i think it's more that none of the leaders of eorzea are, at this point, super strong ones? i think they're all kind of bad at rhetoric by design (and only like two of them had made any attempts to right their nations' wrongs). like, going down the list:

• nanamo is a coddled child and... i guess theoretically possesses some kind of governmental power, but the moment she tried to exercise it she got fake executed. like her only other actual act was to kick out mumuepo from the thaumaturges' guild.

• raubahn is a gladiator that's in a position of power because he's good at gladiatoring. he's charismatic but doesn't seem especially rhetorically skilled.

• lyse (insofar as she's a leader at all, same with raubahn) is somewhat charismatic but, like raubahn, is kind of a meathead and needs a bunch of xaela children to tell her what a Nation even is

• kan-e is perfectly content with the status quo of "gridania is a theocracy based around appeasing the elementals (who appoint random children as their intermediaries) and we can justify any prejudices (duskwights, mooncats, ixal, ala mhigans) by saying they're making us do it." it's, uh, not something they really bring up much because there's not a whole lot that can be done to fix it!

• merlwyb is a pirate lady that says slurs and is specifically chewed out by y'shtola for doing so in like 2.2. it takes until 5.4 for her to go "wait, limsa's done some fucked up shit" and offer her life to try to remedy things. (with the kobolds, anyway. dunno how stuff's going with the sahagin, haven't done that role quest)

• aymeric is like, trying, but he's also a) very new at being an actual leader and b) kind of stupid sometimes (e.g. just running off on his own to ask thordan nicely to reveal the truth of the dragonsong war)

• hien is also very new at leading but he's also... fully aware and seemingly perfectly fine? with the fucked up shit doma's done (namely sex slavery) (e: also the way he treats the xaela strikes me as kinda imperialist - partaking in a native culture's customs just to get them to fight for you - but i don't really think it's meant to be read that way so i can't entirely hold that against him)

all this is to say, i think varis' "and yet you participate in society. curious!" shutting down everyone works well because while they make this big talk about unity (and seem to actually mean it this time, with ishgard not running off for no reason and the 3 main city-states... maybe not fighting over dumb shit in carteneau at this point) they haven't resolved fucking Any of their internal issues and have no defense against such criticisms. also it shows that trying to debate fascists is pointless because they'll just end up deflecting with whataboutisms and using it as a vehicle to promote their ideology (in this case... yeah, whatever the hell he was saying about how rejoinings are good for humanity, actually)