I had a demented border collie named Orson some years ago. I foolishly entered him in a sheepherding contest in Pennsylvania. I was nervous.

When he entered the trial ring,  Orson went right after one of the sheep and bit him on the leg. The other sheep took one look at him and jumped over the fence and ran off into the woods, horrifying the ancient Irish judge who had been imported to the U.S. for the trials.

In Ireland, they view dogs more like farming tools and herding tractors, not furbabies, and emotional support systems. There are no excuses.

The judge stormed over to Orson and gave him a good kick in the rump, glowering at me, bending down to look my dog in the eye, and telling him in no uncertain terms: “Listen, laddie, you ever put your mouth on a sheep again, I’ll kick your ass into the next county!”

I thought Orson would faint; he didn’t move. The judge talked dog, and Orson was listening to every word.  The judge ordered us back into the ring, they brought in some new sheep (I think the others were heading for New Jersey), and Orson walked in slowly and was transformed; he acted like one of those TV herding dogs. He won his first last and only blue ribbon and got a wink from the judge.

I thought of poor Orson as I watched the blessedly final presidential debate. I also thought of the gigantic infant, Baby Huey, who learned to come into a house without knocking things over.

The pundits and journalists were just like my Irish judge. They heaped much praise on the President of the United States for not behaving too much like King Kong and for not biting anyone and for letting his opponent speak.

Someone had either beaten Trump with a stick or tossed some red meat laced with valium in his crate for dinner. How sad it is that in the world’s once greatest democracy, it is a cause for national celebration when our leader doesn’t break any furniture or throw his opponent in jail (though not for lack of trying.)

That rain you see is the Greeks crying up in the skies. They invented democracy but no longer claim any responsibility for it.

My former colleagues in journalism were especially poignant last night, praising Joe Biden for saying nothing stupid (or especially eloquent), and Donald Trump for not chasing the sheep out of the trial ring.

They seemed almost desperately relieved to have something to argue about, even though there was little or no news in it. In our civics, we have all learned to hold our breath and close our eyes.

The interesting thing that Trump has done now is to make a conventional and important debate full of policy disputes and arguments seem boring in relationship to his tantrums and theatrics and lies and occasional tyranny.

It is ironic that when he actually behaves like a normal politician, he becomes a normal politician, only totally unbelievable. Thus, there is no point in paying attention to him at all.

What a miserable trap the poor man has set for himself.

In our twisted world of politics, the idea is to say nothing new or honest and keep your head down until it’s over, especially if you’re ahead.

Trump lied through his teeth, as usual, but that’s no longer new or interesting, and Biden was sharp and clear until the last half hour when he visibly tired, as did I and I suspect, much of the country.

I am sick of this campaign, weary every time Donald Trump opens his mouth (the best President for Blacks since Lincoln? Really), and I feel sorry for Joe Biden, who seems like a nice guy about to walk into a giant shitstorm.

As he approaches 80, he deserves better.

In what appeared to be an honest lament, Trump pointed out several times that Biden was never all that interesting to begin with. He’s just really nice and genuine. In 2020, that counts.

I would trade in my iPhone for an old Samsung if anyone could prove that there were a dozen people in America who changed their minds last night or learned anything new.

Anybody still on the fence is either living in a cave or is impaired.

Debates used to offer a rare chance for citizens to hear and see the candidates. Thanks to the Internet and cable news, we start seeing and hearing them for months, even years, for the election.

Everything I heard last night, I had heard 1,000 times before. The challenge for journalists is to pretend this is all new and somehow important.

Watching the debate, I couldn’t help thinking “enough. This is enough. Let’s get it over with.” The debate was a charade in every sense of the word.

Anyone who learned something last night has been living in an abandoned well.

The moderator had done her homework. Keep things moving, mute them after two minutes, and never challenge anybody about anything they say, lie, or not. It worked.

The Democrats were happy that Biden didn’t fall asleep or fail to defend himself.

