Critic’s Notebook: J.D. Vance and Tim Walz Get Serious but Stay (Mostly) Civil in a Substantive Debate
One thing became painfully clear during the debate between vice presidential candidates J.D. Vance and Tim Walz: Donald Trump has ruined our expectations of political debates forever.
Where were the wild accusations about canine-eating migrants? The nasty insults and onstage stalking? The not-so-veiled references to penis size? They were nowhere to be found in this event which, yes, was a little bit boring. Instead, there were substantive discussions about real issues and, for the most part, genuine civility between the combatants. You could feel America tuning out about halfway through.
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Which is a shame, because it means many people probably missed Walz at his best in the final minutes. The Minnesota governor had a rough start, his obvious nervousness manifest in his overly rushed speaking style, misspoken words and awkward facial expressions. The more telegenic Vance demonstrated his considerable media experience with his smooth delivery and unruffled manner. Not to mention by answering the first question, about the current conflict in the Middle East, with what was essentially a dramatic reading from Hillbilly Elegy.
Yes, this was a kindler, gentler Vance, not the rabid attack dog so visible on the campaign trail. He was gracious and empathetic, at one point saying, “Honestly, Tim, I think you’ve got a tough job here. You’ve got to play Whac-A-Mole.” Referring to the immigration issue, he gently told Walz, “I think you want to solve the problem, but I don’t think Kamala Harris does.”
Walz acted similarly, for some reason backing away from the attacks on Trump and Vance as “weird” that practically assured him the VP slot.
“I think there’s a lot of commonality here,” Walz gushed during one exchange. “I don’t think that Senator Vance and I are that far apart,” he said during another. (Gentlemen, this is not what our divided country wants to hear!)
Of course, both men were in an awkward position. They weren’t there to really attack each other, but rather the candidates at the top of the tickets. In that regard, they succeeded. Vance parried every Walz thrust with the indisputable fact that Harris has been vice president for three and a half years. Much like Trump, he turned every question back to illegal immigration, from the cost of housing to the gun violence crisis.
Of course, Vance also had to defend Trump’s record, which may be his greatest feat of literary imagination. He might have referred to Trump as “America’s Hitler” and admitted in recently revealed texts that his administration was a failure, but, hey, it was really Congress’ fault. Trump didn’t try to destroy the Affordable Care Act, but rather “salvaged” it (the sound you heard was John McCain spinning in his grave). And Trump wasn’t nearly as much a threat to democracy as the “censorship” that the Democrats imposed on social media.
Moderators Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan, who did an excellent job throughout, didn’t do much fact-checking. (Apparently, Republicans really hate to be fact-checked, which is understandable since so many of their “facts” need checking.) But they did attempt to correct Vance when he once again made false assertions about the legality of Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, prompting him to take such loud umbrage that the microphones were briefly muted.
Democrats would have been well advised to not be eating while watching the debate, since they might have choked when Vance referred to Trump as possessing such attributes as “wisdom,” “courage” and “common sense.”
He wasn’t much better when it came to policy positions, as when he said that different states would have different laws when it came to reproductive rights. (If he had been around in the 1860s, he probably would have told enslaved people simply to move.) His answer to the gun violence problem was to improve security in schools, which doesn’t do much for shopping malls, movie theaters or really anywhere else. His solution to the housing crisis would be to seize federal land, so be prepared for ground to break on the “Trump Grand Canyon Estates.”
When asked whether he would challenge the election results, Vance blandly responded, “We’re focused on the future.” And he proudly cited Trump’s endorsements by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard, which is a little like a convict appealing to a parole board by using El Chapo as a reference.
People will probably be saying that Vance won the debate anyway, since Walz seemed so uncomfortable throughout. (Maybe he should have been wearing a flannel shirt rather than the standard dark suit with blue tie.) He referred to his home state so often that it seemed like he was running for re-election as governor rather than vice president.
Walz’s worst moment came when he was asked about the recent news reports proving he wasn’t really in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen Square protests, as he had claimed. It was only then that he finally leaned heavily into his biography, as if the fact that he comes from a rural background explains his prevarications. “I’m kind of a knucklehead at times,” he pointed out, which is a line destined to be quoted in attack ads.
But he rose to the occasion toward the end of the debate, when the subject of Trump’s denial of the election results was brought up. As Vance hemmed and hawed, refusing to say whether or not Trump lost, Walz pounced. “Where is the firewall with Donald Trump?” he asked, making it clear that it wouldn’t be Vance. “This has got to stop,” he announced. “It’s tearing our country apart.”
On that last point, he was sadly wrong. The country has already been torn apart.
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