The 2020 Democrat primaries may have looked like a clown car, a food fight, or even a bloodbath, but all that noise masked the real signal.  Few moderators asked relevant questions on the left — or of the left.

Who asks about the Biden shenanigans in Ukraine or about toxic political partisanship at CIA, FBI, and State before and after 2016?

The inquisitors are called "moderators."  Historically, there is nothing moderate about the politics of the American media corps.

General election debates are "managed" by a body called the Commission on Presidential Debates, a Washington nonprofit that in theory represents both parties.  In practice, the CPD represents the D.C. establishment.

The main accomplishment of the CPD to date has been to keep third-party candidates off the national stage.  Commission membership reads like a Who's Who of Beltway camp followers, a demographic demonstrably hostile to Trump in 2016 and maybe more so today.

For the moment, Milwaukee in 2020 is shaping up to be a coronation, a nostalgic rerun of "back to the future."  Biden has momentum, the delegate edge, the media, the swamp, and Silicon Valley in his corner.  The Wuhan flu and the stock market crash have already been weaponized with a vengeance.

The 2020 general election is no longer a layup for Trump.

When Biden gets the nomination, his campaign slogan could be "open for business as usual — again."

When the summer heat subsides, the DNC and media allies will pull out all the stops to avoid another humiliation like 2016.  The general election debates are the big leagues, a ring where referees matter.

If Trump lets the usual suspects, left or right, select the inquisitors, he comes to the 2020 debate stage with another handicap.  President Trump needs to remake the moderator selection process to ensure that conservative as well as liberal voices are represented among 2020 debate referees.  The usual suspects from CPB, CNN, CBS, NBC, and ABC need to be leavened by moderators from Fox, Breitbart, EIB, Newsmax, and Judicial Watch.

A fifty-fifty split would be nice.

If Trump has done nothing else in his first term, he has exposed egregious media bias, AKA fake news, inside the Beltway.  We now know where the shills work.  The president now has the power to level a traditionally partisan presidential debate stage.

Trump should insist on an ideologically diverse panel of 2020 debate moderators or leave the media spinners and shills to talk to each other.

Donald Trump doesn't need debates in 2020 as much as the Democrats need another rigged election.

G. Murphy Donovan writes about the politics of national security.