I’m ashamed of myself.
During stretches of Tuesday’s vice-presidential debate, I found myself admiring — sort of — JD Vance. I awarded him points for unflappability, wishing Tim Walz could mimic that composure and tap a well of confidence as deep. I envied his crispness, willing Walz to state his case as clearly and cleanly.
Vance’s answers seemed to have commas, semicolons and colons in all the right places, while Walz’s herky-jerky statements were linked (or not) by ellipses. The paper-grading professor in me gave Vance a high mark, Walz a barely passing one.
But the 2024 election isn’t an essay contest. Nor is it a beauty pageant, with the debates functioning as the interview segment. It’s a morality play. It’s about fundamental values. And Vance’s are rotten, no matter how much oratorical perfume he sprays on them, no matter how eloquently he diverts you from the stench.
The hell of the debate matched the hell of this presidential campaign, in which there’s a temptation — a pull — to evaluate performance, parse communication or dissect policy, employing criteria that we attentive citizens have used across the decades. But such assessments are utterly beside the point. The race for president pits a Democratic ticket with many shortcomings against a Republican ticket with no scruples whatsoever, decency against indecency, respect for the democratic process against unfettered ambition, and psychological stability (Kamala Harris) against a spectacular lack thereof (you know who).
In that context, it’s pointless, even reckless, to dwell on Walz’s visible nervousness during the debate or his many missed opportunities.
Yes, he failed to nail Vance appropriately and effectively for spreading the dangerous calumny — or is it cookery? — that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating other people’s pets. Yes, that suggested a discouraging limit to Walz’s political skills.
But it didn’t erase those lies, just as Vance’s mild, even milquetoast manner on the debate stage didn’t expunge his record of hateful, bigoted remarks that demonize whole groups of Americans in the interest of whipping his followers into an election-delivering frenzy. Vance would drive a truck through and over a huddle of thirsty people if they were the sole obstacle between him and higher office. Walz would hit the brakes, climb out of his vehicle and offer them some of his Diet Mountain Dew.
Our reflexes prompt us to observe and analyze this election as we have many others, and so some of us chide Harris for avoiding interviews and, when she does give one, often leaning on vague, canned answers. That’s a fair, worthy complaint to the extent that it’s pushing a person who’s seeking the most powerful office in the world to flex her intellectual nimbleness and present a comprehensive plan.
Some of us tuned in to the vice-presidential debate to gauge Walz’s steadiness in circumstances with higher stakes and higher visibility than the ones he was accustomed to before Harris made him her running mate, and we’re disappointed that he wasn’t sturdier. That’s understandable, and that’s responsible in and of itself. Walz could end up a proverbial heartbeat away from the presidency.
In addition to which, the range of skills that he and the other players in the presidential contest demonstrate and the degree of competence that they project could determine the election’s outcome. Those factors are tactically relevant.
But as I wrote last week and will surely write again before Nov. 5, the normal stuff — the details of one economic proposal versus another, the major and minor line items on the candidates’ curricula vitae — doesn’t matter in this abnormal election, because a single consideration nullifies all others. It’s this:
One candidate is prepared to incite violence if it serves his purposes. We know that because he has done so already. That candidate will invent ugly fictions and promote illegal schemes to overturn the results of an election that doesn’t go his way. That’s not my paranoia talking; that’s his record. He places his vanity, his cupidity, his every want and whim above the integrity of our democracy, the dignity of the presidency and the welfare of the nation. Just a week of his social media posts and a month of his rallies make that clear.
And the crucial takeaway from the vice-presidential debate was Vance’s audacious claim — I questioned my own hearing — that Donald Trump honored the peaceful transfer of power from one president to another when his administration ended and Joe Biden’s began. In what alternate timeline? In what parallel universe?
With that comment and with others, Vance laundered and sanctioned Trump’s depravity, telling us not merely that he stands with Trump but that he sinks every bit as low as Trump.
I’ll take all the ellipses in creation over that exclamation point.
For the Love of Sentences
Reviewing a Billie Eilish concert in The Times, Lindsay Zoladz marveled at the number of fans who’d mimicked Eilish’s habit of wrapping a bandanna around her head: “One of the most striking signs of her considerable cultural power is her ability to compel legions of teenage girls to spend a night out dressed like David Foster Wallace.” (Thanks to Kevin Moreau of Atlanta for nominating this.)
Also in The Times, Anand Giridharadas complimented the writer Malcolm Gladwell on his reach: “He is the literary equivalent of those politicians who get nonvoters to the polls. With legacy media eroding and book sales sluggish and disinformation spreading and truth under attack by some of our own leaders, millions of people live in idea deserts. For them, Gladwell is a farm stand.” (Alan Stamm, Birmingham, Mich.)
Beth Macy examined similarities between the Republican vice-presidential nominee’s trajectory and her own: “Like Mr. Vance, I made my way eventually to an Ivy League school — in my case after winning a midcareer journalism fellowship at Harvard, where, despite having had some success as a newspaper reporter, I still felt like a food-stamp recipient in the checkout line at Whole Foods.” (Mitchell Krasnopoler, Leawood, Kan., and Elaine Camp, Charlotte, N.C.)
Jamelle Bouie weighed in on the Vance-Walz debate: “If Vance had to sell the benefits of asbestos to win office, he would do it well and do it with a smile.” (Marci Imbrogno, Charlotte, N.C., and Paul Ansell, Tampa Bay, Fla., among others)
And Matt Flegenheimer described Walz: “At his most effective, he is a kind of Labrador retriever of a communicator: affable, game, just happy to be there — but liable to tilt his head in performative confusion when something sounds off to him,” Matt wrote. (Susan Settlemyre Williams, Richmond, Va.)
