The Republican Debate I Moderated Previewed the Trump Shitshow Today
When I moderated a GOP presidential debate in 2015, Trump denied reality as his Republican rivals bent the knee.
First, a note about a Substack Live I’m hosting TODAY that I hope you’ll tune into: Join historian Heather Cox Richardson and me at 2 pm ET / 6 pm GMT on Substack for a lively discussion on Trump’s deportation regime, white supremacy, and how MAGA rolls back the clock. We’ll be taking your questions too!
Ten years ago this week, I lived through a shitshow as a moderator of a presidential debate. Sadly, it foreshadowed the national shitshow we’re all living through now.
That evening at the University of Colorado Boulder displayed it all: the lies, anger, grift, and denial of reality that now define Donald Trump’s Republican Party. And even though Trump was only a candidate then, his putative rivals bent the knee.
In late October 2015, Barack Obama still sat in the White House. Hillary Clinton led the Democratic race to succeed him; Joe Biden had just declined to run. The Republican Party had not determined its path forward.