Donald Trump will win the GOP presidential debate by not showing up

The first Republican presidential candidate debate is scheduled for Wednesday evening, televised (appropriately enough) on Fox News. Donald Trump will be the winner, because he’s not going to be there. Instead, the ex-president (and potential future felon) will be posting an online interview with Tucker Carlson.

Loathsome as he is, Trump has an unparalleled ability to score points at everyone else’s expense. His decision to boycott the first debate serves multiple goals toward that end.

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For one thing, Trump is far and away the leading candidate. His absence diminishes the debate program. It also spares him the indignity of being attacked by other candidates. Instead, he can just sail through what will likely be a friendly interview with Carlson while a clutch of desperate also-rans try to distinguish themselves from one another.

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At the same time, Trump manages to give the middle finger to Fox News. He’s furious that Fox has been favoring Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) over him, complaining that the channel has even been using unflattering photos of him. Network executives went out of their way to court him to appear at the debate, which makes Trump turning them down all the sweeter for him.

Even better, he’s stiffing them with the guy they fired, Carlson. Not only does Trump get to tank the ratings for the debate, but he gets to do it by being interviewed by the guy who used to be the channel’s ratings champion.

So what’s left for the candidates who are showing up? It’s largely going to be an opportunity to see if DeSantis can give an imitation of a credible candidate after months of proving that he can’t.

Not helping DeSantis’ case is the lengthy set of debate instructions prepared for him by the supportive super PAC, Never Back Down. The documents were posted online but with a URL known only to a few insiders in order to exploit a legal loophole forbidding PACs from providing private advice to campaigns.

Unfortunately for the DeSantis campaign, someone shared the URL and the advice sounds like as if it was written for a chatbot.

“1. Attack Joe Biden and the media 3-5 times. 2. State GRD’s positive vision 2-3 times. 3. Hammer [entrepreneur] Vivek Ramaswamy in a response. 4. Defend Donald Trump in absentia in response to a Chris Christie attack.”

Apparently, DeSantis considers Ramaswamy, who has been rising in the polls, as a threat, which is a sign of just how dire a state the governor’s campaign is in. Ramaswamy is polling at about 7 percent, compared to DeSantis’ anemic 16 percent.

The debate will probably show that DeSantis is pursuing voters who will never vote for him and won’t be watching him. They will be watching Trump. An analysis of the GOP electorate by The New York Times identified six major groups in the party. The bad news for DeSantis: “Mr. Trump leads Mr. DeSantis among every group of Republican voters identified in the analysis.”

In fact, the number of candidates who will qualify to show up on the debate stage won’t be known until Wednesday evening. The Republican National Committee set such byzantine rules for qualifying that no one seems to know exactly how many candidates have made the cut. Other than DeSantis and Ramaswamy, the other candidates certain to show up include former Trump administration official Nikki Haley, Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), Mike Pence, and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. There are also other candidates that will prompt a “Who’s that” from most viewers, such as North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum.

The mainstream media will pretend that it’s not all over because they need a horse race. But the most telling fact about today’s GOP can be found in a new poll from CBS News. Even with four sets of indictments, 62 percent of Republicans polled said they want Trump to be the party’s nominee.

The most bone-chilling finding, though, wasn’t Trump’s poll numbers. It was how his followers viewed him. Asked if they feel what Trump tells them is true, 71 percent of his supporters said yes. By comparison, that was higher than what they believed was true for friends and family members, conservative media figures, or even religious leaders.

If that’s not the definition of a cult, it’s hard to know what is.