In The Bulwark, Andrew Egger marveled at the pitiable attempts at cleanup by the House speaker and others after a deranged post about Haitian immigrants by Representative Clay Higgins, a Republican congressman from Louisiana: “The Republican Party is always going to struggle to disassociate itself from cranks and racists. But it becomes futile even to try when a racist crank sits atop the party as god-emperor. Trump is an industrial plant pumping sewage into a river; Mike Johnson is downstream with a kitchen strainer.” (Donna Triptow, Baltimore, and Tom Jackson, Charlotte, N.C., among others)
In Tablet, Liel Leibovitz evaluated the indictment of Eric Adams by arguing that going after a New York City mayor for some form of corruption is “like prosecuting bartenders for their proximity to gin.” (Leonard Naymark, Toronto)
In The Washington Post, Dave Barry charted the political changes in Florida: “This used to be a purple state — it voted for Barack Obama twice — but now it’s solidly red, thanks in part to the Florida Democratic Party, which is so legendarily incompetent that it could be a division of Boeing.” (Bob Stein, Downingtown, Pa., and Jalna Jaeger, Norwalk, Conn., among others)
Also in The Post, Rick Reilly memorialized the extraordinary baseball player Pete Rose, who died this week, and Rose’s extraordinarily self-destructive ways: “I knew him well. He fascinated me. I’d never met a guy who looked at life like a door he had to knock down, even if there was a perfectly good doorknob waiting.” (Michael Beebe, Buffalo, N.Y., and Jonathan Weker, Montpelier, Vt.)
And the Morning Brew newsletter provided new information about a hugely popular video game: “Fortnite now allows parents to set time limits for their kids, in case you want them to hate you.” (Dan Payne, San Francisco)
To nominate favorite bits of recent writing from The Times or other publications to be mentioned in “For the Love of Sentences,” please email me here and include your name and place of residence.
What I’m Writing and Reading
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We’re living in a moment when politics functions as a kind of magnet, pulling everyone — the willing and the unwilling, the eager and the previously distracted — toward it. That was my thought when a favorite singer of mine, now 76, released an uncharacteristic new song last week. I wrote about it here.
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All the stories about Hurricane Helene’s devastation of western North Carolina have been harrowing, none more so than Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs’s account in The Times of a 75-year-old man clinging to a tree to avoid being carried away by floodwaters. By all means take a moment to read it, and then take another moment to read this article in The Citizen Times of Asheville, N.C., a newspaper based where the disaster struck, about how to help people there. Many of you kindly emailed me to ask how I was — I thank you very much for that — but here in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area, we saw and endured nothing like what our fellow North Carolinians around Asheville went through. They’re the ones in greatest need of assistance.
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Helene washed away whole houses, whole roads and more. Could she also tip the presidential election one way or the other? North Carolina’s 16 Electoral College votes could be pivotal — Harris and Trump are in something of a dead heat here — and the damage from Helene is making it much harder for many North Carolinians to vote. Axios Raleigh explained the situation here.
On a Personal Note (In Memoriam)
In the spring of 2021, when various friends of mine learned that I’d be joining the faculty at Duke and moving from Manhattan to North Carolina, one of them immediately said, “I’ll introduce you to Joel Fleishman.” The promise had the ring of a precious gift.
Then another friend pledged likewise. Then another. How many people knew this Joel? And how many people did this Joel know? I got the sense of a circle of acquaintances as big as the galaxy.
That was an entirely accurate impression.
Soon enough, I had the enormous privilege of meeting Joel — a North Carolina native and linchpin of the Duke community — and then the even greater privilege of becoming his friend, as he invited me to dinner after dinner, introducing me to a Nobel laureate one night, a venerated North Carolina chef the next, a few of the state’s most prominent philanthropists, several of its major political figures. It wasn’t just that Joel knew everybody. He also somehow kept in touch with everybody, tending his existing friendships with a peerless emotional generosity and, on top of that, magically summoning the energy to nurture new ones. I’m told that he sent annual holiday cards to more than 2,500 people. I suspect that’s a serious undercount.
Joel died on Monday at the age of 90. An official obituary on the Duke website captures the breadth of Joel’s vocations and contributions. Joel wrote a major book about philanthropy and taught a popular course on the topic at Duke, for which he raised tens of millions of dollars over time — the university’s Sanford School of Public Policy, where I teach, exists in large part because of Joel’s efforts and planning. He also for several years wrote a wine column for Vanity Fair. He seemed to have at least a smidgen of invaluable insight into just about everything.
But he was astonishingly humble about that. At Joel’s dinner table, I could count on two things: The company would be illuminating, and Joel would talk less than anyone in the cast of characters he’d assembled.
I could also bet everything I owned that within 24 hours of the meal’s end, we’d all get a long email from Joel telling us how much the evening and our company had meant to him.
He was effusive that way, and he believed in each of his friends as much as he believed in friendship itself. A loyal reader of this newsletter, he seldom let a month go by without interrupting his day and going out of his way to thank me lavishly for something in it. Again, where did he find the time?
At his funeral in Durham on Tuesday morning, one of the people who eulogized him asked that question and theorized that Joel was a contemporary version of “the loaves and the fishes.” I sometimes wondered if there were really two Joels or even three Joels, each of them taking a third of that holiday card list, a third of those gushing emails.
But no. It’s just that the laws of time were no match for the size of Joel’s heart.
The post JD Vance Is Smoother — but No Better — than Donald Trump appeared first on New York Times.
