I guess you could call it a workplace safety incident. I sat down at my desk yesterday morning with the best of intentions. I had been traveling on business this week and was determined to catch up on invitations to the podcast, follow up on some I’ve already sent and get a new post published on this blog.

But as I was beginning to pull together my thoughts and do just a little background research…it happened. I fell into a black hole. I clicked on a link and eight hours later I was reading about Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. I won’t take you through all the grisly details of a wasted day but a few of the lowlights might be instructive in explaining where I was intending to go with my post in the first place.

It started when I clicked on a link to an article in Vox magazine entitled Trump’s bizarre speech during the Dem debate illustrated the stark differences between the parties.” I’ve linked it here in case you want to read it. I’ll confess. Two things got me about this headline. One is the idea that anything that this President says would be so differentiated from the rest of what he says to earn the adjective bizarre…kind of like when somebody says something is super awesome. The other was a hope that the Democratic Debate, which for reasons I’ll cover below I had decided not to watch on Thursday night, had provided something different than what I had expected. As it turned out, I was disappointed on both fronts. I should have known better.

The President did what he often does in public speeches (and tweets.) He made fun of some people in a personal way that I think would make most of us uncomfortable. He took credit for things his policies have had nothing to do with and made assertions that are not only unverified but unverifiable. How do we fact check “cleanest water and air in the nation’s history?”

But most of what the President did on stage for an hour Thursday night wasn’t so different from what many politicians across the political spectrum do these days. He said, in effect: “everything that is good in your life you can thank us for, everything that is wrong is their fault. What they want to do is dangerous and if you’ll just put us in/back in office we’ve got a bag full of really great stuff to unload just around the corner. This is only somewhat generalized, it didn’t get a lot more specific than this.

So then I watched the Democratic Debate. It was different in tenor and different in style. A debate, in which ten candidates are at least nominally expected to talk about policy, is certainly going to feel different than what amounted to a campaign rally. But the substance, from my perspective, was similar. Several of the candidates called the President names, a few others called his policies dangerous and all offered the promise of a world that will be better with them in the White House, without a lot about the specifics and tradeoffs that will be required to make that happen.

To be fair, the debate format really doesn’t lend itself to an in-depth discussion of policy – how do you do that in 40 seconds? One of those ten candidates could go on to become one of the great Presidents of our time, but the format doesn’t make it easy to see which one. To put it another way – the behaviors that the candidates needed to exhibit to look good in this debate, to get the pundits to declare them the winner, do not correlate well with the behaviors they will need to be good Presidents, which is why I had resolved not to watch in the first place.

But by early afternoon I was ready to pull myself out of the black hole when I veered into this headline: Ad Showing Ocasio-Cortez’s face in flames and pile of skulls airs during debate. I hadn’t seen the debate live and didn’t know what was waiting for me. Unfortunately this time the headline described it perfectly. It is sickening.

To characterize Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as somehow today’s version of Pol Pot is like saying Homo Denisova and the Whiffenpoofs are related. There are some common characteristics, but they are much more different than they are alike. This kind of nonsense is as destructive as it is ludicrous. It is 14 months until the election and already we have attack ads. If this is what we have to look forward to then it will be a wonder if anyone is listening to anything that any politician has to say by November 3, 2020. I turned off the computer after watching this and went to make dinner.

But here’s what I was going to say before I fell down the rabbit hole. If Democrats get their wish and one of the 10 Democrats on stage on Thursday night wins next November that, by itself, is no assurance that any of these behaviors are likely to change. It might make them worse. Republicans will resist again, as the Democrats have been for the last two and a half years. The President on Thursday called the Democrat-controlled House the “most obstructive group of people” he has ever seen, ironically in reference to his wall. That surely is the pot calling the kettle black, as House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy…who was sitting in the audience could tell him.

On the other hand, if Donald Trump wins again…we get another five and a half years of this at a moment in history we just can’t afford to waste. When will the cycle of resist until our party wins again stop? Where does it end?

It ends when we stop paying attention to zero-sum nonsense and start paying attention to substantive ideas and demanding substance at the polls. It ends when we stop dismissing the lies that politicians tell us by assuring ourselves that “they all do it.” This is a big deal folks. Far more important than any policy change that is likely to be enacted by the 117th Congress or the next President is the opportunity these upcoming 470 elections present to say.. enough is enough and the peril to our system of government if we don’t.

Our current election discourse is a race to the bottom so let’s score it as such. Lowest score loses.

As our President is fond of saying, “I’m kidding…well, I’m not really kidding.” You could keep a little scoresheet next to your television remote and keep a running tab until it’s time to go cast your ballot, first in the primaries next winter and spring and then in the general election.

As Americans we like sending messages. Well how about this message…you do more of this stuff than your opponent…you lose. No matter what party you are in or if you are the incumbent or the challenger…we’re done with this.