It’s 2024. Most people don’t get their news from watching TV. They get it online.

Podcasts, streaming and social media far outclass CNN, ABC News and other legacy media outlets.

There are precisely zero reasons to let corporate media news outlets monopolize presidential debates even if they weren’t shamelessly biased hacks relentlessly driven to rig debates and coverage for their candidates.

And yet here we are.

The RNC sensibly pulled out of the Commission on Presidential Debates only to then cut a series of bad deals with the media. What the purpose of pulling out of the Commission was, I can’t fathom, unless it was to exclude RFK Jr, if the response was to double down on having CNN, ABC News and all the rest host debates.

I repeat again. It’s 2024. There is no technological reason or viewership reason to have an ABC News debate.

The only reason we just had one is because no one at the RNC is capable of processing new ideas, they have their old media connections and because the Dems are much better negotiators than the RNC.

And so the RNC ended up with a much worse version of the Candy Crowley debate that was supposed to mark an end to mainstream media debates. ABC News moderators constantly interjected their views into the debate. The RNC could have set debate rules that would have prevented that, but failed to do so again.

I’ll say it one more time. It’s 2024. A debate can be streamed live on Facebook. Genuinely independent moderators can be found who will abide by the rules.

And yet here we still are because Democrats negotiate to win and Republicans negotiate to lose. The debate formats are a metaphor for the failure theater in Congress. You can’t win unless you actually make it clear that you’re willing to walk away. And when you don’t, there’s always ABC News.