It’s no loss that the favorite for the Republican presidential nomination is choosing to skip the TV debates. He destroys any form of democratic dialogue anyway.
The Republican establishment is currently outraged that Donald Trump is skipping the first TV debate with the candidates on Fox News and has raised the prospect of missing all the other face-offs. Worse still, the clear favorite for the presidential nomination has scheduled an online interview with the scandal-prone host Tucker Carlson, who was fired from Fox, at the same time on Wednesday evening, justifiably hoping that he will be able to attract far more viewers than the network that used to be his favorite.
Some have complained that Trump is damaging a debating format crucial for U.S. democracy. That may be true. But that would also be the case if Trump were to take part in the debates. He has never been interested in substantive issues, and his debating style always aims at the destruction of his opponent and the debate. In the 2020 face-offs with Joe Biden, it was so bad that the microphones regularly had to be muted to stop Trump’s aggressive interjections.
Trump knows he can win the primaries without appearing alongside his rivals even once. His supporters are not interested in his answers to questions from shrewd journalists — they worship him like a pop star. With figures like Trump, TV debates are just as pointless as all rational arguments. The target of his destructive rage is not an evening TV slot but democracy itself.
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