Why I Will Be Watching the GOP Debate Tonight

The Fiserv Forum is prepared for the Republican presidential debate on August 22, 2023 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where GOP presidential hopefuls, minus Donald Trump, will square off during a debate at the arena. (Photo by Scott Olson/via Getty Images)

Donald Trump is out. Following his fourth criminal indictment, he decided to take his toys and stomp off back home to pout and skip the first 2024 Republican Presidential Primary Debate tonight in Milwaukee. My theory is that his is using the concept of boycotting to cover for what he knows to be true: there is no way he can explain away the indictments, in real time, against opposition. This need for controlling the narrative is why Trump has opted to have a pre-taped interview by Tucker Carlson released just as Fox News is scheduled to cover the debate. I will not be watching that.

Trump still maintains a majority of support from the Republican Party at this point. His ability to spin his legal reckoning into a rendition of The Crucible: Political Edition has been nothing short of spectacular. For this reason, everyone on the stage tonight will, or should, be focused on targeting Trump, and pointing out how they would now chose to lead the party out of ruin. This is my biggest reason for watching - to detect the most viable front-runner who has a chance to overtake Donald Trump.

This debate is a tricky proposition. Attacking Trump while gaining popularity with Republican voters will be the real magic trick, and there don’t appear to be any candidates who even come close to mirroring Trump’s Svengali-like, snake oil salesman grifter power. To be a viable Republican candidate one has to read, and then match the temperature of where the party is really heading in order to craft a set of “ideologies” to define who they really are to the voters, obscuring the real intent to the rest of the world.