Walz and Vance embrace an endangered US political species: agreement

‘The debate transported back to an era when politicians could be civil, and to get on you didn’t have to castigate your opponent as an enemy of the people.’ Illustration: Angelica Alzona/Guardian Design

There was a strange feeling as the vice-presidential debate got under way in the CBS News studios on Tuesday night that only intensified as 90 minutes of detailed policy discussion unfolded: was the United States in danger of regaining its sanity?

After weeks and months of being assailed by Donald Trump’s dystopian evocation of a country on the verge of self-destruction, amplified by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s dire warnings of democracy in peril, here was something very different. The two vice-presidential nominees were embracing that most endangered of American political species: agreement.