Photo: Matt Rourke/AP Photo
Tim Walz reportedly confessed to Kamala Harris during his vice-presidential interview that he is a bad debater, and his allies expressed their concerns about his performance in the days leading up to the debate. J.D. Vance was filled with confidence. “He loves the sparring because he knows he’s good at it, and it’s a venue for him to show off the intellectual-capacity difference between him and his opponent,” one “source close to Vance” told NOTUS.
Those predictions turned out not to be spin but, if anything, an understatement. Vance is smarter and faster than Walz. He came across more confident — and marshaled data points more smoothly — than Walz, who conveyed a lack of confidence from the beginning and looked worried.
Those skills enabled Vance to spin extraordinary falsehoods, two of which stand out. He depicted Donald Trump as the savior of the Affordable Care Act, claiming Trump “salvaged Obamacare, which was doing disastrously until Donald Trump came along.” In fact, Trump attempted repeatedly to destroy Obamacare without ever developing a replacement for it. When his efforts to repeal the law failed, he sabotaged it administratively, resulting in some 3 million Americans losing their health insurance.
Walz was able to convey that the Democrats are the party of protecting Obamacare, but he could not come close to getting across the absurdity of Vance’s lie.
A more effective moment for Walz finally came toward the end of the debate. The moderators asked Vance if he would support attempts to overturn the 2024 election outcome, as Trump did in 2020. Vance dodged the question, turning the issue to Facebook’s content-moderation policies, which he claimed represents the true threat to democracy.
Vance claimed Trump did nothing wrong in his coup attempt because the attempt failed: “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.”
Walz finally reminded the audience Trump continues to falsely claim the election was stolen. He turned to Vance and asked, “Did he lose the 2020 election”? Vance replied, “Tim, I’m focused on the future.” Walz turned back to the camera and said, “That is a damning non-answer.”
It was damning and a perfect indication of what a slippery, dangerous, and unprincipled figure Vance is. But for most of the night, Walz could only barely keep up with him.
Fortunately for Democrats, the candidate at the top of their ticket performed ably in her debate, while the candidate at the top of the Republican ticket shouted incoherently. Trump’s method has been famously summarized as malevolence tempered by incompetence. Vance is a picture of a future in which Republican authoritarianism is not tempered by incompetence. That future, fortunately, has not yet arrived.
