OK, I watched it. Joe Biden, we learned after it was over had a cold and so debated with a raspy, soft voice. TFG just yelled lies for 90 minutes.

It wasn’t the Biden performance we were expecting. Nor was it the debate we were expecting. The moderators didn’t ask TFG about his criminal conviction. They didn’t do anything about TFG’s endless lying.

I’ll be honest—I know that debates now are about soundbites and style and light on substance. But I also like to watch the dunks. I know it’s shallow, but I love to see people call out the really egregious stuff. I even like it if the exchange is between candidates in my own party, like when Elizabeth Warren took down Michael Bloomberg in 2016.

I wanted the Biden who went after TFG in 2020, who said all the things we wanted to be able to say to him ourselves. That was, uh, entertaining. Tonight was not. Joe was slow to respond at the beginning and just couldn’t keep up with the noise from TFG. But it doesn’t change my vote. One guy had a cold, and the other guy is a danger to democracy and a felon. I saw a focus group from Arizona on MSNBC and it didn’t seem to have made much of a difference in their choices.

Mostly it was a missed opportunity on Biden’s part to land a few good punches, but it’s June and I don’t think anyone is really going to care after the next few days. The conventions are still to come and you know that GOP convention is going to be a shit show.

So I’m disappointed that I didn’t get to hear any zingers but in the end I was reminded at how viscerally awful TFG is. So were a lot of other people.

Time to unclutch our pearls and get back to the work of getting the vote out. The Fab Four have it from here: