Prominent among them is a reprise of the notorious Swift Boat campaign, which successfully tarred candidate John Kerry as something less than a hero for his service (which by all accounts was not without peril), and was notable for the candidate’s lack of a response as swift as his boats. Michael Dukakis’ comedic ride in a tank wearing a helmet the size of a watermelon was another unforced error that cost the candidate dearly. Now we’re engaged in an odious comparison of the respective bravery of our two vice-presidential candidates: who, in effect, stood longest upon the parapet amid the whizzing ordnance. It’s silly, but sadly, consequential.

Some of us remember the early 1950s, at the height of the Cold War, when the Soviet Union (following Germany and Japan and preceding China) was about to eat our lunch. Congress, which easily can be stampeded into willy-nilly flight by demagogues playing dark chords, was particularly panicked by the alleged “godless” nature of communism, and altered both our national motto (which still appears on our money) and our pledge of allegiance to the flag.

It was a silly canard, of course. The sky didn’t fall (though Sputnik did zoom through it quite alone for a while). Senator McCarthy did fall, however, as soon as a cooler head called him out, as did the Soviet Union, from sheer ponderousness.

I was thinking of those haunted times just the other day as I listened to the latest edition of poor Donald Trump’s tired predictions of doom and bloodbaths, and remembered that Canada evinced many of the same fears from which we suffered. One of the two stations I could get on my old yard-sale Motorola AM radio was the CBC, and my favorite programme (Canadian spelling) was “Rawhide.” A CBC radio host named Max Ferguson, a gentle Canadian soul who called himself Rawhide, played folk music and occasionally aired humorous little skits (remember our Bob and Ray?) by the Rawhide Little Theatre Group. They were of a liberal bent, which led at budget time in Parliament to a long discussion about the annual funding of the CBC. This fellow Rawhide, declared one Conservative member, is slightly more than pink. It was intended to be a damning indictment.

Max mounted a show called “The Defense of Rawhide.” I heard its initial airing, and was captivated – as were many Canadians, who saw the buncombe inherent in the indictment. I’ve never forgotten it, and was amazed just a few minutes ago when I idly googled the title and found the performance intact. I recommend it highly.

The goal of the defense is to point out the silliness of painting with a broad tar brush the motives and character of those with whom we disagree for one reason or another. It must have worked; Max was funded until he chose to retire.

We’re still at it today. With a gigantic elephant in the room – global warming ­– whose results are every month felt more clearly, the campaigns are keeping away from it, partly because neither knows what to do about it and doesn’t want to bore the voters with the tedious and expensive details of mitigation, let alone reversal. Instead they’re in effect arguing over the arrangement of the deck chairs. Everybody has missteps and verbal goofs in their past which they regret – though the ones about childless cat ladies and the lack of patriotism of couples who choose to forgo parenthood were doozies. But we need to put those behind us. I don’t suppose there’s anything that can stop the schoolyard taunting or the bizarre charge that “artificial intelligence” created a 10,000-person crowd to welcome the vice-president the other day. Still, I hope the coming debate will feature something besides personal attacks and focus instead on subjects like inflation with data instead of rhetoric and immigration without stoking fear and race hatred. We’re all doing the best we can, each in their own way. Our better angels would have us cooperate rather than attack. To quote the humblest of bards, “Can we all get along?”