"This is painful to watch."
I can imagine that was a common sentiment for anyone who tuned in with even a half-baked interest in the U.S. Presidential Debate.
It was two old men yelling into the clouds and if spend as much time on social media as I do, the memes did not disappoint.
If you had gambled on the debate descending into an argument about who can actually carry their own golf bag and what each of their handicaps were, you might have struck it rich.
U.S. President Joe Biden, 81, wanted to "meet the moment" and prove that he still had enough gusto and gumption to serve as president for another four years.
He did anything but. Biden looked frail – he sounded weak, confused and uninspiring. He bumbled and mumbled his way through so many points, it was honestly sad to watch.
It was so bad, many Democrats were calling for Biden to step down with just 128 days until the election.
Biden made the 78-year-old Donald Trump look like a spring chicken. Trump was quick and sharp despite mostly saying things that were outright lies. He still won't accept the outcome of the 2020 election. I'd run out of words if I tried to deconstruct every lie, but the Cole's Notes version: he lied about citizen support for the overturning of Roe v. Wade, about how much Biden plans to raise taxes, that Biden was behind his recent prosecution, a small number of people attack the capitol on Jan. 6 and so on and so on.
Still, Trump proved, as he always does, that if you say anything with confidence and bravado, many people will believe it.
One Pew Research Center poll said that nearly 25 per cent of Americans don't have a favourable view of either candidate.
The question that I saw circulating, time and time again, was a variation of "How are these the best two people to represent America?"
The short answer is they aren't.
Trump is the only person the Republicans believe can win and they hitched their wagon to the convicted criminal long ago.
The Democrats, on the other hand, believe Biden is the only one who can beat Trump, much like he did in the 2020 election.
It's a stalemate of the worst kind.
It's important to understand why America has two senior citizens running for the highest office and what we can do to change it.
Simply put, many smart people don't have the desire to run for political office anymore. The constant attacks – the degrading nature of commentary on social media is a bridge too far for most people.
In Alberta, NDP MLA Shannon Phillips just resigned after she was harassed and followed by police and no charges were brought against the officers. When she resigned earlier this month, beyond that idea that she felt she couldn't continue to serve while feeling safe, she had other concerns as well.
“The far right is responsible for whipping up disinformation and anger and hate,” she said in a statement.
“It did have an effect on my decision-making and it is important to recognize it. Sweeping it under the rug or other responses do not work. And it won’t. It leads down a dark path.”
It's not just the right that's responsible for the untenable political environment, as the left bears some responsibility in punching back beyond the political arena, on social media or elsewhere. Attacks on politicians' records are one thing that has been around for as long as campaigns have existed, but their visceral nature has certainly ramped up in the last decade.
Sweeping all the nasty rhetoric under the rug will only work for so long. People can only be pushed so far or feed so much negative that violence becomes the only answer.
That is certainly the case in Europe right now.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen was attacked in Copenhagen earlier this month. She said she wants to continue her job, but things have gotten harder since she was named PM in 2019.
"Threats over a long period of time on social media have gotten worse, especially after the war in the Middle East. Shouting in public space. Maybe that was the final straw," she said.
“As a human being, it feels like an attack on me,” Frederiksen said in the 10-minute-long interview. “But I have no doubt that it was the prime minister that was hit. In this way, it also becomes a kind of attack on all of us.”
Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico, was shot multiple times in May. Fico took office last fall suggested that he was targeted because of his views that differ sharply from the European mainstream.
In France, the lead Socialist candidate in the EU elections, Raphael Glucksmann, was pelted with eggs and paint-filled projectiles at a May Day event last month.
In Germany, both government and opposition parties say their members and supporters have faced a wave of physical and verbal attacks in recent months.
Last month, Berlin’s deputy mayor was attacked at an event in a local library by a man who approached her from behind and hit her with what police described as a bag containing a hard device.
Before that, a candidate from Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s party was beaten up in Dresden while campaigning for the European election and had to undergo surgery.
“We have seen in recent weeks that readiness to use violence to pursue political aims or to muzzle people has increased,” Lars Klingbeil, one of the co-leaders of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s party, told parliament on Thursday. “Representatives of all political parties have been physically assaulted in recent weeks … Violence must have no place in our society. There is no ‘yes, but,’ there is no playing it down.”
That type of violence in the EU hasn't translated to North America, but as combative rhetoric continues to rise in popularity, it seems like it's only a matter of time until it does.
And even in the political climate now, there seems to be a lack of interest in putting up with the nastiness that comes with the job these days.
In that light, it's easy to see why two old white men are the only ones fighting for America's top office.
-With files from the Associated Press
Byron Hackett is the Managing Editor of the Red Deer Advocate and Regional Editor for Black Press Media.