JD Vance has always had the ability to switch on and off the outrageousness, to sound reasonable, to paper over a bitter and hollow core with a velvet patter learned at Yale and in countless television appearances. That was the version of himself that he presented to a national audience at the debate on Tuesday night, and it was a world away from how he sounds when campaigning in front of MAGA crowds.
If you saw only this performance, you wouldn’t know it was the same candidate who has viciously demonized Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio; who has railed against those American women who have chosen not to have children; who said as recently as Saturday that the mass deportation that he and Donald Trump have planned is based on Christian principles.
His long experience in tailoring his answers for his audience made him seem, at a superficial level, more polished than Tim Walz, who didn’t have the commanding performance his supporters had hoped for. The sly Midwestern charm that has been so effective in his speeches and campaign ads was missing, replaced by a nervous intensity that led to puzzling answers and missed opportunities to remind viewers of Trump’s unfitness for office.
When Vance provided a non sequitur rather than an answer on climate change, for example — “The best thing to do is to double down and invest in American workers and the American people” — Walz could have taken a layup, explained that climate change really is about carbon emissions and reminded listeners of Trump’s multiple phony promises to save or build American factories. And he could have made clear that the Biden administration really has made an enormous investment in green energy and has saved far more manufacturing jobs than the Trump administration could have imagined doing.
He sped so quickly through his criticism of Vance’s vile comments about Haitian immigrants as criminals and pet eaters that he failed to explain that Vance and his boss have tried to drain legal immigrants of their humanity. And he let Vance get away with falsely claiming he never supported a national abortion ban or, bizarrely, that Trump “salvaged Obamacare, which was doing disastrously until Donald Trump came along.”
But Walz did have a few strong moments in the second half of the debate. He pointed out the nonsensical nature of the Trump-Vance plan to build housing on federal lands, most of which are nowhere near where denser housing is needed. And when Vance turned reality on its head by claiming that Trump “peacefully gave over power” upon leaving office, Walz at last rose to the moment and demonstrated the difference between Mike Pence and the man Vance was defending.
“This was a threat to our democracy in a way that we had not seen,” Walz said. “It manifested itself because of Donald Trump’s inability to say — he is still saying — he didn’t lose the election.”
In the end, despite Walz’s disappointing performance and Vance’s masquerade, the debate is not likely to change the minds of many voters. There wasn’t much truth or fire on the stage, but there also wasn’t much damage over a largely forgettable evening.
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