How Donald Trump won the debate he skipped
Despite glimpses of Republican life without him, no obvious rival emerged
In the first Republican debate of the presidential season, on August 23rd, Fox News generously granted Americans 50 minutes of escapism, or maybe denial: a glimpse of Republican politics without Donald Trump dominating the stage, as speaker or even as subject. He chose to skip the debate, leaving it to eight other candidates to bicker over how to ban abortion and whether humans caused climate change. It turned nasty fast, but some of it was clarifying, and all of it was a relief.
This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline “The elephant not in the room”
United States August 26th 2023
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- How Donald Trump won the debate he skipped
From the August 26th 2023 edition
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