With President Biden officially running for a second term, there is the minor question of whether there should be any debates between him and the other candidates, Marianne Williamson and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The answer appears to be “no, there won’t be any debates.” For now.
While incumbent presidents seeking a second term are, as heads of their parties, under no obligation to give potential opponents free and equal time on a debate stage. And even when the incumbents do win renomination, if the primary fights to do so are particularly bruising, as they were for Jimmy Carter in 1980 and George H.W. Bush in 1992, giving the runner-up air time can prove politically damaging.
On the GOP side, frontrunner and former President Donald Trump is saying he might not participate in the party’s August debate in Milwaukee:
“I see that everybody is talking about the Republican Debates, but nobody got my approval, or the approval of the Trump Campaign, before announcing them,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “When you’re leading by seemingly insurmountable numbers, and you have hostile Networks with angry, TRUMP & MAGA hating anchors asking the ‘questions,’ why subject yourself to being libeled and abused?”
Trump also took issue with plans to hold the second planned GOP debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California, noting that Fred Ryan, publisher of The Washington Post, is chairman of the board of trustees at the Reagan Library.
This is all right out of the Trump 2016 playbook when he famously skipped a debate to hold a fundraiser. In 2020, Trump threatened not to debate Biden because he thought the bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates was biased against him:
“As President, the debates are up to me, and there are many options, including doing them directly & avoiding the nasty politics of this very biased Commission,” Trump said. “I will make a decision at an appropriate time but in the meantime, the Commission on Presidential Debates is NOT authorized to speak for me (or R’s)!”
There’s a real possibility that neither Biden nor Trump will debate anyone on the primaries, or the general election.
The question is whether voters will notice. The reason is simple: there will be an inescapable deluge of ads across all forms of media for the major party nominees. A debate between the principles would only break through the billions of dollars of advertorial noise if one of them made a major gaffe.
Just like debates in the modern presidential era have always done. We don’t watch to learn about the candidates. We watch to see who smashes into the rhetorical wall and watch their campaign go up in flames.
That’s it. There’s no higher civic value, no greater national need, in these affairs. At best, they are the dullest form of infotainment. At worst, they are car wrecks we can’t help watching. Maybe taking a four-year break from these spectacles will do us some genuine good.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
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Yes for these reasons:
Debates rigged
Mods rigged
Get Trump vs issues
Fights
Bore the voters
Issues NOT resolved
One sided
When are the people in this great country going to stop the hate mongering. Everything was great between the democrats and Trump, they got his support and to line their gold filled pockets. Trump
got tired of playing their games and
and decided he didn’t like what the rats were doing and he decided to change parties and then decided to run for President. Democrats didn’t like his decisions and started their hate campaign and when Trump tweeted what he thought and brought attention to the public about what was going on, Pelosi and then other democrats and other rats continued their
hateful rhetoric and it’s obvious that they haven’t stopped blaming everything they do on Trump. Trump was a strong President and kept the public aware of what he was doing unlike the idiots called democrats. Too bad we can’t turn the tables on the democrats but we are not that type of trash. Respect and understanding the criminals like Pelosi, Biden, Harris, Shifty Schiff, Waters, Schumer and the squad to name a few, are what are important to win a Presidential campaign and I believe it’s time to reinstate Trump and take our country back! You can’t trust a democrat unless you believe in the communist party as they aren’t the Democratic Party anymore.
Well stated, saved me a lot of time. Thank you.
There hasn’t been a debate between opposing political candidates in decades. The “joint press conferences” they call debates don’t even remotely resemble actual debates.
Of course Trump is right ! When cheating is allowed as it was when he “debated” HRC there is no fairness! HRC and her accomplice still have not been made to answer for their actions!!
How dare you blatantly make a total truth-commentary in Wonderland, filled with such cynicism and bitterness! Do you intend to shock the populace awake from their stuporious fantasia? Don’t you realize everything is wonderful, wonderful–ask Johnny Mathis, and never forget that Soylent Green is people.