A Dismal Debate Underlines the Case Against Trump

Even by the standards of a bleak year, Tuesday night’s presidential debate was deeply dispiriting. Granted, it served in its way to confirm what voters already know, or ought to know, about President Donald Trump — that he’s a bloviating bully who says whatever comes into his head and cannot bear to hear anybody else speak. But precisely for that reason, there was no real engagement with questions of policy. Worse, there was no sign that good-faith disagreement is any longer possible in American politics.

Presidential debates are rarely enlightening or apt to change voters’ minds, but this one marked a new low. It seemed all the more disgraceful coming amid a pandemic that has already claimed more than 200,000 lives. In truth, it suggested a political system on the point of collapse.