Did you think there was any chance in hell he was going to get up on that stage and let Chris Christie, who may be a disingenuous turd but isn’t a blithering coward

(at the moment) blithering idiot rip his nonsensical spewings to shreds? Trump has nothing to gain from debating his opponents and plenty to lose. After all, it’s a lot easier to get away with vapid whining when there’s nobody present to call you on it.

But what about the voters?

The MAGA king refusing to put on his big-boy pants and share the stage with his opponents is one thing. But counterprogramming some sad sideshow to siphon attention away from the first major candidate forum of the cycle — and with Tucker Carlson, no less? That’s a whole different level of petulant and needy, and it speaks to his staggering disregard for voters and their right to accurately assess the field. The electorate, especially Trump-skeptical Republicans, should demand better.

While it’s unclear how exactly one “demands better” of Trump, the one thing he can’t avoid by hiding from adversaries who can spell words with more than five letters beginning with “T” is that he believes them unworthy of a choice. He is their savior. He is their retribution. But most importantly, he owns the little people who send money for his campaign that he now spends on his defense.

Mr. Trump may well be correct to assume he has more to lose than gain from these matchups. But it bears remembering that debates aren’t supposed to be primarily for the benefit of the candidates strutting and fretting upon the stage. They are meant to provide voters with a meaty opportunity to judge their options side-by-side, to listen to them field tough questions, to compare their policies and priorities and visions of leadership. The point is to help the electorate make an informed choice.

Trump’s debate skills are as strong as his name-calling skills, which for some of you may be enough. But what if you’re of the sort who wants to believe that you don’t like Trump the man much but support his “policies”? What are his policies? Remember the 2020 Republican Party platform: Vote for Trump? How did that work out for you, Trump accomplishing one thing never before achieved, a massive turnout for an old man, a perpetual wannabe president, who couldn’t cut it in his more vibrant days but one for one reason alone. He wasn’t Trump.

Instead, the former president is taking the cheap and entitled way out, fulfilling at least one of Mr. Christie’s critiques [that he’s a coward]. After weeks of being tiresomely coy about his debate-night plans, he has decided to sit down with the disgraced pundit Tucker Carlson, The Times reported on Friday. The man is notoriously fickle, so who knows when — or even if — this will actually happen. Let’s hope it doesn’t. I’m sorry, but we already watched Mr. Carlson give Mr. Trump a thorough bootlicking back in April, not long before Fox News gave Mr. Carlson the boot, in fact, and it was sad. Worse than watching Don Jr.’s videos-for-hire on Cameo. No one needs to see more of that.

It’s highly likely that the next presidential election will be between two candidates who lack the support of Americans, and will end up again as a vote between the lesser of two evils. The question won’t be whether Americans want President Biden to have a second term, but whether Americans don’t want Trump to have a second term. To the extent Trump has any chance to present himself as something other than the biggest loser, he decided that he won’t take the risk. And that you’re not worth it and will just do what Trump tells you to do.