As someone who has watched and/or covered every presidential debate since 1976, it pains me to suggest that we pull the plug.

Granted, it’s not our decision. Joe Biden would need to declare that’s it’s a waste of his valuable time (and ours) to joust with a sociopath. The nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates, which has long conducted its forums “for the benefit of the American electorate,” would need to be put in mothballs until such time that the electorate can again reap some benefit.

Granted, there are valid reasons to soldier on to Round Two. Jeff Greenfield, the veteran commentator, argues that the debates “provide rare occasions where voters can make judgments about the temperament and character of the men and women who seek great power. We should pause before scrapping that flawed but valuable tool.” And Norman Ornstein, who has analyzed Washington politics since the ’70s, says the debates should continue, because “they give an unfiltered window into the candidates.”

But after four years of being subjected to Trump’s “unfiltered window,” what more can we possibly learn about his “temperament and character?” If you invite a feral untamed beast to dinner, expecting to normalize it, expecting it to adhere to the rules of civilized human behavior, you are merely fooling yourself, because the beast will likely upend the table and smash the silverware. We saw that, to our global embarrassment, on Tuesday night.

In the words of political analyst Eric Boehlert, “There’s no need for Biden to show up again so Trump can smear Biden family members, make a mockery out of public discourse, and lie relentlessly about every topic…Running for president is serious business, and Trump is a child.”

True that. When the man-child is a petulant brat, you call a time out.

It was bad enough that Trump’s disgusting verbal abuse devolved to the scatological. If you watched the debate (poor soul), you may have missed the exchange where Biden was ticking off rhetorical points – “Number one, number two” – and Trump bellowed, “You’re a number two!” Something in Trump’s upbringing clearly went amiss, because it’s not normal for a 74-year-old man of power to morph into a 7-year-old talking about poop.

But even though I’m personally in favor of transparency – the more information we get, the better off we are; the more the candidates debate, the more information we gain – the clincher for me came late in Tuesday’s nightmare when Trump scored a toxic trifecta: refusing to condemn white supremacy, putting the Proud Boys on temporary standby, and urging his cultists to flood polling stations on election day.

In essence, Trump got free air time to debase the democratic process, stoke the threat of violence, and parade his authoritarian instincts. Screw that. If he wants to go that route, if he wants to flex his intentions to steal the election, at least force him buy advertising. Biden shouldn’t have to stand there and abide it.

The debate commission is rushing to tweak the format, announcing yesterday that if a candidate persists in interrupting his opponent, his microphone will be turned off. As if that would deter Trump. He’d just play the victim and scream that he’s being censored. The new cultist chant would be “Let Him Speak!” A format reform is futile. You can’t expect a beast to sup at the table by simply switching out the silverware.

I suppose a case can be made that Round Two will be better, because it’s a “town hall” with real people asking the questions, and thus Trump might play nicer with others in the room. In Jeff Greenfield’s hopeful words, “Even the most disputatious of family arguments sometimes cease when the neighbors arrive.” Yeah maybe. But, at minimum, Trump will have the freedom to roam the premises and indulge his hunger to physically dominate his prey, and I leave it to your imagination to conjure those visuals.

We risked national suicide when this guy was inexplicably elevated to office four years ago with a minority of the votes. The least we can do, at this late date, is deny him another free stage to swing his wrecking ball.