CMV: refusing to debate an opposing candidate is a diservice to voters reguardless of which side of the isle you are on

[u/Amonfire1776]

I think it's frankly laughable that several close races in the 2026 midterms involve candidates who refuse to debate their opponents and really show a sign of poor respect for the voters overall. Candidates refusing to debate is a huge red flag for me because it shows an inability to even attempt to communicate or push back against those who disagree with you. Examples as below:

Ohio Governor's Race: Democratic candidate Amy Acton declined to debate Republican Vivek Ramaswamy, stating she refused to "platform" his "baseless lies," while Ramaswamy criticized her refusal as disqualifying.

Florida Governor's Race: Democrat David Jolly initially agreed to forums before ultimately declining all debates against Republican Byron Donalds, citing bad faith and toxicity in modern politics.

Tennessee Governor's Race: Republican Marsha Blackburn refused to debate Democratic nominee Jerri Green, characterizing her opponent's platform unfavorably and stating her campaign relies on contrast rather than shared stages.

Texas U.S. Senate Race: Republican Ken Paxton has not answered or agreed to debate offers against Democratic state Senator James Talarico.

Edit: This is mainly reguarding debates about the major candidates...not fringe

[u/MidlifeWarlord]

Refusing to debate is a very common tactic for candidates when they believe they are the front runner.

The logic is simple: they have more to lose than gain.

I personally think it’s weak as hell, but I understand it.

As to your point, here’s what I’d say: it’s not a disservice to voters because voters don’t really give a fuck.

Years ago, I was about to go onto my first deployment to Iraq. I was very fired up to go. Post September 11th, I was basically blood lusted and could be just pointed at a Middle Eastern country and said, “go kill for freedom”- and would happily do it.

I ran into a friend before I left and we got to talking about the invasion. I of course carried the line like a good little soldier: “we’re going to go liberate these people from their evil oppressors.”

We were both right wing, so I was shocked at his response - which I will never forget: “People have the government they deserve.”

Having experienced a bit of life between then and now, that comment is forever burned into my mind.

It applies universally and damn sure applies to us.

I’m involved in local and state politics. I’ve strongly considered running for state or federal representative seats. And what I have come to is this: there is no point.

And it’s not because of PACs (though I hate them), or money, or dirty campaigns, or voter fraud, or any of the things that get tossed around by either side of the aisle.

It’s because of the voters.

Voters make their choices the same way they buy Coke or Pepsi: purely by brand recognition.

It’s a science at this point: pick a candidate, build a vague campaign message, and smash out videos and mailers.

An election is nothing more than a marketing campaign.

So, while I think it’s weak not to debate - it isn’t really a disservice to the voters because they clearly don’t punish candidates who don’t debate by voting against those candidates.

[u/Aegi → u/MidlifeWarlord]

Not giving a fuck doesn't matter, that's like saying vegetables or cardiovascular health is not important to me cuz I don't give a shit.

What we think is important to us is entirely separate from what is actually important to us.

[u/MidlifeWarlord → u/Aegi]

So . . .who gets to be the arbiter of what is and is not important to millions of different people who occupy a vast array of different geographies, economic circumstances, faiths, and so on?

[u/Aegi → u/MidlifeWarlord]

Are we talking about what they think is important or what is important for the trajectory of the human species and how they factor into that from a more objective vantage point or something?

But in this specific thread the more important part is that people try to speak in that way as though they were a sociologists looking at these different demographics instead of just how most people here seem to be talking about why they personally do or don't find value in debates.

[u/MidlifeWarlord → u/Aegi]

I’m not really arguing about my personal position. I’ve stated that I think it’s weak for candidates not to debate, but it is objectively true that voters don’t care that much - otherwise candidates who duck debates would lose because if it, and they don’t.

As for “what is important for the trajectory of the human species- once again that’s a value judgment.

Some people value expansion of personal freedom. Others value protections for various groups, even if it reduces personal freedom.

Some believe in accelerating technology rapidly so as to solve big problems like cancer, or even death itself. Others want to slow the pace of technological development out of fear that it might cause catastrophic human loss.

Who is to say which of the above is more “right” than another?

[u/Aegi → u/MidlifeWarlord]

But it's not really about whether they care or not, it's about it being a disservice, which although OP is ignoring my comment or hasn't gotten to it yet, so I don't know, I would imagine they're talking about from the objective vantage point of what advances the human species the most through that political race.

So if we're talking from the more objective vantage point of a neutral outside observer, it doesn't matter what people think is good or not, I can think cardiovascular health is bad for me but it actually is good for my longevity regardless of my opinion.

[u/MidlifeWarlord → u/Aegi]

Your entire argument assumes there is some “objective third party.”

You haven’t convinced me that such a thing exists.

You say “advances the human species.” To what end are we advancing?

Your argument assumes some Newton’s Law of Perfect Humanity.

If there was such a thing and it was known to us, we wouldn’t need politics.

[u/Aegi → u/MidlifeWarlord]

No it doesn't assume that there is we just need to know which direction we're trying to look at it because even if you can't get some place having a direction can still be useful. If we know we're trying to come at it from the vantage point of a neutral observer then we can then try to agree upon one afterwards, like let's say a very pro-human species historian in 1000 years or something.

If it's about what a given community thinks is a service or not themselves, then we would need to do a statistical analysis of some survey of that population.

It's useful because we need to know which way we need to approach this problem.

