THE DEMOCRACY DELUSION.

The major parties' presumptive nominees have agreed to two early debates.

President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump on Wednesday agreed to hold two campaign debates — the first on June 27 hosted by CNN and the second on Sept. 10 hosted by ABC — setting the stage for their first presidential face-off to play out in just over a month.

The quick agreement on the timetable followed the Democrat’s announcement that he would not participate in fall presidential debates sponsored by the nonpartisan commission that has organized them for more than three decades. Biden’s campaign instead proposed that media outlets directly organize the debates between the presumptive Democratic and Republican nominees.

The debate is so unusually early on the political calendar that neither Biden nor Trump will have formally accepted his party’s nomination.

We have much to look forward to.

There's that.  There's also the curious thinking out of both camps that each is expecting the other guy to commit a pratfall.

The swiftness with which the matchups came together reflects how each of the two unpopular candidates thinks he can get the better of his opponent in a head-to-head showdown. Trump and his team are convinced the debates will exacerbate voters’ concerns about Biden’s age and competence, while Biden’s team believes Trump’s often-incendiary rhetoric will remind voters of why they voted him out of the White House four years ago.

The presidential debates, always a critical moment on the political calendar, could be particularly important in a year when voters are underwhelmed with their choices and have expressed concerns about the candidates’ advanced ages — Biden is 81 and Trump 77.

I understand playing a hand of Schafkopf for leaster, but a debate?  "Both Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden believe firmly that if the American people get a look at their opponent on a debate stage they will be less likely to vote for them."  Make of it what you will, dear reader, that neither camp had much regard for the Commission on Presidential Debates.  "The two campaigns had mutual interest in both circumventing the debates commission and excluding Mr. Kennedy."

Writing for the Democrat-friendly New York Times, Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman express puzzlement over the Biden camp striking that bargain.  "It was a striking decision for Mr. Biden, an institutionalist who has tried to preserve the traditions of Washington."  Those "traditions of Washington" include the Permanent Bipartisan Establishment protecting as many of its perks as it can subject to an electoral climate heavy on populists of various sorts.

The commission always invites an audience to watch its presidential debates.

There’s also a chance that Mr. Kennedy reaches the 15 percent national polling threshold to qualify for the commission’s debates. The Biden campaign views Mr. Kennedy as a spoiler candidate and people close to the president worry that with the Kennedy name he could attract support from voters who might otherwise support Mr. Biden.

[Biden campaign chief Jennifer] O’Malley Dillon writes in her letter that the debate should be one-on-one to allow voters “to compare the only two candidates with any statistical chance of prevailing in the Electoral College — and not squandering debate time on candidates with no prospect of becoming president.”

Mr. Kennedy criticized both Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump as the debate plans became public. “They are trying to exclude me from their debate because they are afraid I would win,” he wrote in a statement posted on X. “Keeping viable candidates off the debate stage undermines democracy.”

That rules-based liberal order is only as good as its ability to keep the Permanent Bipartisanship Establishment in power.  Recall how Nancy Pelosi denounced populism as a Threat to Democracy in an Oxford debate not long ago?  That's Received Wisdom among the coastal cosmopolitans.  Here's Washington monument fixture Thomas Edsall.  Beware those freedom-loving Republicans.

There is a debate among scholars of politics over the level of centrality authoritarianism warrants and the forces that have elevated its salience, especially in American politics, where high levels of authoritarianism are increasingly linked to allegiance to the Republican Party.

What is clear is that authoritarianism has become an entrenched factor in partisan divisions, in global conflicts between nations, and in the politics of diversity and race.

There's nothing in his column about, oh, a candidate for president putting voters in a basket of deplorables, or a standing president bawling out opposing voters as fascist-adjacent, or an administrative state taking away our gas stoves, internal combustion cars, and Chinese solar panels alike.  Speaking of that standing president:

When I get up on stage, it'll be me and this grassroots team versus Donald Trump and his MAGA minions. It will be democracy versus authoritarianism. Revenge and retribution versus a vision for our future.

Let’s defeat Donald Trump—together. Pitch in: https://t.co/3vieT8G04t

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) May 15, 2024

Twitchy's Amy Curtis quips, "The guy who is using lawfare to go after his political opponent is talking about 'revenge and retribution'. That's adorable. The guy who is trying to get RKF [c.q.] Jr. thrown off the ballot talking about democracy is even more adorable."  It's not so adorable to Outside the Beltway's James Joyner.  "I’d honestly prefer Biden not engage in such juvenalia. His selling point is being the grownup in the room, in strong contrast to Trump the toddler. Regardless, Trump is at least pretending to be eager to debate Biden early and often."  Yes, his selling point was some combination of being an establishmentarian Democrat and a mature politician, but the past three years haven't exactly been a ringing demonstration of either, all that legislation passed at the margin of Joe Manchin notwithstanding, have they?

Interestingly, that the major parties have a vested interest in preserving the notion of a binary choice doesn't quite provide the evidence that the biggest threat to popular sovereignty is ... the Permanent Bipartisan Establishment, even though the evidence is right in front of Mr Edsall.

The two-party system in the United States, [Carnegie Endowment senior fellow Rachel] Kleinfeld contended, strengthens authoritarianism by failing to provide a vehicle specifically dedicated to the agenda of the disgruntled electorate. As result, these voters turned en masse in 2016 to an autocratic leader, Donald Trump, who, in his own words, became their “retribution.”

This newly mobilized, angry electorate, Kleinfeld continued, is “not choosing the anti-democratic behavior — they are choosing their tribe, and the behavior comes with it. Authoritarian behavior is happening in America, not in Europe, because of our political structures.”

In support of her argument, Kleinfeld cited a January report issued by the Democracy Fund, “Democracy Hypocrisy: Examining America’s Fragile Democratic Convictions,” that shows how Americans can endorse democratic principles while simultaneously supporting autocratic behavior by fellow partisans.

There's a lot to unbundle in that, isn't there?  Politics divides, and the fine art of coalition building inevitably leads to bundles that are too big, and very few voters in a coalition get their most-preferred bundle.  Fine.  But that talk of a "vehicle" puts too much emphasis on the presidency, where, to repeat, the major parties would prefer to have only likely winners debating in ... June.

I'll note, first, that the way to get that "vehicle" is to start locally, at the school board, the city council, the state legislature, Congress, and if the agenda has sufficient purchase one of the major parties is likely to co-opt a lot of it.  That's how a constitutional republic works.  It's when there's undue power vested in a president and unelected bureaucrats governing by decree executive order and notices in the Federal Register that the trouble begins.  Hint: that sort of governance is not "democracy."  Nowhere in Mr Edsall's essay is there any mention of that institutional problem.  Like Kurt Schlichter, I could use a laugh.  "Please tell me more about Our Democracy and the Rule of Law, and how Donald Trump is a threat to them."