PERSONAL ESSAY
OMAR EL AKKAD
IT IS SEPTEMBER of 2015 and we have come to the Ronald Reagan library in California to watch the disintegration of the Republican Party. I am one of hundreds of journalists from around the world shuttled to the library’s giant glass hangar, which, tonight, will host the Republican presidential debate. Participating in this ritual is a cadre of contenders so numerous and overwhelmingly disliked that organizers have had to split off the worst-performing candidates into a separate “kiddie debate.”