The Democratic debates are going to be a fiasco

The party will waste critical airtime on hopeless wannabes rather than substantive engagement between top candidates

Democrats.
(Image credit: Illustrated | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images, Scott Olson/Getty Images, Dustin Chambers/Getty Images, JOSH EDELSON/AFP/Getty Images, pashabo/iStock, sanchesnet1/iStock)

Democrats will hold their first two presidential primary debates on June 26 and 27 in Miami, and so far they are shaping up to be a total fiasco. There are now 24 declared candidates seeking to cashier President Trump — almost enough for a full Major League Baseball roster—and the flimsy standards the party set to get a slot on stage will be met by almost all of them. Instead of substantive debates between the leading candidates, the party is going to get a chorus line of never-gonna-be-presidents yapping at each other for two hours.

Most of these people have no chance of becoming the nominee. They know it. The Democratic National Committee knows it. And the top tier candidates know it too. The debates should be structured as such, rather than like cattle-call auditions for The Voice.

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David Faris

David Faris is an associate professor of political science at Roosevelt University and the author of It's Time to Fight Dirty: How Democrats Can Build a Lasting Majority in American Politics. He is a frequent contributor to Informed Comment, and his work has appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times, The Christian Science Monitor, and Indy Week.