Re: That 2017 Las Vegas Book Festival panel on Trump, which @Page88 has just written about on her substack, Magic + Loss. (She’s written about it before.) For the record:
–I didn’t show anything to the moderator ahead of time to ‘prime’ him! After the debate I showed Virginia that I’d brought a chart of hers (of what she feared might happen under Trump) which I hadn’t brought up in the debate. I doubt I ever used the phrase Trump Derangement Syndrome. I don’t like the phrase–it was an instant cliche and a cheap dismissal.
–I did ask an organizer ahead of time for security because it was to be held about 20 days after the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history, still unexplained, a few blocks down the street, in which the shooter had apparently cased out other random gatherings in the area. (I asked three days after that massacre.) The organizer told me they might get one unarmed person. I said unarmed was OK and dropped the matter. I have the emails that show this.
–In the event, unbeknownst to me, two large armed cops showed up. I hear they took photographs, which would be creepy, but I didn’t see that . Beats me who sent them. I don’t remember seeing them at our event, let alone ‘storming in.’ (That doesn’t mean they didn’t put in an appearance.) I did see them afterwards, when they seemed to be patrolling the festival generally. (Our panel was over). I believe they were federal marshals who presumably were sent by their agency and pursuing their agency’s own priorities.
–I probably did say I’d once been at a panel where I’d been scared that an angry pro-immigration person in the audience was about to commit violence. That’s because I’d in fact once been scared. I wasn’t worried about Virginia’s supporters! I was worried about some loner.
— I thought it was a really good debate. The moderator didn’t interfere. Walter and Virginia went at each other and held their own, I tried to score some points. Nobody was intimidated.