Tonight, seven Republican contenders will stand on a stage in Simi Valley at 9 pm ET to debate one another and to vie for the GOP’s presidential nomination. Once again, Donald Trump will not appear, and this time the audience will have no chance to catch Asa Fever, as Hutchinson missed the thresholds for inclusion in the second debate. Otherwise, the line-up will be the same as the first debate a month ago:

• Ron DeSantis
• Nikki Haley
• Mike Pence
• Tim Scott
• Vivek Ramaswamy
• Chris Christie
• Doug Burgum

Beege Welborn will live-blog the Fox Business Channel event at the Reagan Presidential Library, starting just before the event. The rest of us will comment on Twitter, with the possible exception of David Strom, who is on vacation this week and presumably smart enough to find better things to do while traveling.

It’s easy to shrug these off as theater, especially with Trump still refusing to engage, but that’s a mistake for three reasons. In the first place, we have some real talent on stage that will eventually become the leaders of the party, even if that doesn’t happen in this cycle. DeSantis, Haley, Ramaswamy, and Scott are young enough (especially DeSantis) to use these platforms to make the case for long-range leadership. The circumstances of a primary will force those arguments more into short-term context, especially with the questions we can expect moderators to ask (Fox’s Dana Perino and Stuart Varney, and Univision’s Ilia Calderón). Given the current dynamics of the primary, they should try their best to transform those questions into visions of sunnier futures and not just another iteration of a four-year plan.

The other three candidates are more a part of the past, even Doug Burgum, who has done well enough to qualify in both debates. They want to argue for a restoration of a previous iteration of Republicanism, but that’s a difficult sell. None of them make for credible populists, so they have to argue against populism and in doing so offer some clear and compelling philosophy to replace it. Pence probably has the best skills to do that, but after spending four years as Trump’s partner, he doesn’t have much room to make that case. Chris Christie isn’t a philosopher, and Burgum doesn’t have the energy or the footprint.

That brings us to the second reason: Trump. At some point, and perhaps it’s already late, all of the candidates on stage save Ramaswamy have to make a case against the polling frontrunner. Ramaswamy is playing out Ted Cruz’ 2015 strategy of playing wingman to Trump in the hope of inheriting Trump’s base in case Trump can’t or won’t run. The rest of the field, and probably especially DeSantis and Haley, have to stop making the case against each other in the Not-Trump lane and start taking the fight to the candidate who won’t show up. Trump got away with a no-show last month and looked brilliant for it, as the others on stage ripped up each other rather than make a direct case for putting Trump aside. The longer they delay that necessary step, the more it begins to look like a tacit endorsement of Trump, or at least a lack of intestinal fortitude.

Will tonight mark the start of an actual fight for the nomination rather than the runner-up position? It’s worth watching to find out — and if it is, the effort will be very much worth the time spent.

Finally, though, the third reason is for me the most compelling. How often do we get to see and hear free-form conservative arguments and honest debate on policy and culture on mainstream-media platforms? Would the debate we heard last time on abortion, foreign policy, “gender ideology,” and the economy ever have been given air time outside the framework of a presidential debate?

In fact, as we continue to see even in online media, honest and important policy and cultural debates are getting shut down, sidelined, and marginalized. Activists have organized to frighten off advertisers by labeling conservative viewpoints as “unsafe,” “dangerous,” and “misinformation.” Until very recently, the State Department and other government agencies participated in these debate-suppression techniques, and are still fighting in the courts to preserve that abuse of power.

Advertisers have clearly gotten the message, even those who aren’t as concerned about ESG scores and DEI pressure. And it’s tough to blame them — their businesses are at risk too from the speech police and activist Left. We still have a number of sponsors who are brave enough to support us, and we hope that more will join us. We want them to feel just as able to support debate and dissent as we wish to be.

However, the attack on advertisers and the reliance of social media platforms on “misinformation” experts means we must find ways to broaden our operating basis. In order to remain free to raise important issues and dissent against the prevailing media/government/Leftist orthodoxy, we need our readers to join us and fight alongside against the Big Brotherism smothering independent voices.

Attempts to quash debate like this is why we developed our VIP/VIP Gold membership programs – to ensure that we can remain independent of mainstream media hostility, Big Tech’s cowardly collaboration with government censors, and periods of advertiser trepidation stoked by activists and extremists. It keeps us free to speak our minds and to bring dissent and debate back to our readers. It also provides exclusive content, such as:

• The Amiable Skeptics featuring Adam Baldwin
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• And more yet to come!

We talk about this more often now because we see the coming crisis in media more clearly than ever. This week’s refusal by mainstream media to even discuss narrative-defying science on both masks and vaccines demonstrates the depth of the problem. We hope we can gather as many allies as possible to keep all of these issues in the public square – and indeed to preserve the public square at all.

Join us in the fight. Become a HotAir VIP member today and use promo code SAVEAMERICA to receive a 40% discount on your membership.

Thank you, and thank you for standing with us. Because no one can stand alone for long against the Orwellian forces attempting to shut down debate and dissent.

And tune in tonight’s debate … while we still can have them.