After the president’s disastrous debate performance, some want to drop him as the party nominee. But it’s not so simple

If anyone were to doubt the menace of Donald Trump, they had only to watch his performance in Thursday night’s debate.

His bullying lies were not just lies – they were frightening opposites of the truth, uttered with the vigor and certainty of someone who has now mastered the dark art of demagoguery.

I know I’m not a young man, to state the obvious. I don’t walk as easy as I used to. I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to. I don’t debate as well as I used to. But I know what I do know: I know how to tell the truth. I know right from wrong. And I know how to do this job. I know how to get things done. And I know, like millions of Americans know, when you get knocked down you get back up.

Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His newest book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com