The presidential debate was nothing short of an embarrassment. Because, there is debate, when you’re trying to put up your set of facts against someone else’s, and allowing the fact to carry the day. Then there’s argument, which is about insult and emotion, shouting and demeaning.

Last night’s debate was, at many points, an argument. And while I was happy that Joe Biden said what we were all thinking, in calling Trump a clown and telling him to shut up, I was embarrassed to see both men throwing the kind of verbal blows you normally only see on a street corner.

We can do better than this. We can reach higher than this. We can be more than this. But if we allow Donald Trump to keep dragging us to the bottom, we won’t have anyone left to save us all from drowning.

Photo by Elvert Barnes: Joe Biden at the DNC