The End of Presidential Debates?

Certainly, I would advise any Democratic nominee that any format that is acceptable to the RNC is enormously unlikely to me acceptable to the non-authoritarian party:

The Republican National Committee on Thursday voted unanimously to withdraw from the Commission on Presidential Debates, following through on threats to bar GOP presidential nominees from participating in debates sponsored by the nonprofit organization.

The RNC has accused the commission, which was repeatedly attacked by Donald Trump, of being biased in favor of Democrats. The bipartisan commission, which was established in 1987 and has hosted the debates since 1988, has rejected the charge.

In a statement Thursday, RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said that her party is “committed to free and fair debates” but that they would be held through other platforms. She did not specify them.

“Debates are an important part of the democratic process … We are going to find newer, better debate platforms to ensure that future nominees are not forced to go through the biased CPD in order to make their case to the American people,” she said.

The debates do so little to inform voters I don’t think ending them would be a big loss. The fact that Republicans believe that it would be bad for the public to know what their agenda is (and for the political interests of Republicans, it would!) is obviously a bad thing but debates per se do very little to address that problem, and as with many things this is even more true when Trump or any post-Trump Republican nominee is involved.