Column: Donald Trump will win the debate on Wednesday just by skipping it
What‘s lost when former President Trump opts to skip the Republican presidential primary debates?
So, so much.
The insults, the bluster, the interruptions, the thin-skinned petulance, the combative cross-talk, the mad-dog facial expressions, the contests over whose penis is bigger. (“There’s no problem, I guarantee you,” Trump told the world in March 2016, when the subject arose.) The entertainment. The exhaustion.
Seven years ago, when it seemed impossible that Donald Trump could win the Republican Party nomination for president, and then equally impossible that he would beat Hillary Clinton, I was riveted by the GOP primary debates because Trump was so outrageous, so vicious, so off-the-wall. He was a showman who’d honed his TV skills as an omnipotent but phony self-made billionaire on a reality show. More huckster than businessman, he instinctively knew how to make good TV. But a president?
And then Clinton’s vaunted Midwestern “blue wall” crumbled. Even though Trump lost the popular vote, the vicissitudes of the electoral college kicked in, and we found ourselves with a political novice in the Oval Office.
Can making nice with our political opposites change the underlying dynamic driving polarization? Not while social media disinformation thrives unchecked.
In four years, Trump remade the Supreme Court, botched the pandemic response, alienated allies, dog-whistled racist messages, reversed policies aimed at slowing global climate change and slashed taxes leading to record deficits. He was impeached twice, encouraged a deadly insurrection when his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election failed, and absconded from the White House with dozens of highly classified documents. Earlier this year, he was found liable for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll by a jury who awarded her $5 million.
Now, of course, he faces four different criminal indictments.
Yet for 30% of Republicans, especially evangelical Christians who have misplaced their moral compasses, Trump can do no wrong, or at least not enough to matter.
Inflicting a second Trump administration on the world would be a disaster. Already, he has promised to dedicate himself to punishing his political enemies. The Washington Post reported Tuesday that he is working on a proposal to impose “massive” tariffs on all imported goods, which “reflects how Trump is aiming to expand the power he wielded in the White House, eyeing sweeping authoritarian measures for his second term that range from deploying the military to fight street crime to purging the federal workforce.” If you like fascism, you will love a second Trump term.
The only plausible mechanism to prevent Trump from winning the GOP nomination is the criminal justice system, which other candidates have attacked and delegitimized.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Before any of that can happen, there will be debates, nominating contests, party conventions and an election. As we learned in 2016, anything could happen.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis could develop a personality, former Vice President Mike Pence could grow a real spine and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s zingers (“He’s never gotten his ass kicked by someone from New Jersey”) could start to land.
The Andrew Yang of the current Republican cycle, biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, now rising in the polls, is likely to fade. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott may cancel each other out, while former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum have been relegated to the wings, far from the limelight, though they managed to make it to the first debate.
To refresh my memory about what we will miss with a Trump-less debate, I re-watched a smattering of the 2016 GOP primary debates this week. Trump was, in all of them, the proverbial skunk at the garden party.
But Trump, the topic, should definitely make an appearance — along with the question of whether a president should be able to scheme to undermine the integrity of American elections
The candidates were flummoxed by his uncouth behavior, his lies, his unpredictability and his willingness to attack Republican orthodoxy, which threw his opponents for loop after loop.
For instance, he punctured the myth that former President George W. Bush “kept us safe” after the attacks of 9/11, correctly noting that he hadn’t kept us safe at all, as the catastrophe happened on his watch. He called the Iraq war “a big fat mistake.” This reality check reduced former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who had been expected to sweep the Republican primaries and sally into the White House, into a stuttering mess, blathering about how he would not allow his family to be insulted that way.
But of course, Trump was right. And Bush would soon drop out of the race.
In a critique reminiscent of his inane birther claims against former President Obama, Trump said Texas Sen. Ted Cruz wasn’t qualified to run for president because he was born in Canada (to an American mother), “and that’s a big problem.”
Trump’s 78 criminal counts should give his rivals ammunition in the primary campaign. If only they’d use it.
“Donald,” admonished Cruz in one debate, “adults learn not to interrupt.”
“Yeah, yeah,” replied Trump snidely, “you’re an adult.”
Every once in a while, Trump was actually funny. When the candidates were asked what they’d like their Secret Service code names to be, Trump didn’t hesitate. “Humble,” he said. (It was actually, yes, “Mogul.”)
As the mega-front-runner in the 2024 race — he’s around 40 points ahead in almost every poll — Trump doesn’t need any of the debates to solidify his standing. His base congealed a long time ago.
More to the point, Trump can win Wednesday’s debate without showing up. To be precise, he can win especially by not showing up.
The highly entertaining legal drama, which co-stars Meghan Markle, went off the air years ago. But it’s ba-ack!
Unlike 2016, Trump now has a record (criminal and political). We know what a Trump administration would look like.
If his Republican opponents were brave, they could attack the absent GOP front-runner from a lot of angles that might move the bloc of non-MAGA Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who vote: His legal woes will make it impossible for him to govern (especially from a prison cell). He’s a proven liar and liars can’t be trusted. His party leadership tanked Republican candidates in three important political cycles. He has exhausted and divided the country.
Of the top-tier candidates, I expect Christie will be the only one willing to risk the base’s — and the boss’ — displeasure in any detail.
Trump will loom over the debates like the Great Pumpkin. At some point, I predict, at least one of the candidates will announce disingenuously, “Why are we talking about Trump? He’s not even here.”
Oh, but he is. He definitely is.
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