Everybody knew the first US presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump would descend into a farce, but nobody expected it to derail so quickly.

I said last week that the debates were essentially pointless, because if you’re still voting Donald Trump by this stage, there’s nothing that can change your mind.

Then there’s the fact that the current US president is utterly incapable of having an actual, substantial discussion about policies, and his opponent is a doddering old man at least five years past his sell-by date.

But here we are, with the first Trump-Biden debate under our belts, both sides declaring victory triumphantly, and the world left shaking their collective heads at the fact that this is what a supposed superpower has devolved into.

Constant interruptions, name-calling, chaos, a moderator who refused to rebuke repeated rule-breaking, and described as a “hot mess inside a dumpster fire” by CNN’s Jake Tapper, a sentiment shared by many political commentators and media figures.

Before we watch some video highlights, consider this from the ‘hits’ section of CNN’s ‘hits and misses’ analysis of the debate:

[This space is being intentionally left blank. This was an absolutely awful debate that did absolutely nothing to educate the public about the two candidates and what they would do if given four years to serve as president of the United States. It was, without question, the single worst debate I have ever covered in my two decades of doing this job. That it happened even as more than 200,000 Americans have died from Covid-19 and projections suggest that number could double by January 1 made the un-seriousness of it all the more striking — and painful. It was, simply put, a deep disservice to democracy.]

Both candidates’ performances were filed under ‘misses’.

Right, time for our first video wrap, with NBC News distilling some of the top moments into just shy of five minutes:

Trump couldn’t even condemn white supremacists, and the Proud Boys are super stoked.

The Proud Boys are ecstatic tonight about getting mentioned in the debate tonight.

“Trump basically said to go fuck them up! this makes me so happy,” writes one prominent Proud Boy. pic.twitter.com/hYA7yQVAOn

— Mike Baker (@ByMikeBaker) September 30, 2020

That video above was just a smidgeon of the nastiness, by the way.

We’ll watch more barbs in a minute, but let’s get the analysis from Sky News:

It was the most anticipated debate in 30 years and yet it may go down as the worst ever…the biggest losers wasn’t even on stage – they were at home watching.

The American public were denied the rigorous discussion of policy they need and forced instead to watch an awful combination of dystopian pantomime cross-talk and playground mudslinging…

It was the perfect illustration of how shambolic, dysfunctional and unedifying American politics has become.

In reality, the debate may not shift the dial either way. The big question is how many Americans will be willing to endure round two?

There are two more of these to get through.

Let’s endure more insults, interruptions, and clashes, with this video from the Washington Post:

Whereas most critics panned moderator Chris Wallace, who works for Fox News, for failing to prevent Trump from constantly interrupting, after both parties had agreed to let the other speak for a designated time period in the lead-up, it’s a different story in Trumpworld.

The president’s Twitter account has already retweeted countless people criticising Wallace for favouring Biden, and Trump himself tweeted this:

pic.twitter.com/HUSFkHqsyC

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 30, 2020

It’s like he knows he can’t win a debate, so he has to attack the moderator.

Anyway, if you prefer your breakdown in text form, TIME has covered some of the key exchanges from the debate, with added context, here.

That’s about all I can stomach of this mess, but if you really want the full experience, then settle in and watch the debate in full:

[sources:cnn&sky]