The Elephant Not In the Room
When the Republican presidential field meets tonight at the first debate of the primaries, there’s going to be a noticeable absence — former president, current frontrunner and future defendant Donald John Trump.
We’ve all become numb to the many ways in which Trump has broken with the norms of our politics, but it’s worth noting that we’re in uncharted waters once again.
Primary contests in a presidential race are a relatively recent development, and public debates in those contests are even more so. The Democrats (always in disarray!) pioneered the practice a half century ago, with a 1968 debate between Senators Robert F. Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy and a 1972 debate between Senators George McGovern and Hubert Humphrey. Still, these were relatively minor events. In 1976, the primaries emerged as an important tool for Jimmy Carter’s outsider bid for the nomination, but there weren’t any primary debates at all.
The Republicans didn't hold primary debates during that period, but as they sought to retake the presidency in 1980, they instituted the practice for the first time. Ronald Reagan, who had nearly taken the nomination from incumbent president Gerald Ford in 1976, initially tried to present himself as the presumptive nominee in 1980 and stay “above the fray” by skipping the debates. That backfired badly, though, with Reagan losing the Iowa caucuses to George H.W. Bush and then quickly committing to the next debate in New Hampshire, where his fiery performance turned things around.
Since then, the Republicans have held well-attended primary debates every campaign, except for years when there was an incumbent Republican president. In the 1988 campaign, George H.W. Bush and all the other candidates began with an October 1987 debate moderated by William F. Buckley, ultimately holding nine in all. In 1996, Bob Dole faced nine rivals in seven debates. In 2000, George W. Bush skipped the first two debates but joined the others in the final nine. In 2008, John McCain and a changing cast of competitors took part in twenty-one (!) primary debates, while in 2012, Mitt Romney and the rest scaled down to a mere twenty primary debates.
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In all those campaigns, the eventual nominee took part in some, if not all, of the major debates, proving himself against the field. At the start of the 2016 campaign, Donald Trump seemed set to break this tradition, boycotting the Iowa debate in one of his regular lovers’ spats with Fox News. Trump narrowly lost that to Ted Cruz, but managed to spin the results as a loss for Cruz. But then Trump did take part in the New Hampshire debate (where he got to witness Chris Christie euthanizing Marco Rubio) and went on to win there.
This time around, Trump is threatening to boycott all the primary debates, which is something we’ve only seen before with incumbent presidents. Now, Trump is a former president, of course, but that’s quite different from being an incumbent president because, as the “former” implies, he lost the last time around. And having a record as a loser typically prevents a candidate from pretending the competition is already over.
Trump has long denied he lost last time, though, so of course he’s acting like he’s still the president. But what’s puzzling is that so many of his ostensible rivals — the ones who are trying to win this contest against him — are basically agreeing with him on this point. There have been a few exceptions, but most of the Republicans have spent the last few months offering excuses and defenses for Trump’s efforts to subvert the last election. In providing cover for him, rather than presenting a challenge, they’re effectively elevating him as the incumbent.
By making excuses for the candidate, they’re making the case for his candidacy — not their own.
