Pence’s robotic drone and Harris’s practiced jabs won’t get the media to avert its eyes as Trump tweets conspiracy theories in all caps and praises criminal acts against protesters while we all speculate as to whether the president is always this erratic or whether his behavior is the result of the dexamethasone coursing through his veins.

But if Harris and Pence didn’t offer any material that will be remembered in the future, perhaps their debate gave us a glimpse of the future. Consider the contrast between Trump’s actions in the last debate and the relative normalcy of Harris and Pence sparring Wednesday night.

Pence and Harris are good avatars for what the two parties might look like in a post-Trump and post-Biden world: a more conventionally conservative and much less theatrical Republican, and a younger, more diverse, and more progressive Democrat. As Trump likes to remind us, it will be a lot more boring.