The Republican National Committee says it will "prohibit" Republican presidential candidates from participating in future debates sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates. Some of the RNC's complaints about the commission may be at least, well, debatable. But at its core, this looks like an extension of a growing rejection in the GOP of the very concept that its candidates have an obligation to face tough questioning from political opponents and journalists.

Televised debates have been a staple of American presidential elections since 1960. It's true that too often today they produce more heat than light, incentivizing candidates to boil down nuanced or complex issues into bumper-sticker attack lines. But that legitimate beef doesn't override the towering argument for demanding that candidates engage in debates: The voters have a right to size up the men and women who would lead them, side by side, in a format that requires them to address substantive issues and answer direct questions not of their own choosing. Without that, presidential campaigns are nothing but tightly controlled marketing campaigns, which would be good for the candidates but not the country.

The Commission on Presidential Debates was established in the 1980s by both parties to act as a nonpartisan organizer of the debates. The commission's decisions over the years have by no means always been perfect, giving both parties plenty to complain about. But the especially strenuous Republican complaints in the past two election cycles have reflected the imprint of former President Donald Trump, who is still the party's de facto leader and current favorite for the 2024 nomination, according to polls.

Trump's peevish approach to political discourse — any fact he doesn't like is "fake," any argument he doesn't win is "rigged" — didn't serve him well in the debates of 2020, and his contempt for the whole debate process was evident.

In a recent letter to the debate commission, RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel laid out a litany of complaints, including allegedly partisan conflicts of interest by some commission members. But whatever reasonable arguments she makes don't justify the RNC's proposed remedy: It intends to "prohibit future Republican nominees from participating" in commission-sponsored debates.

The candidates themselves should make the ultimate decision as to whether to participate in a given debate. The RNC proposes to relieve Trump or some other future Republican nominee of that burden, giving them an excuse to dodge the debates without looking cowardly (currently a prime motivator to get them onstage).

If the RNC wants to continue pushing for changes in the commission, that's one thing. But abandoning the nonpartisan debate structure for some alternative seen as more Republican-friendly — or abandoning debates altogether — would add this important institutional norm to today's growing list of culture-war casualties.

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