
According to most mainstream media pundits, J.D. Vance won the debate. Now, to be clear, their definition of winning seems to be who can fool enough people regardless of the facts. Last time I checked that’s not how traditional debate rules work. That’s like saying Lance Armstrong should keep all of his Tour De France wins because hell, he was really good at cheating, we almost didn’t even catch him. Way to go man, great job at Tour De Francing. Well, I’m here to say it doesn’t have to be this way.
The pundits also say that a Vice Presidential debate doesn’t ever change the outcome of an election and probably won’t this time. Well, I’m gonna disagree on that point as well. Especially since many more people will react to their analysis than watch the debate. There are two groups that I think will be moved by this. The first are these undecided voters who are really just Trump supporters who know they shouldn’t vote for him again but are waiting for some sort of green light to do it. I think there are a lot of those and legitimizing Vance will help them get that go-ahead. The second group is young people who can’t really make sense of what’s happening. And can you blame them? People my age remember a time of relative normalness but we’ve allowed these kids to grow up witnessing way too much nonsense for them to understand how things could be different. I can see how some of them might buy into a slickster like J.D. Vance. He’s a next-level bullshit artist and pundits treating him like a legitimate candidate, who could have even an ounce of integrity, is doing everyone a disservice. Let FOX News and the right-wing media apparatus do that, the rest of the media doesn’t have to and shouldn’t. And they definitely shouldn’t be telling America that J.D. Vance won a debate by essentially cheating. They should be doing their jobs and telling people how he lied and what the real facts are.
But before I outline what J.D. Vance was doing I want to say this, because this is where I think the Democrats are playing a dangerous game. I’m sure Walz was coached to project some sort of civility in the debate and by most polls that resonated with the audience, many people viewed this debate as civil. That is also adding to the confusion and I’m here to tell you that it wasn’t civil, that it never could have been civil, and Walz made a mistake by not calling out Vance’s lies more forcefully and by saying Vance has good intentions. That’s what politicians are trained to say so that they don’t get caught up in questioning the motivations of their opponents. It’s a tactic to show civility. But when you’re confronted with someone willing to say anything, literally anything, that will fool the audience, well there’s no civility in that. That’s aggression, it’s demeaning and it shouldn’t be brushed aside or excused.
I can’t get in J.D. Vance’s head enough to truly know his intentions but I’ve been around the block enough to say pretty confidently that I do not think that J.D. Vance is capable of caring about the truth, about justice, about fairness, or about anything other than himself and those he serves as a means to an end for his own self-aggrandizement. Yeah, I’m willing to say that because of what he was willing to do on that debate stage. And what he’s been doing in interviews and rallies.
So let’s talk about what J.D. Vance is doing, you know, like adults who live in reality world where you don’t believe that some bullshit artist won a debate because he was so good at slinging his bullshit. Can we live in that world, please?
So for one, J.D. Vance didn’t say one truthful thing at the debate and he made a well-calculated play to sugarcoat what he has said on the stump. So instead of immigrants eating pets, an idea he popularized, he changed it to immigrants are overwhelming schools, stealing jobs and even making housing unavailable and too expensive for “real” Americans. None of that is true, obviously, and I can confidently say that J.D. Vance knows it’s not true. That’s how he works, he knows that he can just say whatever he wants and if he does it slick enough and fast enough it’ll fool enough people. Or in the pundits’ case, impress enough people.
We can say that about every topic he talked about. Let’s use abortion as an example. First, he threw out a bunch of smoke screens and diversions to deflect the reality of the Republican’s efforts to ban abortion, or better said, control women. But where he took his bullshit to the next level is when he claimed that Republicans want to make it easier for women and families to raise children. That’s ninja-level bullshit. What he’s doing there, in a way that Trump can’t do nearly as artfully, is trying to co-opt actual values represented by what Democrats have actually tried to pass as actual legislation and make it seem as though Democrats are against it. See that? In reality world–where I want to live–Democrats have been fighting for paid family leave, child tax credits, affordable child care, affordable elderly care and lots more legislation that would make it easier for middle-class families. They passed some of it, but all of it has been fought tooth and nail by Republicans. The original Build Back Better bill had all of that stuff in generous proportions and it could have helped transform America’s social safety net in a way we haven’t seen in generations. But Republicans killed it and all we were able to pass was a stripped-down version. So for Vance to make that claim is not just bending some truth but trying to gaslight anyone who will buy into his bullshit version of reality. What’s even more audacious is that even while he’s trying to co-opt the policy initiatives in that bill in one breath, in the next he’ll claim that even the stripped-down Build Back Better bill is what destroyed the American economy and caused inflation. It didn’t, obviously since inflation was a global problem, but because we let these people lie with impunity we have too many people who believe it and too many people in the media who won’t say otherwise.
I could go through every other answer of his during the debate and find the same playbook. This is how it works. Say anything and make sure it co-opts or sounds like Democratic initiatives, twist reality to make it seem as if it’s the Democrats who are actually trying to block these things, question their integrity and motivations, and then claim that it’s Trump who will make it happen. I can tell you with 100% confidence that J.D. Vance knows that those promises will never be kept as he’s letting his impressive flowery bullshit flow out of that ratty little face of his. That’s the formula, that’s what J.D. is really good at it. That’s why people like Peter Thiel have supported him and why Tucker Carlson recommended him to Trump. He’s so good that the pundits will say he won the debate. They’re so enamored with his ninja-level bullshit skills that they’re willing to overlook his aggressive rejection of reality and completely forget to do their job.
Well, if we think things are upside down and backward now just wait and see what happens if the Republicans win this election. If the media can’t stand up for reality now what are they going to do then? I’m just hoping that despite what the pundits are saying most people saw what I saw. A bullshit artist doing his thing and being excused by too many in the media and a regular guy trying to be civil and truthful in the face of aggression. The pundits have chimed in and they failed to make a stand but the jury’s still out on what the majority of American voters believe. I’m rooting for reality.