Trump should forego the discussion

 Trump should forego

When last heard, Donald Trump was indicating that he could miss the Aug. 23 Republican presidential debate in Milwaukee. Many other people, including Ronald Reagan, did not do it. You don't do that when you have a big advantage, Trump stated on Fox.

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Trump was talking the truth for the first time in his life. He has such a huge lead over the rest of the Republican field, including Ron DeSantis, Mike Pence, Chris Christie, Nikki Haley, and Tim Scott, that the cosmos would have to split open and smite him in order to prevent him from being nominated. No candidate has ever lost a lead as large as Trump's did in the summer before the convention, according to a recent article by my colleague Steven Shepard. "A collapse under Trump would be extraordinary. 

Eating when one is not hungry, drinking when one is not thirsty, and winning a debate when one has already won are all bad habits. Therefore, if Trump already has the nomination and has stored it in a box in his Mar-a-Lago bathroom for reopening during the week of the Republican convention, there is no purpose for him to appear on the Milwaukee dais other than to delight his fans.

Trump is being encouraged to go by both the ratings-hungry Fox News executives and the relevance-seeking RNC. However, by responding in the negative, Trump will be doing a lot of good for everyone — voters, his rivals, his party, the animal kingdom, and even the universe. Trump shouldn't attend the debates in person; instead, he should watch them from his clubroom.

Think about the main benefit of removing Trump from the lineup: Trump is the ever-burning supernova of his party, outshining his rivals by a wide margin. Nobody on the continent is unaware of his identity or the principles he upholds. There is no use in trying to get him extra votes at this stage of the campaign, which is over. His media allure and dominance prowess are so great that each debate with a Republican panel featuring him tends to be about him. Even if Trump controlled his energies, the other GOP contenders would insist on clinging to him because it is what they do: Grab at whatever Trump-related news coverage they can enragedly.

Whether or not Trump prevails in the 2024 general election, the Republican Party needs to start planning for a world without Trump. Yes, he will pass away eventually, either called to heaven or some other place, enrolled in a work program run by the Bureau of Prisons, or retired and relaxing on the patio. The current generation of party leaders may use the forum to pitch themselves and their ideas to voters without the suffocating background noise of the Trump siren by keeping Trump out of the debate. He would still be the elephant in the room, albeit a young one. Of course, the candidates would continue to bring up Trump. The Republican Party functions in this way in its current incarnation. 

What would be missing by his absence, aside from Chris Christie, from directly challenging Trump thus far in the campaign?

To believe that a conversation without Trump will achieve new levels of discourse would be naive. That kind of performance has rarely been present during campaign debates. The innate desire to fanny-whack the first runner-up, in this case Ron DeSantis, would persist even in the absence of Trump. But DeSantis lacks the influence and popularity that would make him a nightlong target. DeSantis is already succeeding admirably in his role as the heir apparent, so why bother trying to remove him? Since the days of Windows 95, no one has required as many reboots as DeSantis. The only option left for the candidates would be to argue for themselves and their positions. There may not be a modern-day Cicero among the 

Candidates that can captivate audiences with their speeches. However, exposing the Trump imitators without him there would help the party get ready for the future.

Let's use the Republican debates to reshape the political environment after Trump, since the countdown is set to send him to retirement by 2029, if not sooner.

The presidential debates don't truly allow voters the chance to assess the candidates' positions on the issues, despite all the pretentious talk about a policy battle. People evaluate candidates' presentations more so than they do their responses. Do you like them? Are they witty? Do they display leadership confidence? Do they have political nerve and reflexes? By skipping the debates, Trump will give other opinions a chance to be heard and unintentionally usher in the next phase of his party's development.

content source - https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/08/09/trump-should-skip-the-debate-00110358