The vice presidential debate is usually a low-rating undercard to the three presidential debates. But with Trump and Harris not scheduled to face off again, it may do rather better in the ratings.
Democrat Tim Walz better hope not, because he lost it. Or I think he did.
Walz was nervous, dorky, stop-starting and on the defensive. Only in the final section did he take the fight to his opponent, Silicon Valley hillbilly JD Vance, on the question of January 6, Trump’s actions on that day, and Vance’s support of them.
Perhaps that was deliberate, and a win. Walz mentioned Minnesota, the state he is governor of, in every answer he gave, with the possible exception of Iran/Israel (“spicy food isn’t our thing in Minnesota, and I think, if more people could ate hot dish*”), as if the object of the exercise was to play the boring midwest dad who will keep that young gal Kamala Harris in line.
Harris is older than him; she looks like she could be his granddaughter. Walz looks like he has aged consciously, as a choice.
God I hope that “aw shucks, I’m not used to public speaking” thing was an act, because JD Vance went in harder. Politely, it was so achingly old school (it really made me miss the first Trump-Biden debate in ‘20), but harder nevertheless. And did you know he’d had a hardscrabble upbringing?
Asked a first question — of course about Israel making a possible preemptive strike against Iran, because America — Vance began with his CV, known to everyone who Netflix has auto-played six seconds of Hillbilly Elegy to at every log in. Addict hillbilly family, Ohio-West Virginia borderlands etc, got into army, then to Yale, then to Silicon Valley. Came back to lecture them all on how piss-weak they were for being poor.
He’s had to back off from that, and as part of the Trump ticket, he’s gone to the very thing he railed against: helping Americans blame someone else for their problems. Trump-Vance has gone all out on migrants, and in practically every answer Vance brought it back around.
Migrants take jobs, migrants take housing, migrants are responsible for the gun crime, for the lack of health care, and so on. On the question of borders and blame, he got Walz on to the liberal back foot, pleading for this to be discussed in “a humane fashion”. Bleating liberal snowman dad says what? Tell it to the dog and cat eaters, buddy.
The problem is, of course, that it’s all true — the US-Mexico line is the porous, desert-blown border of the global North and South, and the numbers coming through are huge, and above and beyond the extra housing and services their employment adds to the economy.
But the US is also utterly dependent on cheap immigrant labour to keep the services going in a highly commodified consumer economy. The Democrats know that. They just can’t say it. No-one wants to give the bad news, and talk about hard choices. Walz’s wrap-up was an anodyne Reaganite pitch about American optimism
Which seemed to punch home Vance’s message, because he was happy to punch home Trump’s message: that a new trade war with China, combined with more tax cuts, would create an economic boom. As Trump’s previous term has shown, this creates short-term selective gain — for, it must be said, sections of a working class who usually miss out on growth — but ever greater structural disarray and decline.
But Walz can’t really say that either. He has the bad luck that the bill came due for COVID-19 and quantitative easing the very moment that Kamala Harris took up residence in… wherever the VP lives**. Biden was barely mentioned. Apparently Harris was running the joint.
Were the Democrats tempted to have a different strategy? To say that Trump gave the sawdust and moonshine, and Biden-Harris did the hard yards of creating real jobs and sustained industries, etc? If they were, they didn’t yield. Walz’s performance was either a masterpiece of restraint, to create an air of stability and calm — or a disastrous flubbing of the opportunity, to attack Trump as a flimflam guy, coming ’round again with the same promises.
Without the determination or the ability to attack, Walz was left open to Vance’s repeated mantra that Harris had announced she would end Trump’s immigration regime, and had signed “94 executive orders” to the effect. It was a repeated blow. If Trump-Vance win, it’ll be because of migration, and all this.
Fun bits? Walz was so nervous at the top he kept mistaking Iran for Israel and vice versa — “Israel and its proxies” he sounded like Pilger — and JD Vance, in hurrying to agree on the need for family support, said he had “a beautiful wife with three beautiful children…” which sounded like the Republicans had gone full eugenics, and only hotties would get childcare. Also his mom had been an addict. And if Kamala Harris had allowed all the fentanyl earlier, she never would have kicked it.
Walz’s sole blow was when Vance compared Trump’s insurrection to Harris’ social posting about misinformation. “January 6 was a lot more than a Facebook post” Walz said heavily, a good get. If only there’d been more of them.
Well I’m sure the Democrats know what they’re doing. Ha ha that’s a joke, Minnesota style. As a debate it was a real hot dish.
Who do you think won the vice presidential debate? And does it matter? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
* “Hot dish” is the Minnesota term for any and all casseroles. It is the least expressive term Minnesotans could find, without resorting to “warm food unit”.
**Number One Observatory Circle. I knew this.
