Lights, camera, politics: the triumph of showbiz over argument

At the end of Sunday night’s US presidential debate, the moderators snuck in a final question from a slightly shell shocked looking member of the audience. After an hour and a half of brutal, bitter exchanges, a man asked Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump if they could think of ‘one positive thing that you respect in one another’. In the resulting pause and exhalation it felt as though the country had seen itself in a mirror and realised it looked hideous.

Unlike some of our MEPs, the candidates for US president only sparred verbally in St Louis. And nobody watching politics from the continent of Europe (Beppe Grillo anyone?) should be too sanguine that it won’t happen here. Nevertheless there is something especially noxious happening on American prime time.

If there is a central cause, it is the triumph of entertainment over politics. Long an American temptation, this season it has finally won through.