Oakland, Ca. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – As a Southern man of letters, I’ve learned a lot from Tennessee Williams’ plays and films. Watching the Vice Presidential debate, the stench of mendacity wafted all the way from New York to California whenever JD Vance opened his mouth. The Trump/ Vance campaign offers nothing more than myths, lies, fiction and conflations of unrelated issues. The distortions come so fast and furiously that they can’t be addressed in the time allowed for rebuttal.
It’s tough to debate a guy who’s gone on record as saying he’ll make things up if he needs to. That was Tim Walz’ challenge, to counter the Trump-inspired gaslighting campaign that Vance enacted. That dynamic overwhelmed Walz at times, but he regained his footing and countered some, though not all of Vance’s brazen lies. But I give Vance credit for knowing how to package all that bovine excrement, and sell it to those naïve enough to buy it.
Though he nailed Vance near the end by challenging him on whether the 2020 Election was stolen, Walz missed multiple opportunities to call his bluff more forcefully and fact-check him in real time. But he also articulated how his model of governing Minnesota can be a positive, progressive template at the federal level with regard to health care, child care, public school nutrition and other public services. Walz’ only real faux pas was to choke on the question about the timing of his China visits, and his alleged presence in Tiananmen Square. But he made an acceptable save at the end to say he’d confused the timeline about a series of visits.
Walz’ major misstep was to say that the problems in the Middle East started on October 7. WRONG! The starting point was the British double-dealing during and after World War I, and the San Remo Conference after the war, when the great powers divided up the Middle East along new national borders that they drew, cutting across natural tribal and ethnic boundaries.
Vance repeatedly referred to “failed policies of the Harris Administration,” a gross anachronism, while conflating numerous issues to manufacture the worst possible outcome, real or imagined. I was waiting for Walz to pipe up and say, “JD, I believe you’re talking about the Biden Administration, not the Harris Administration. We’re waiting our turn.” Remember Vance is the guy who told CNN’s Dana Bash, “I’ll make things up if I need to.”
Moderators Nora O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan were the smart ones in the room, but could have been better Parliamentarians by muting Vance when he tried to talk over them to mansplain some tortured fictions — among them how Trump supposedly “saved Obamacare.” (Cue uproarious laughter). They muted the candidates’ mics only once, when things got testy. I wondered why they didn’t do that more often when Vance frequently spoke out of turn. Perhaps they were giving him rope for his own hanging. As I scored the debate at home, I tracked the lies of Vance, as well as the points made and mistakes made by Walz.
Both men pivoted away from answering questions directly, but Vance was the guiltier offender. He began his pandering by re-introducing his book, Hillbilly Elegy about his early life struggles, and invoked his beautiful wife and kids numerous times to evade questions. He often targeted Kamala Harris with wildly untrue accusations, revealing his own confusion about the roles of the three branches of government. Walz called him out on that to say, “Senator, Congress controls the purse strings and appropriations, not the Vice-President.” Vance avoided answering tough questions on the Middle East repeatedly saying, “It’s up to Israel how to respond.”
True to the Trumpian mission, Vance engaged in aggressive historical revisions, twisted fictions and gross lies. That’s all they have to run on, including:
-Trump saved Obamacare (more laughter).
-Blaming Harris for the immigration crisis at the Southern border, and for allegedly “allowing” gangs and fentanyl into the country. He said, “Harris opened the border to fentanyl by overturning 94 Trump Executive orders.” It sounds as though he forgot Joe Biden is still president and as though he doesn’t know that border crossings have plummeted in 2024.
-Said Trump brought stability (!) and made the world more secure (!).
-Bizarrely said that no conflict broke out under the Trump administration.
-Alleged that Harris has raised energy prices (?).
– Blamed the current State Department for thousands of lost children, who were in fact separated from parents under Trump and Stephen Miller, attributing it to “Harris’ border policy.”
-Claimed Immigrants are taking millions of jobs away from Americans, and have overwhelmed schools and hospitals in Springfield, OH, creating a housing shortage. In fact, economists say that without immigrants, America’s impressive recent job growth would have stalled. As for housing, construction of new homes tanked after the Republican Great Recession of 2008-2009 and during COVID, creating a shortage that has little or nothing to do with immigrants.
-Claimed he never supported national ban on abortion, even though he has been caught on tape demanding such a national ban.
-Said, laughably, that January 6 was a peaceful protest.
-Called efforts to counter the election-steal fiction “Kamala Harris censorship.”
Even more important was what Vance refused to say; that Trump lost the 2020 Election. And he argued that censoring misinformation about election denial is a threat to Democracy, and not the attempted coup that Trump commanded on Jan. 6. He said, “Kamala’s censorship on an industrial scale” to counter election deniers, is more of a threat to Democracy than Jan. 6.
Walz scored points stating how Donald Trump is unfit for the highest office. Start with turning away from our NATO allies, and towards Vladimir Putin and North Korea, while praising Harris’ “steady leadership.” He contrasted that with Harris saying, “Support for Democracy matters.” Then he called out the broad coalition, from Bernie Sanders to Dick Cheney and Taylor Swift, who support Harris. “Opportunity economy that works for everyone, with freedom to make choices.” He added, “We know who Trump is, and Vance made it clear he will push Trump’s agenda. Trump makes the people I care about afraid. Kamala represents politics of joy, and solutions for middle class.”
On the energy topic, Walz pointed out how Trump calls climate change a hoax, and invites oil executives to Mar-a-Lago to ask for transactional campaign donations. Of the immigration crisis Walz noted, “They don’t want to solve it; they want to demonize it,” to create stories and make it a campaign issue. He pointed out that Congress was prepared to pass a bi-partisan Border Bill, until Trump commanded his Republican flock to kill it because he didn’t want it to be resolved; he wanted to preserve it as a campaign issue.
When Walz asked Vance directly, ““Did he lose the 2020 election?” Vance responded, “Tim, I’m focused on the future,” to which Walz retorted, “That is a damning non-answer.” Walz got a walk-off home run at the end, saying, “The Trump campaign is all about forgetting what happened on Jan. 6. He lost. This is not a debate other than in his world,” and asking “Where is the firewall with Donald Trump? If he can steal an election what would he do? There’s a clear choice as to who’s going to honor democracy, and who’s going to honor Donald Trump. Rather than toadying up to Trump, Vance should watch his own back. We now know that when Trump was informed that Mike Pence’s life was in danger at the Capitol, Trump said, “So what?” He’d throw Vance under that same bus in a New York minute.
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Bonus video added by Informed Comment:
MSNBC: “Vance vs. Walz: MSNBC analysis from the vice presidential debate hosted by CBS News”
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