unless you choose a 'side' as a true believer there was nothing in the 'debate' to counter the points made here by mr lawrence. we're in a handbasket hurtling towards hell which most all of our actions since 1945 have earned us. in my estimation the orange man is only a few millimeters better than the fool and otherwise indistinguishable from the other. what war have you voted for. when did you vote for open borders. when did you choose israeli/corporate rule over the constitution, and too many more to list;

Give me a sec to think. I need to make a list. Two.

The genocide in Gaza, the Middle East tinderbox, Bezalel Smotrich, the lost proxy war in Ukraine, relations with Russia, the danger of nuclear war, the fate of NATO, China, the threat of war with Iran, the emergence of a new world order, Europe’s turn toward populism, third world debt, global inequality, the sharply worsening climate crisis: It is a start on the foreign side, in no particular order.

Inter the endless alia in these United States, I’ve got social and economic inequality, money in politics, our drift toward late-imperial bankruptcy, the corruption of the judiciary, the housing crisis from hell, Julian Assange and press freedom, the creeping censorship regime, widespread drug addiction, immigration, the price of eggs, the Pentagon budget: I will leave out Taylor Swift and stop here.

So, a brief précis of the imposing problems defining the tasks of all world leaders in 2024, and then another atop the first for the man or woman who sits behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, as every president since Kennedy has. I settled last night at 8 Central time thinking I might hear a little something about, maybe, one or two items on each of these lists as Donald Trump and Joe Biden faced off—I decline the term “debate”—in a studio at CNN’s headquarters in Atlanta.

Nothing. Not a usefully coherent thought to any of this. Nero should have been up there as an honorary third candidate—with his fiddle for the background music, of course.

When these two frightening people descended into a bickering exchange concerning Biden’s golf handicap and Trump’s girth, I knew this first and probably last direct exchange between two incompetents contending for the world’s most powerful office was a lost cause. I lost 90 minutes of my time as it schussed down the chute. But never mind that. And never mind the media “analysts,” who rated the event like theater critics according to who turned in the best performance. The American people lost Wednesday night, and they lost big. And beyond Americans, the rest of the world lost, too.

I have regretted for years the extent to which elections in this country have come to be determined not by ideas, courage and imagination, guiding principles, or the articulation of wise ways forward, but by affect. There is a history to this that goes back to the 18th century—sentimental politics, let’s call it—but we can leave that for another time. We are on notice as of Wednesday evening that affect is all there is left in the matter of presidential politics..........more.......