A former Republican strategist laments the party’s “zombie” debates

WHEN NIKKI HALEYMAGA, Ron DeSantis, Chris Christie and, perhaps, Vivek Ramaswamy mount the stage in Tuscaloosa, Alabama on December 6th, it won’t be the last Republican primary debate, but it may as well be. In the party of Donald Trump, the nominee was always going to be, well, Donald Trump.These debates were supposed to give Republican primary voters a look at the policy positions and debating skills of the candidates vying to take on the Democratic candidate—still presumed to be President Joe Biden—in the November 2024 presidential election. In this election cycle, though, they have become a hollow Kabuki dance: formal, scripted and full of expressions of loyalty—not to some conservative ideal or philosophy, but to the (“Make America Great Again”) base of the Republican Party. The opening and closing statements, terrible jokes, swipes at other candidates and canned rebuttals have mostly been about giving as little offence to Mr Trump and his groupies as possible.