The Republican Party’s first presidential debate is only weeks away, and the participants are yet to be determined. While much of the attention falls, as usual, on Donald Trump, this election cycle’s Republican field is deeper than ever before.
Whether it was intended or not, the Republican National Committee (RNC) has rigged the rules of the game by instituting a set of criteria that is so onerous and poorly designed that only establishment-backed and billionaire candidates are guaranteed to be on stage.
That’s not what our party is about: We are the party of free speech, debate and the exchange of ideas. With 16 months until the general election, Republicans should have as many voices as the stage will accommodate. Anything short of that is elitism.
Currently, the RNC is requiring each candidate to have 40,000 donors to qualify for the debate. Candidates are then required to hand over their donors’ information to the RNC. The situation is so ridiculous that North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum is now offering $20 gift cards to donors who give his presidential campaign as little as $1, just to clear the RNC’s artificial, arbitrary threshold.
I am running for president to give back to the country that has given so much to me and my family, not to serve as a piggy bank for a political party.
Given the current rules in place, and with Trump unlikely to appear at the first debates, Republicans may very well not have a single America-first, pro-MAGA candidate on the stage, leaving the vast majority of GOP primary voters unrepresented. Without someone like me, the debate would be filled with anti-Trump politicians taking shot after shot at the MAGA movement, with no one to defend it.
With a field as deep as this one, the rule of thumb is to expand public discourse, not restrict it. Republicans should invite all of the most credible challengers for the White House to the debate stage. Restricting speech is the way of the regressive left, obsessed with censorship on college campuses and in corporate boardrooms. Republicans have long championed free speech, and expanding the debate stage is yet another show of commitment to the U.S. Constitution.
I am not Trump. I am not Ron DeSantis. While I respect my primary opponents and we agree on many issues, it is far too early in the process to artificially narrow the field. I know that I have something to contribute to our national discourse, and once I’m on that debate stage, I know that GOP primary voters will agree.
I was born and raised in South Central Los Angeles, so I know what doesn’t work from a public policy perspective. I’ve seen firsthand how decades of Democrat rule have turned California into an unaffordable dystopia. I have seen our communities destroyed by criminality and lawlessness, a problem exacerbated by the lack of fathers in the home. Fatherlessness continues to ravage the Black community and other parts of America. Millions of kids — and not just Black kids — are entering the world without a father in the home married to a mother, and Democrats act like the welfare state will somehow fix that.
In Joe Biden’s America, Republicans need strong candidates who will call out left-wing Democrats and draw attention to our most pressing problems. I simply cannot ignore the George Soros-funded district attorneys who refuse to prosecute violent criminals and empty our jail cells. I am on a mission to expose the Soros DAs who are downgrading felony charges, even for drug dealers and armed robbers. I cannot sit idly by as cities like Chicago become war zones in 2023.
Nor can I ignore the cynical, detached politicians driving America into fiscal ruin. The national debt currently hovers around $32 trillion. The U.S. budget deficit is expected to exceed $1 trillion this year, and that doesn’t even include unfunded liabilities that amount to borrowing more and more from countries like China. We are in the red because of outrageous federal spending, which surpasses $6 trillion per year.
The problems are endless, and Americans need to hear concrete, conservative solutions from a wide range of experts. Expanding the debate stage would allow the candidates to bring their respective policy fixes to the table, thereby empowering primary voters to choose the best ones.
To combat crime, I have proposed model legislation that states can implement to prevent Soros DAs from coming into power — and holding them accountable if they’re already in place. Recognizing that not all states are the same, my legislation can be tailored on a case-by-case basis to vet district attorney and solicitor-general candidates, based on each state’s unique constitution and a wide range of qualifications for office.
To rein in the welfare state, my proposal is to cap government spending at 10 percent of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP), and then attach real consequences to surpassing it. The way I see it, ignoring the hard cap should result in the president and all sitting members of Congress losing their right to run for reelection in the next cycle. Fiscal irresponsibility must be punished, or there will never be accountability in Washington, D.C.
These are just two examples of policy solutions to America’s problems. I would be honored to explain them in more detail on the debate stage, just like I would be honored to listen to the other proposals set forth by my fellow debate participants.
Let’s place no artificial and arbitrary limits on the Republican Party, or the conservative ideas that can help the American people. Come the 23rd of August, Republicans need more debate, not less.
Larry Elder is a Republican candidate for president of the United States in 2024. He is the author of “As Goes California: My Mission to Rescue the Golden State and Save the Nation.”