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Celerity

(43,582 posts) Wed Sep 27, 2023, 06:48 PM Sep 2023

The Republican debates are fake, pointless spectacles

https://www.vox.com/2024-elections/2023/9/27/23890683/second-republican-debate-gop-fake-rnc-trump

Tonight’s Republican primary debate is not a real event. It is a performance, a show, a pantomime: a shiny object with virtually no relevance to the outcome of the 2024 presidential primary. Donald Trump is solidly over 50 percent in the national polling averages, and no one else in the primary field has anything that looks like momentum. No opponent has been able to find a line of attack that could hurt him; many of them aren’t even trying. The great GOP establishment hope, that Trump’s legal problems might torpedo his campaign, was a mirage. If anything, the four indictments helped him in the primary.

At this point, the only things that could stop Trump are his death or incapacitation. Everyone in the political world — including the debate’s organizers and non-delusional rival candidates — is aware of this fact. Trump isn’t participating in the debates because he doesn’t need to: He would be lowering himself to share a stage with people who pretend to be rivals, but are really just the warm-up act for his coronation. That doesn’t mean the debate is entirely pointless. The other candidates get something out of being on that stage, like improving their future political prospects or satisfying a need for attention. And if you squint, you might get an actually interesting window into the policy debates that will define a post-Trump Republican Party.

But, of course, we are not yet even close to “post-Trump.” In presenting it as an actual presidential debate, rather than a discussion between somewhat prominent Republicans, the debate’s organizers are lying to you. With Trump absent, and facing no serious challengers, this is all make-believe politics — a ritual the party goes through to cover up the dark reality of what the party has become. The debate is fake. Donald Trump’s grip on the GOP is not.

What the “debate” really is

The case for taking the debate seriously amounts to seeing it as a kind of play-in competition: The candidates are duking it out for the right to become the One True Challenger to Donald Trump. To understand why this isn’t true, it’s worth charting the trajectory of the candidate who previously held that mantle: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. In mid-February, DeSantis was within striking distance, coming in roughly 2 percentage points below Trump in the FiveThirtyEight national poll average. But since then, his numbers have been on a downward trajectory. A disastrously run campaign, hampered by the candidate’s robotic and unlikeable personality, has tanked the primary electorate’s interest in the Florida governor.

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