Donald Trump will chicken out of the debates next year. It’s part of who he is now. Here’s why:

Trump’s ability to shock will be one of his last remaining assets by that point

Debates. Currently front and centre in everyone’s mind. Twenty Democrats have just slogged it out on TV last week taking questions on health care, immigration, race, and climate change. You know, actually discussing policy. With words. In English (or Spanish). Setting the bar high for Donald Trump already.

From early figures, out Friday, the second debate was the most watched Democrat debate of all time. The ‘bigger hitters’ of Biden, Sanders, and Harris drew in over 18 million viewers.

Still, that’s nothing compared to the big one. The Presidential debates in 2020 will be an entirely different beast. Let’s have a look.

Despite them being a spectacle that we all love to pretend we hate, they don’t do much; apart from getting the politicos fired up. In the second debate of 1984, we were treated to Reagan’s iconic slap-down of Mondale — ‘I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience’. In 1992, Clinton used the debate to demonstrate his vastly superior ability to connect with the voters and…