Debates always get my attention. I was a high school and college debate student. I have studied argumentation for decades. While the format of the political debates is artificial and not really an actual debate, I will take what I can get. As last night’s debate proceeded, I took notes as a way of first impressions from the perspective of a debater.
JD Vance seemed determined to blame every problem on Kamala Harris. He overlooked a basic lesson of history: The vice president of the United States is window dressing. As a Texan once said, “The vice presidency is not worth a bucket of warm spit.” The current administration is not the Kamala Harris administration.
Tim Walz did bring up Congress failing to pass the bipartisan immigration bill. This was a strong and factual counterpoint to Vance. He should have hammered home this reality because Vance kept blaming Harris for every problem related to the border.
There’s no question Vance has serious debating skills. He would defeat Donald Trump in a debate. Ross Douthat, in The New York Times, called Vance’s performance the best debate by any Republican candidate for president or vice president in history. Douthat says, “It’s included some careful rhetorical tap dancing and policy jujitsu on issues like climate change and abortion. But mostly it’s just been an effective prosecution of the case against the Biden-Harris administration, focusing relentlessly on encouraging viewers to be nostalgic for the economy, the immigration landscape and the relative foreign-policy calm of Trump’s term.”
Vance’s major weakness: Like Trump, he plays loose with the truth.
“Vance’s major weakness: Like Trump, he plays loose with the truth.”
And that major weakness takes away much of the impact of a candidate who clearly knows how to debate. Have we reached the point where a person will be declared the winner of a debate when they have presented false claims, false evidence and made assertions with no warrants, no collaborating testimony? If we are in a world of make-believe where politicians are free to make up any story, push it endlessly and mindlessly, then we have come a long way from any objective understanding of the truth. Instead, we are on the slippery slope of an emerging neo-fascism.
I wanted Walz to have a better “right jab” when Vance tried to give Trump credit for no wars during his administration. Has he forgotten Trump was promoting civil unrest and violence in the USA?
Walz had powerful evidence for making this point. Within two days of the debate, Trump called for police to be allowed “one real tough, nasty” and “violent day” to eradicate crime “immediately” at a rally in Erie, Pa..
In 2020, for example, Trump urged governors to use more force against Black Lives Matter protesters. In 2017, he suggested that when police throw “thugs into the back of a paddy wagon,” they shouldn’t “be too nice.”
On June 1, 2020, law enforcement officers in Washington, D.C., used tear gas and other riot control tactics to forcefully clear peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square, creating a path for President Donald Trump and senior administration officials to walk from the White House to St. John’s Episcopal Church.
Trump also delivered a speech in which he urged the governors of U.S. states to quell violent protests by using the National Guard to “dominate the streets,” or he would otherwise “deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem.”
Trump’s overtly militant and violent remarks made MAGA hearts swell with pride. “That’s our guy.” “He tells it like it is.” “Give ’em hell, Donald!” MAGA claims this is what they like about Trump.
But nothing is more anti-democratic than dictator-like cries for police and military intervention. Have we forgotten China’s response to Tiananmen Square? Or Egypt’s response to the democratic “Egyptian Spring?” Or the fire hoses, dogs, nightsticks and guns used by police during the Civil Rights Movement?
I wanted Walz to say: “You are embracing for president a man who wants to deliver hell. He sounds like the Roman general in Gladiator, ‘At my command, unleash hell.’ You need to think again. You are endorsing, embracing and running with the most anti-democratic politician in our history.”
Here was a chance to show Trump as the impulsive, simplistic, uncivil character he always has been. This nation doesn’t need a president who thinks he can solve the problems of the Middle East with one phone call or end the war in Ukraine with two phone calls.
Walz could have done a better job of reminding Americans of Trump’s disastrous handling of the COVID pandemic because it demonstrates so clearly the danger of him being president again. Trump’s list of brazen and reckless choices includes disbanding or depleting pandemic preparedness programs, ignoring the warnings of the danger of the disease, downplaying the threat, falsely claiming he had everything under control, calling the pandemic a Democratic hoax, shifting blame to the WHO, kneecapping the Centers for Disease Control, and recommending we drink bleach for a cure.
“Trump’s record was ripe for dismantling, and Walz was too nice.”
Trump’s record was ripe for dismantling, and Walz was too nice. The country suffered four years of Trumpian delusion and wreckage. And then Trump attempted to dismantle democracy with his January 6 attempted coup. He has brought our nation to the brink of fatally undermining core democratic anchor institutions.
When Vance made the incredulous remark, “Look, Tim, first of all, it’s really rich for Democratic leaders to say that Donald Trump is a unique threat to democracy when he peacefully gave over power on January the 20th as we have done for 250 years in this country,” Walz should have pounced on him like a lion on a zebra.
I was screaming at the television at this point: Look, JD, first of all, Donald Trump didn’t peacefully give over power on Jan. 20. He refused to follow the traditions of past presidents and didn’t attend the inauguration. He told his crowd, “Fight like hell.”
And look, JD, the peaceful, legitimate transfer of power is the keystone of American democracy. Break it, and none of our institutions will last for long. Trump tried to break it on January 6.
Walz allowed Vance to skate on the issue of the immigration application on smartphones. What Vance did was repeat Trump’s lies. Walz missed a serious opportunity for a smack-down rebuttal.
And I have no idea what Walz meant by “Project 2025 is going to have a registry of pregnancies.” He could have asked Vance why he wrote the foreword for Project 2025 to great advantage.
The one time Vance seemed to lose his “cool” was his criticism of the moderator for fact-checking him. Well, he was lying about immigrants and Walz should have followed up that line of attack more vigorously.
Final analysis: Even when you wrap Trump’s lies in a Yale education, an erudite debater capable of complete sentences and a polished performance, you still have a piece of inedible junk food.
Rodney Kennedy
Rodney W. Kennedy is a pastor and writer in New York state. He is the author of 11 books, including his latest, Dancing with Metaphors in the Pulpit.
Related articles:
Donald Trump and the story of the magical phone app for immigrants | Analysis by Rodney Kennedy
Donald Trump’s comeuppance | Opinion by Wendell Griffen