The Trump people were thrilled that their candidate didn’t spit fire,  throw chairs at anybody, or insult the moderator. His family wore masks, Hallelujah! Everyone was shocked. He can be civil when cornered and desperate. It reminded me of a Baby Huey cartoon in which the monster baby didn’t knock over the living room furniture when he came to dinner.

They were all so relieved.

In our somewhat troubled culture, this quieter Trump makes our President polite and rational. He only spewed a half dozen conspiracy theories and lies about 50 times. His advisers were euphoric, the reporters and pundits were awestruck.

Orson got a ribbon for doing the same thing.

Trump’s absurd smears on Joe Biden and his son Hunter would be laughable if they weren’t so creepy. They were also obviously and transparently false – the brainchild of Donald Trump, Rudy Guiliani, and Fox News.

This doesn’t nearly rise to the level of the Manchurian Candidate.

Netflix has nothing to fear.

The media learned its lesson from 2016; this story smells much too much for anyone with any ethics left to touch it.

Donald Trump is trapped in the past. He can’t change, but the country has. That, I think, is his biggest liability, and one he can’t even pretend to change. He is not the future.

There is really nothing more to say about the debate.

It has very little meaning, and what meaning it has will be dissipated within days as the President returns to his true self and starts going after more sheep.

The only controversy in our increasingly medieval political culture came when Biden promised to end federal subsidies to the oil industry, something every civilized country in the Western World has been doing for years.

As their country burns and floods, Americans are grudgingly coming to realize that their children may not have an inhabitable world to live in if we don’t address climate change.

If that was the big news out of the debate, it tells you just how shallow and pointless it was. Our bar for debates is very low. The new measure of a good debate is that viewers can recognize it as being one.

The most interesting news of the day for me came, as is often the case these days, from the careful and thoughtful writers on FiveThirtyEight. The story tells us just how divided a country we are. I thank them for keeping me informed these past few months.

There are no shortage of issues that divide Democrats and Republicans, but they pale next to the issues that divide the parties themselves, issues likely to come to the fore after the election is over.

We are a very divided country, and in more ways than red and blue,  and perhaps we can only come together when we really hate one of our leaders.

First, there is the struggle for the future that is certain to engulf the Republican Party if it loses as heavily across the board as it appears will happen. Nothing is uglier in politics that struggles over corpses and lost elections.

Republicans have divided about health mandates from the government, the nature of health care and immigration reform, and the extent to which state and local governments can regulate the pandemic.

They are also divided about the depth and cost of pandemic relief, taxes, and how to respond to the Trump era.

Most Republicans oppose the idea that Black and Hispanic Americans face systemic racism and discrimination. Most Democrats think they have.

There are already fights over a national mandate to take COVID-19 vaccines if one is approved. Many Democrats who initially favored Bernie Sanders (about 31 percent) will expect a much more liberal President than Biden has ever been or says he intends to be.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the far right’s worse nightmare, will be let out of her cage and will give Biden and the Republicans major fits as she champions the newly aggressive progressive moment in American politics.

Trump is so hated that most Democrats are uncharacteristically united, but that won’t last long after November 3. Half of all Democrats support economically compensating African Americans who are the descendants of slaved people, and the other half is opposed to the idea. Only 27 percent of Americans support it.

At the moment, each half of the country is about as united as each side can be – about 43 percent behind Trump, roughly 52 -57 percent around hating Trump and wanting to elect Biden.

The debate will change none of that. The election will.

Today, Biden is still favored to win the election. In a simulation of the election 40,000 times, the same of 100 outcomes provides a good idea of the range of scenarios the FiveThirtyEight model believes is possible.

In today’s simulations, Trump wins 12 in 100, Biden wins 87 in 100.

It is certainly possible that Trump could win in the electoral college, but that is a long shot. The progressive, liberal, Democratic electorate – driven by women, black and white – is enormous and highly motivated and organized.

White men who didn’t go to college will forgive Trump for anything. Still, I believe the President will pay dearly for his abusive and offensive treatment of women, before and after his election to the presidency.

This is a new era for the women’s revolution; I believe it will make itself felt very new way in just a few weeks. They can no longer be dismissed or taken for granted.

No debate or October surprise will change that.