The 15 questions that will not be asked at the Republican debate | Sidney Blumenthal

The modern-day Republican party is nothing but a Potemkin village

The next Republican debate, like every previous one, is a staged performance simulating a debate. It is in the spirit of a Potemkin Village, the painted wooden facade of a thriving town transported place to place on the orders of Prince Gregory Potemkin to impress his lover Catherine the Great on her grand tour of the new lands of the Russian empire in 1783. The legend of the Potemkin Village gained currency with the publication of the Marquis de Custine's Russia in 1839. Inspired by the first volume of Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America, Custine decided he would secure his fame by the parallel feat of traveling through Russia. The Russians have only names for everything, but there is nothing in reality. Russia is a country of facades," he wrote. His insight has never faded, from the Romanovs through the Soviet Union down to Putin, where nothing is true.

The Potemkin Village of the Republican contest, conducted under the shadow of a tyrant, is more Custine than Tocqueville, more Russia in 1839 than Democracy in America. It is the triumph of scenography above ideology. Revealing the reality behind the theatrical setting is too terrifying to contemplate for the participants. The pasteboard facade of a debate is shuttled into the pasteboard facade of an impeachment.