Why The Two Remaining Biden-Trump Debates Must Proceed as Scheduled

For many people across the country (myself included) last night's debate between President Trump and Joe Biden was an excruciating, painful experience - an experience they don't want to go through again. To this point, consider Bill Kristol in The Bulwark:

There should be no more “debates.” For the sake of the country, Joe Biden should refuse to appear again on the same stage as Donald Trump. Biden can have weekly or twice weekly town halls, including with Trump supporters. He can do all manner of interviews and forums. He can make clear he’s happy to engage with the American public in all kinds of ways. But he should not put the nation through another ordeal like that. 

Let Tuesday night have been Trump’s final, disreputable appearance on a nationally televised stage. Let him conduct the rest of his campaign desperately yelling to crowds of true believers as his defeat grows ever nearer.

I disagree.

For starters, if Biden should withdraw from the debates it would give Trump ammunition to claim that Biden is afraid of him because he knows he can't handle him. And besides it isn't Biden who is putting the American voter through an ordeal. It is Trump and Trump alone.

Let us also consider that the second debate scheduled for October 15th (two weeks from tomorrow) in Miami is a town hall style debate in which voters will be given an opportunity to pose questions to both Biden and Trump. Biden should thrive in this environment. If Trump behaves in a bellicose manner towards voters for having the temerity to ask a question then the President will have hung himself by his own tie.

Whatever yet to be specified changes promised by the Commission on Presidential Debates will hopefully bear fruit in the third and final debate a week later in Nashville when the format reverts to a debate moderator format this time with Kristin Welker of NBC News (it will be interesting to see how Trump behaves towards a woman of color). But if Trump insists on being who he is then he is going to lose votes in the long run.

Biden and Trump are scheduled to debate for three more hours over the next three weeks. Whatever pain might be brought about over those three hours, by all means let President Trump hang himself. Three hours of pain will be a small price to pay if it results in four years of Joe Biden in the White House.