What lies beneath a ‘cordial’ debate

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J. D. Vance has floundered in the day-to-day “retail politics” aspect of the running-mate gig. (Take, for example, his recent strained interaction with a doughnut-shop employee.) But he nonetheless came across lucid at the lectern during last night’s vice-presidential debate. In the face of Democrats’ consistent characterization of him as “weird,” Vance slyly executed a strategy to make himself, and Trumpism, appear “normal.” He eschewed talk of “childless cat ladies” and ran from his own lies about Haitian immigrants eating pets in Springfield, Ohio. That such a sentence needs to be written tells you all you need to know about the ugly tenor of this race.

Vance seemed to be following a simple three-word mantra: Tone it down. Cameras showed him warmly greeting his opponent, Tim Walz, before and after the contest. He wore a bright-fuchsia necktie, a softer version of the MAGA-red power tie. He didn’t raise his voice, nor did he appear overly combative and childish like his running mate. Although he’s still not broadly liked by voters, for some viewers, last night’s version of Vance proved palatable: “I thought Vance would be a little more radical, taking a page from Trump, but he seemed fairly calm and complimentary,” a 77-year-old voter from Central Pennsylvania told The New York Times.

On the other side of the screen you had Tim Walz, a candidate who has been almost too good at the folksy, eye-level stuff (Change your air filter, folks! Clean those gutters!). On the debate stage, though, Walz didn’t strike a bold, confident figure. From the jump, his eyes went wide with apprehension, and he seemed to spend much of the night on the defensive. His twisty answer about his false claim that he was in Tiananmen Square during the 1989 massacre took far too long to reach its destination: I misspoke.

Both candidates ensured that the evening stayed disconcertingly friendly—good for Americans’ blood pressure, bad for properly holding an opponent’s feet to the fire. Per NBC, voters heard Walz and Vance use agree, agreement, and I don’t disagree more than a dozen times throughout the broadcast. This amiable atmosphere likely helped Vance in particular. And though Walz’s favorability rating also increased among viewers, the reality is that his repeated attempts to extend an olive branch had the unintended side effect of making the Trump-Vance ticket seem like a legitimate choice this November.

As my colleague David Graham noted, the most revealing moment of the night came near the very end, and, sadly, it’s unclear how many viewers were even still tuned in to witness it. Walz asked Vance whether he believed that Trump lost the 2020 election. Vance dodged, and reverted to spinning some strange yarn about Facebook and censorship. “That is a damning nonanswer,” Walz said. “Mike Pence made that decision to certify that election. That’s why Mike Pence isn’t on this stage.”

It was a sharp, if understated, Walz retort. In this moment, and in many other moments throughout the debate, Walz did not expose the depths of MAGA extremism. He could have more forcefully laid bare the truth about his rival, but he mostly stuck to highlighting policy differences. Pence was absent from that microphone opposite Walz not merely because Pence and Trump disagree. Pence has been cast out of Trump’s world because many members of the MAGA movement consider Pence a traitor worthy of scorn—or something much worse.

Casual news consumers might forget certain details of January 6. The Trump-directed mob didn’t just charge down the National Mall from the Ellipse to the Capitol. Earlier that day, a group had literally erected a gallows outside Congress. Chants of “Hang Mike Pence!” rang out among the insurrectionists. None of this was a joke. It wasn’t a performance. Some Trump supporters wanted to execute the former vice president. And, as all of this unfolded, nobody knew whether Trump was going to take the necessary steps to stop such an event from happening. What sort of person would ever take Pence’s place?

Vance may have come across as disarming last night, but persuadable voters should listen to his messaging on the stump. As my colleague Elaine Godfrey recently wrote, Vance has the dangerous ability to squeeze Trumpism “through his own post-liberal-populist tube and produce something that looks like a coherent ideology.” Meanwhile, a key component of Vance’s appeal, at least in Trump’s eyes, is that Vance won’t “betray” him like he believes Pence did. That historic “betrayal” is the only reason why America is able to have what will hopefully prove to be a fair election in five weeks.

Walz didn’t have to stomp his feet, or yell, or act like a jerk—that wouldn’t have worked, and it’s not his nature. But this election’s only vice-presidential debate exposed the true danger of polite normalization. Throughout the debate, Walz failed to remind viewers just how extreme of a moment, and a movement, Trump has created. He wasn’t debating a fellow potential vice president; he was squaring off against someone who may ignore the Constitution in service of an aspiring authoritarian. If Trump wins this election, another free one is far from guaranteed.

Vance is a cerebral, Ivy League–educated lawyer who once referred to Trump as “cultural heroin,” but, right now, he’s aiding and abetting Trump on his steady march to autocracy.

As I wrote earlier this year, Vance has successfully fashioned himself into Trump’s Mini-Me. Like any politician, he can turn that dial whichever way he wants, whenever he wants. Last night, Vance used grace as a Trojan horse for Trumpism, and Walz’s reciprocal friendliness and diplomacy unfortunately helped Vance squeeze through the gate and into America’s living rooms.

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