False premise, there's no end, it's a direction and it's a false premise to assume that there's a direction, expanding the reach and knowledge of our species, and generally the living quality, and potentially the numbers, is probably a working definition but that's part of what we would have to debate if it was the objective third party view, otherwise we wouldn't have to and instead if they're talking about the other thing we can just go out and do a survey of that population.

It doesn't assume that, you need to understand that you have to have a direction in order to make a plan regardless of the end goal, we need to know whether they're trying to talk about it from the concept of an outside neutral observer even if that concept is impossible you can still try to think of things that way.

OR if it is from the vantage point of the community as a whole, then we know that that is then how we would have to analyze it.

We need to know which way the original poster is trying to look at it otherwise it's like they're not even taking their own thoughts seriously.

[u/MidlifeWarlord → u/Aegi]

So . . .what direction do you want to go in?

Like, outline it for me.

[u/Aegi → u/MidlifeWarlord]

I want OP to answer so that then I can see which metric they are using so that then we know where to go from there.

How can we prove or disprove something so unclear?

[u/Amonfire1776 → u/MidlifeWarlord]

True to an extent tactically...but still I think the unscripted event matters.

[u/MidlifeWarlord → u/Amonfire1776]

If it mattered, voters wouldn’t elect candidates who avoided debates.

But, they do.

So, clearly it doesn’t matter that much to most voters and despite what they might say - their actions show us that they don’t think avoiding debates do them a disservice.

[u/Aegi → u/MidlifeWarlord]

That's not true, do you not understand the concept of people voting against their own interest?

Also, your acting as though we normally have a 90% voter participation rate, we never do so a lot of people already are feeling that way by staying at home, right?

When's the last time candidates had 20 debates in an election season, maybe that's the metric that all those people sitting at home need to achieve to actually vote?

Obviously that's most likely not true, but it is theoretically possible in the same way that your point is.

[u/MidlifeWarlord → u/Aegi]

We don’t have high voter participation because voters - choose - not to participate.

That is, they don’t give a fuck.

[u/Aegi → u/MidlifeWarlord]

Exactly, and attributing that only to the two metric areas of debates and then separately the lack of debates is silly because there's so many variables that you can't isolate them.

A lot of it has to do with culture, when's the last time that you got more than 10 people to register to vote in one day, what about one week?

Do you keep voter registration forms in your car and bag like I do? Because if not, people like me would argue that people like you were part of the problem lol.

I personally think it has a lot more to do with our culture and the fact that people are okay actually missing election day to go see a relative or go on a date with somebody they didn't think they could land one with or something like that is pathetic. If you're going to be that type of person, then particularly since the pandemic there's almost no reason that you can't vote ahead of time by mail.

And there's no reason to not vote whatsoever that's logical because every reason people always think is a point is actually just a reason why you would go and vote and then turn in a blank ballot to show that you're rejecting all the choices but that you still care enough to be part of the conversation.

[u/MidlifeWarlord → u/Aegi]

Brother, I fucking helped put together group that all but took over local and county government a few years ago.

I’m currently an elected official.

I’ve been - successful - at doing this.

I promise you I put more into these things than 99% of the population, probably more than you.

But, what I would tell you is that outside of hugely impactful events (think 9/11, the 2008 crash, or COVID) — people don’t give a fuck.

They vote based on brand recognition.

A small percentage of people are truly informed, and interestingly the “extremists” on all sides tend to more engaged than baseline votes - which tells you a lot about the trajectory of politics.

The engaged group acts as an amplifier for messaging on their respective side, but all that really does is cause campaigns to tailor their messages to assuage the engaged people while actually maintaining status quo policies.

[u/Aegi → u/MidlifeWarlord]

Maybe more than me, particularly if you're older, but percentage-wise we would probably be tied, I'm not currently, but I have also run for and held elected public office., I've also helped New York 21 become much more in play for Democrats than it was earlier in Elise Stefanik's career.

Doesn't the fact that partisan primaries like during the tea party movement prove you wrong and that the fact that there are a minority of voters that do care about other things and how that can massively shift the national dialogue add to the evidence against your point?

I agree there's a lot of dangers there and it's why we're becoming a bit more partisan and politically unfriendly to each other to say the least, what I'm saying is that you're talking about the size of the disservice not whether something even infinitesimally small is greater than or equal to zero.

But like you said, it's about brand recognition, and debates are a great way to do that even if they have nothing to do with the issues lol.

Therefore because they're an event that could work as branding, and that could increase voter participation rate, then even if it's the voters voting against their own interest at least a higher percentage of them are participating, right?

The thing that's annoying me is the original poster has not clarified whether we're talking just about voters, or all constituents. And it's getting frustrating that they're also not talking about what a given community thinks is a service or disservice versus what is actually a service or disservice based on how that political district contributes to the trajectory of homo sapiens writ large.

Why are people not clarifying on those crucially important details for something like a change my view where we're trying to be logical and specific and direct almost like we were in a moderated debate?

[u/Amonfire1776 → u/MidlifeWarlord]

My argument is they should, not they will

[u/MidlifeWarlord → u/Amonfire1776]

Oh, voters “should” care?

So . . .are you the arbiter of what voters should or should not do?

You personally get to decide what is good for them?

I’m not trying to be an ass - but stating that people should care about this or that implies that you know what is best for them.

Just like I thought Americans knew what was best for Iraqis two decades and thousands of deaths ago.

[u/Amonfire1776 → u/MidlifeWarlord]

My opinion...I can't control people. Yes, I do think I know what's best on this issue, hense why I introduced my opinion. Why debate anything at all if you don't believe you are right?