Part of the joke is how the debate process has been entirely hijacked by the parties themselves. News networks used to host these events, now they just get filming rights. The League of Women Voters used to present a neutral venue, but the parties went behind the organization’s back to set demands more appealing to the candidates.

Trump refusing to participate in any kind of debate is just the latest in a long history of hostage-negotiation style organizing. I suspect they’ll end up on stage some time before November, after enough horse trading has taken place. But it’ll be so canned and superficial as to hardly matter.

I think they call that a scareboomer.

I could see that helping Trump’s case.

His base would be arguing that he was just being his stoic self by not responding.