If you watched the June 27 presidential debate you had to ask yourself one question: How dare the Republican and Democratic Parties leave you with a choice of two grievously flawed candidates for the highest office in this land?

On the one hand, the Republican choice was a man, Donald Trump, who learned a lesson on how to appear presidential instead of like a hood while lying repeatedly throughout the debate. On the other hand, the Democrat President Joe Biden was befuddled throughout the entire debate. Did his Democrat handlers actually think that the public would be stupid enough to overlook that he is well beyond his mental prime? His wince-producing performance had to be evident to his White House cronies.

This isn’t the first time that these two major parties offered us chopped liver instead of tenderloin steaks. In 2016, the voters had the choice between crooked Donald and crooked Hillary. Citizens have become domesticated to settling for ethically flawed candidates. You have now gone from “I did not have sex with that woman” (President Bill Clinton) to “I did not have sex with that porn star” (Donald Trump).

Worst of all, Mr. Trump has infected far too many of his followers with hatred of other Americans who think differently than they do. Of course, the contempt is equally returned. Voters have turned away from assessing the caliber of the candidate and instead have lobbed invectives to those in the other political camp.

Yet the national parties will not ask the present presidential contenders who share a combined age of 159 to stop fanning the division in the country or step aside. Whoever said that age brings wisdom must be turning in his/her grave.

Mr. Trump has outdone Mr. Biden in the “… form a more perfect union … and promote the general Welfare and secure the blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity” (preamble) by promising to punish Congress, or anyone contributing to Mr. Biden, or to use the justice department to confer retribution on those who oppose him.

He dabbles in Nazi allusions, including his social media account that featured a false headline implying that the United States could become a “unified Reich” if he wins a second term, before he deleted it after criticism.

What does the Democratic Party do in light of this troubling language? It rallies around a President whose time has come and gone, thereby insuring a victory for Mr. Trump.

So, the voters here as well as a worldwide audience are treated to a spectacle which had not even a scintilla of respect for the principles on which this country was founded. Instead it was a diatribe of personal grievance and a stumbling performance which reinforced the need for the present leader to retire.

Mr. Trump won’t stop his fiction, nor will Mr. Biden step aside, because the sycophants who make money and hog power for themselves could care a wit about the common good so they support the retention of these office-seekers.

And while blame is passed around to the “real government” who runs this country, let’s also take a round of criticism for ourselves who have allowed these people to have their way.

We, too, are to blame for allowing the thought that we deserve better to become a farcical thought.

Arlene Violet is an attorney and former Rhode Island Attorney General.