Shady J.D.’s Greatest Hits
Going into tonight’s debate, it seems appropriate to consider the J.D. Vance mindset that Tim Walz will have to contend with.
J.D. Vance is a handful. He’ll be a much stronger traditional debater than the orange guy who he wants to be his boss. But his views are more focused and, in many ways, even more extreme than those of the MAGA figurehead.
Trump — ever the slick salesman — says whatever he thinks the person he’s talking to wants to hear. It’s not like he has any kind of core values. Vance, on the other hand, truly believes the positions that he espouses; he was spewing many of these views long before he had a career in politics. (Those “firmly held beliefs” are not so firm, however, so as to withstand the lure of climbing higher on the political ladder. More about that in a moment.)
CBS has announced that there will not be any real-time fact checking at the debate, although CBS also made a fuss about being able to scan a QR code during the debate that will lead to the CBS News website where … maybe there will be real-time fact checking? It’s hard to tell.
In any case, Tim Walz will have his work cut out for him. I’m sure Walz is aware of J.D.’s many shortcomings and contradictions, and he is no doubt preparing to capitalize on them. The questions of the moderators notwithstanding, it’s hard to know where Walz should begin.
Does he start with the most current egregious lies that Vance has been spreading about Haitian immigrants eating the pets of Springfield, Ohio residents? Vance was responsible for elevating the erroneous Facebook post about a missing cat to national prominence, so there’s plenty for Walz to work with here, particularly because Vance is one of the Senators who represents Ohio, which includes the previously faltering community of Springfield that those very Haitian immigrants have helped to thrive. Even Mike DeWine, the Republican governor of Ohio, has called out Vance’s lies and his failure to do what’s right for the people in the state that he purports to represent.
Does Walz dive right into Vance’s views on women? There’s a treasure trove of misogyny that Walz could highlight to further alienate women voters from the Republican ticket. But where to begin? His recently revealed “childless cat ladies” insults? His oft-repeated sentiments that working women can’t possibly be fulfilled by their careers? His statements that the real reason that post-menopausal women exist is to help care for children? His views that women should stay married, even if they have a violent spouse?
Does he then segue to Vance’s extremist views on abortion? He has said that he “would like abortion to be illegal nationally.” He has said that such a ban should include preventing women from traveling across state lines to receive reproductive healthcare.
Does Walz go straight for the jugular and bring up Vance’s own words about Trump? After all, Vance used to refer to himself as a “never Trumper.” He has called Trump an idiot. He has said Trump was “reprehensible.” He referred to Trump as “America’s Hitler.” In recently revealed messages, Vance even claimed that Trump’s first term policies were failures, saying “Trump has just so thoroughly failed to deliver on his economic populism …” What’s worse than the words Vance used is his hypocrisy. He has somehow managed to do a 180° turn and suck up to Trump sufficiently to become his running mate. One can’t help but wonder what other kinds of Machiavellian tricks he has up his sleeve.
Lastly, does he sideline Vance altogether and simply stay focused on the increasingly irrational problem child at the top of the ticket?
We can expect Vance to take advantage of the lack of fact checking. I’m going to be on the lookout for the Gish gallop — the tactic of flooding the zone with so many arguments and so much false information that the debate opponent is overwhelmed with attempting to call out falsehoods. It makes it much more difficult for the opponent of a Gish galloper to make any points of their own.
However, Walz is tasked with exactly that responsibility — imparting the policies of the Harris/Walz campaign to an audience that may not have heard much about them.
Vance has proven that he’s a scrappy — some might say “unscrupulous” — pontificator. He seems more than willing to go on the attack and not back down. Walz will have his hands full trying to deal with that. But I get the sense that Walz’s time as a teacher will come in handy; he’ll likely treat Vance like an errant high schooler, which seems fitting, since so many of Vance’s views are decidedly sophomoric.
Vice presidential debates are a relatively young part of the U.S. presidential campaign, having existed only since 1984. They’ve been regarded as largely inconsequential. But this election season is unprecedented in every other way, so the VP debate may have consequences no one has even speculated about.
I have now learned, at least on my phone, that when I "go back", it really happens, because I returned to a blank comment page, where I had a great beginning, now forever gone(I think). Anyhoo, my thoughts almost verbatim, about Tim. Even his name evokes a kind, good person.(Reference Tim Gunn, Timmy from, "Lassie", etc.) I agree wholeheartedly that J.D. will spill out a bunch of coherent (and with proper sentence structure),lies and accusations, in rapid fire succession, and Tim, the Educator, will not be flustered one iota. Looking forward to it. I couldn't watch much of the first Presidential debate, as my sanity(especially at this age), must be my highest priority. This one will be fun.