You imply that a logical debate is somehow 'better' than a political debate. That's a category mistake: those two are incomparable. They necessarily coexist, because they are about different things.

Politics is about ethics. In this case: the ethical consequences of certain technical choices (under which I include a consideration like 'I will make less money'). (Expert) knowledge of the technical choice itself is mostly irrelevant for those parts of the debate. We can discuss the military merits of e.g. nuclear weapons until kingdom come, but if I'm opposed to them on humanitarian grounds, no amount of technical merits will convince me.

As for the quote, it depends on context. In a context where expert knowledge is necessary to make useful contributions to the debate, there is nothing redeeming in the quote. It merely encourages people to be disrupt it. In the more general context where you ask a researcher to be able to explain his work: of course he should be able to dumb it down. But not for the purposes of subsequently engaging in fruitful discussion with him.

Politics is about ethics? Yes, well, do you think an eight year old can look words up in the dictionary? Yes, of course you do. Well I argue that's all it takes, essentially, beyond that an eight year old needs some time, to answer some questions of their own, to be lectured at about the implications. But, an 8yo is perfectly capable of making the right choice, given context/access to information.

And, I'll additionally argue that technical merits can convince someone opposed on humanitarian grounds, the two are not incomparable, we do these sorts of comparisons just fine in the real world.

You are attempting to modularise the argument in a way I find unpalatable is all, our differences are likely surface deep.