By staging that first GOP debate in front of a live audience to hoot and holler at each “Low-Energy Jeb,” “Little Marco,” Carly “Look at that face” Fiorina, and “Lyin’ Ted,” Fox News handed the bully his pulpit. Had that first debate been conducted in an empty TV studio like 1960’s Kennedy-Nixon telecast, Trump’s boorishness would have fallen as flat as your drunken brother-in-law’s “funny” wedding toast.

In a vacuum, Trump’s insipid name-calling and convoluted answers to policy questions would have ended his candidacy before the first commercial break. By providing Trump with a laugh track, Fox News gave America permission to cheer him on. CNN, CBS, ABC, and everyone else followed suit and Trump rode his “Andrew Dice Clay Goes to Washington” act all the way to the GOP nomination.