Trump won’t debate or sign GOP loyalty pledge. After all, he’s only loyal to himself | Opinion

If you had any doubt about how Donald Trump would behave if he wins a second term as president, all you have to do is listen. He’s been telling us, loud and clear, with a couple of recent examples.

There was his refusal last week to sign a pledge to support the Republican Party’s eventual presidential nominee, a requirement for participating in the Republican National Committee debate in Milwaukee on Wednesday. That could set up big issues in Florida as well, where the state GOP requires a similar pledge in order to appear on the primary ballot in March.

Then came his decision, hardly suspenseful, that he wouldn’t get on the debate stage with other Republicans for seeking the 2024 nomination, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Instead, he’ll post online a previously taped interview with Tucker Carlson.

He’d been hinting at such counter-programming as a way of testing his control over the Republican Party, but the choice of Carlson was punishment aimed straight at Fox News.

A no-show

Fox will air the GOP debate and had been trying to get him to commit to participating. Carlson, once a star at Fox, is now at war with the company. Additionally, Trump has been unhappy with Fox’s coverage of him and, according to a New York Times story, had been trying to leverage his ability to draw an audience as a way to get rosier coverage from the network. So, in usual Trump style, he’ll try bullying the network into submission.

In Trump’s world, it was a two-fer: Split the audience for the debate while also humiliating Fox by talking to Carlson. It’s enough, no doubt, to make his small heart sing.

Trump’s decision not to take part in the debate is not a surprise. He’s far ahead in Republican polls, with DeSantis in a very distance second place. He would surely be the main focus of attacks on stage. Though DeSantis may pull his punches, as his debate advisors told him to, so he doesn’t alienate Trump supporters, the ex-president would have to defend himself against the blunt criticism of someone like former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. He’d also have to face former Vice President Mike Pence, the man his followers wanted to hang during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. And then there are those four indictments to discuss.

It might be enlightening for voters to see the ex-president handling questions in a format he couldn’t control and facing opponents in real time, but that’s certainly not his goal. Trump speaks only to his cultish faithful, and they don’t need persuading. He has no interest in governing for all the people, so why bother debating?

He’s no mystery

Trump revealed himself a bit in his own posting on his social-media platform Sunday, when he confirmed he wouldn’t be debating because “the public knows who I am. . . .”

Yes, yes, we do. He is a provocateur, an anti-democracy authoritarian, a norm-busting manchild who delights in sowing chaos while endangering us all. Do we actually need reminding? He watched the attack on the Capitol on television without making any attempt to stop it for 187 minutes, as family members and senior advisers implored him to stop the violence.

He’ll sign no pledges of unity because he doesn’t believe in unity. He demands loyalty from the party, but that only goes one way. He has no loyalty to party, or country, or the Constitution — only to himself. And he’s been telling us that, over and over, in word and in deed, for four years in office and afterward.

If the Republican Party embraces him again, there can be no mistake, no dissembling later about how they didn’t know. Donald Trump himself is saying it, right out loud — if anyone is listening.

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