50 Comments

I think it’s fascinating that the pro-business, anti-elite party thinks a man should not have to interview for a job. I wish I could do that. I would send in my resume and the employer when I want to start and refuse any interviews. Maybe I’ll even apply for a job I was fired from and claim I’m the best candidate. The possibilities are endless when you’re a bully with no shame in a room full of pathetic climbers.

Expand full comment

If that was actually what the Tuber said it is not surprising he doesn’t want to debate

Expand full comment

Probably not a bad strategy. I don't Biden should debate Trump if he is the nominee.

Expand full comment

Are you kidding, Biden wiped the floor with him in 2020

Expand full comment

I'm going to be blunt and just say it straight up. Supporters don't want Trump to debate because he has no self control, he is full of hate and vengeance, he is a perpetual victim and whiner, and he is flat out too dumb.

Expand full comment

🤣 Haven't read beyond the title "Trump's Backers Don't Think He Should Debate." The first thing that came to my mind, pre coffee, was "No Shit!"

Expand full comment

I'm not surprised that Trump doesn't want to debate. It seemed to me that he experienced a progressive decline in his ability to speak, coherently anyway, during his Presidency, that it accelerated after his bout with covid, and that it seems to have continued during his post-presidency. His entourage must be horrified at the prospect of putting that on display in debates, and it has probably reached the point where even Trump can't pretend anymore.

I doubt that they'll even want to put him on display in a debate with Biden, but he probably will overrule them on that, to his disadvantage.

Expand full comment

He won’t overrule them. Deep down he knows he can’t handle answering questions. His whole schtick is slinging incoherent garbage that his intellectually challenged base eats up.

Expand full comment

He is terrified of debating Biden, remember he wimped out on the second debate last time. If he did show up and Biden put on his aviators t**** would run off the stage

Expand full comment

Regardless, Fox News will declare him the "winner" of the debate. Isn't that what really matters? :)

Expand full comment

I have a suggestion...

Next time you hear Donald Trump speaking, close your eyes. Listen to the quality of his speech. Ask yourself "Does this person come off sounding as 'old' as Joe Biden?" When you simply hear Donald Trump and not see him speaking, the perception of him changes markedly. In my ear, he sounds alarmingly elderly (and I am not slamming senior citizens...I think they may get what I am saying more so than younger people. Senior citizens can just tell when someone is ready to go out to pasture").

Expand full comment

I totally agree -- see above. If anything, it's even more obvious when you read a transcript of his remarks as delivered.

Expand full comment

From a physical perspective, he is *still* as overweight as when Dr Oz had him on his television. His terrible diet is infamous and widely known. His LONG opposition to exercise is well known as well. Trump has been obsessively secretive about his health. Let's not forget the Diet Coke bit...there is the possibility that the phosphoric acid in the beverage has decreased his bone density (although that is still debated by science--some researchers say yes, and some say it is inconclusive). If it has, and he has a fall and fractures a hip, his advanced age opens the door to complications. If Joe Biden is a problem due to cognitive decline, then Donald Trump is a problem due to poor physical health.

Expand full comment

Trump has never made any effort to persuade the narrow band of true swing voters. His strategy is to "fire up the base". The rest of the GOP seems to have adopted it, too. To judge from the rallies, his supporters love his incoherent word salads. Maybe call his hours-long harangues his "music"; the audience certainly isn't there for any fact based reasoned discourse but for an experience more like a rock concert.

Expand full comment

OMG! - where to start on the piece about trump not debating? For a start, of COURSE his backers don't think he should "debate." Letting trump stand up and spout off his normal word salad? Risking him getting asked questions he doesn't want to answer? Even worse, risking him being asked the same question two or three times - and having him blow up?

And as for J.D. Vance's "It’s ultimately President Trump's call and I trust his political judgment more than mine." - I thought I was going to throw up. His next book should be called "How to Climb the Greasy Pole With Only Sycophancy to Help"

Turnipfield's word salad seemed even more off the wall than usual - if that's possible.

And the Bill Hagerty comment - classic example of how to say no while saying yes. Sounded like he was asked for his opinion on whether a four year old should be allowed to drive a truck.

Which is the position the GOP will be in if they allow trump to debate.

Expand full comment

Of course Trump shouldn't debate. The village idiot doesn't exactly benefit from advertising. Nor do we get any healthier from a steady diet of word salad.

Expand full comment

I've been so impressed by Colin Allred over the past several years. Glad to see him take on Ted Cruz.

Expand full comment

Trump is a coward and bully who is terrified of...CNN. Of course he won’t debate. When you consider who he speaks for, why should he?

Expand full comment

Mr. Perticone,

Thank you for another excellent piece; it is much appreciated! I would like to note one minor error, though. While the standard usage does have a footnote not explicitly forbidding it, "myriad" is generally treated as an adjective, best seen as analogous to "many."

Respectfully,

DS

California

Expand full comment

I had totally forgotten that Trump ducked Biden in the second debate

Expand full comment

#1 trump did not write that email. The syntax is all wrong. #2 trump can't debate because his own dementia keeps showing up in all his dumb rallies. Rambles with no direction. The only thing he can do is insult and attack. And he doesn't want his cult to know that he has no policy and nothing to say but rehashing crap

Expand full comment

Those idiots don’t care about policy. The are too busy calling Biden senile to admit Dumpster has been in cognitive decline for years.

Expand full comment

But all his supporters love his policies! Not that they can name any, but they do love them.

Expand full comment

Insult, attack, AND lie.

And I agree with you. Trump didn't write that.

Expand full comment

Of course TFG won't enter any debate. Debating takes preparation and brains, neither of which are high on his agenda of "What I want to do or have."

Expand full comment

Trump will show up at the "debates" if the audience for the "debates" is the right audience.

Trump makes sounds that resemble words, and often even whole sentence fragments, but he never debates, never offers or defends a thesis. People naively mistake his utterances, and try to respond to them as if they are language, because the phonemes of "all Mexicans are rapists", interpreted as English words, seems to be a claim about reality. But Trump isn't trying to convince his auditors that Mexicans share the characteristic of being rapists. He has no concern for what they think; he is singing what they feel.

Trump's word salad is not language, it's jazz... specifically, it's a form of scat singing, wordlike nonsense syllables strung together in harmonic and rhythmic patterns that bypass linguistic processing, go straight to the id, and directly arouse emotions of self-pity, anger, excitement, resentment, fear, and rage.

This is why you can't win a debate with him or even wrong foot him on any subject with his demographic. You can't refute an aria with a dictionary.

Expand full comment

Biden is generally held, especially by post-debate polling of Americans, to have won both debates with Trump in 2020. Oddly enough, Biden got higher approval ratings during the first debate, which was a shit show from Trump interrupting, probably because he called Trump a clown and said "Will you shut up, man?" So it can be done. Just not by the spineless sycophants who make up the other GOP candidates.

Expand full comment