By Stephen Macaulay

While it is politically acceptable to call what happened Tuesday night a “debate,” it was nothing of the sort, nor was it expected to be.

Let’s stop kidding ourselves. There is nothing decorous about politics now, nor has there ever been. The Founding Fathers didn’t bow and scrape to one another. Didn’t you see “Hamilton”? Do you think Aaron Burr was the only bad guy with a gun?

“But we should expect more,” you decry.

Why? Whether you support or despise Trump, you know the man has no filter, he will lie and fulminate, talk about totally imaginary things and scenarios, then claim they never happened, and do so with the bluster and bravado that makes the shouting matches between 10-year-olds seem Churchillian.

This isn’t a case of one side or the other. Trump is Trump. 

Always has been, always will be.

That’s who the man is. We know that. He’s not the guy who is going to appear in a V-neck sweater with the debate-team logo. And, like it or not, he won the last election, and not because he was some sort of political mandarin. 

All this pearl-clutching is ridiculous.

It would be all too easy to call Trump a street fighter or a bully, but people of that nature don’t have real, or alleged, millions (or billions?) of dollars to fall back on.

He’s a guy who ran his own business and was able to have people who didn’t listen to him fired. It’s his way or the highway.

Both sides know this.

Yet, for some reason, people are now trying to score the behavior of Trump and Biden as though there is some sort of even metric to use. Yes, both men are running for the same office, both are white guys in their 70s, both are people who have more visibility than any of us will ever achieve –  so we imagine that they are somewhat more special or behave in exemplary ways.

Nope.

Much of the post-melee commentary has obligatory mentions of Biden’s jibes at Trump, calling him “a clown” and a “racist,” and telling him to “shut up,” as though there is some behavioral equivalence.

There isn’t. We know this. So … let’s stop pretending.

Macaulay is a cultural commentator based in Detroit.