One of the qualities I've noticed in this debate, as well as almost every other item of public discourse, is that the sides approach the topic in a way I'd term "skew." The notion of "skew" is one borrowed from geometry. In Euclidean geometry, two lines are parallel if they are equidistant from one another at every point and if a line that crosses one at right angles also crosses the other at right angles (think railroad tracks). If they cross at one point, they are called intersecting lines. If they do not intersect and are not equidistant from one another, then they are skew. They will have a point of closest proximity, without intersecting, and as one traverses the points of the line while moving away from that point of closest proximity, they are further apart.
Our debates are "skew" in that sense. We may have a point of close proximity, but we lack points of intersection. This goes to the vocabulary we use to frame our positions, the presuppositions we hold, the ways in which we frame the issues, and so on. It means we lack the shared foundations upon which we can even begin to discuss disagreements.
In the end, we shout past one another.