Another generic strategy are impact turns. Some of the most successful debaters have routinely impact turned the aff with their more expansive and thorough impact files to out-compete affs. Affs are usually much more prepared to defend the substance of the aff and answer topic disadvantages. 

Some of the best debaters made it to final rounds of the most prestigious tournaments in American debate from impact turns. For instance, the winners of the 2019 NDT for college policy debate were set to lose in earlier out rounds due to a lack of answers to a new disadvantage, but then spent most of the 1AR impact turning an add-on newly read during the neg block. Understandable, the neg wasn't prepared for several minutes of impact turns regarding food prices, reading the impact add-on with the expectation of minimal impact defense in the 1AR. As an aside, this is also an argument against reading new arguments to support a position the already team has already lost as it justifies new answers to your new arguments that can be leveraged to answer the entire position.

Many, but not all, kritiks also could be considered generic generics, especially given kritiks premised on links of omission or kritiks of debate itself. It matters not what the topic is if topics will effectively never focus on what the kritik deems important, uses state actions, or exists within the debate community.

Though this somewhat depends on your debate event, a running list of generic generics for a back file for your team would include the following:

• Impact Turns (economy, climate change, hegemony)

• Federalism DA

• Politics DA

• Elections DA

• States Counterplan 

• Courts/Executive CP

• Consult X Country CP

• Kritiks (especially Identity/performance kritiks)

• Theory (especially conditionally, topicality, and plans bad for LD)

• Spark (nuclear war good)

• Wipeout (human extinction good)

• Gregorian Calendar Kritik

All of these are worthwhile to have some familiarity with, and during off-season downtime, create back files in a collective team Drop Box for the purpose of ensuring you have an answer whenever a generic generic comes up. These arguments are great to prepare for when not actively preparing for any upcoming topics or tournaments, such as summer break post-nationals or time after the TOC, but winter break is also an opportunity to fill-in back files. A great impact defense file alone is a worthwhile endeavor, and other back files are great supplements