The Brooklyn Rail

It is a political truism that vice presidents, and thus vice-presidential debates, don’t matter. No one wins or loses a presidential election because of their running mate, even if that running mate is as imbecilic as Dan Quayle or as incendiary and hateful as Sarah Palin. That truism will probably hold true in this uniquely important election, as well. But let me insert one note of caution. If re-elected president, Donald Trump will be 78 years old at his inauguration, and 82 at the end of his first/second term. Actuarially, the likelihood of a Vance presidency would then become very high. It will be even higher if Trump manages to do away with elections altogether, as he has promised to do. So it may be prudent to pay a bit more attention to JD Vance’s candidacy than to those of previous vice-presidential picks.

Much has been made of Vance’s damning assessments of Donald Trump in the past, including calling him “America’s Hitler” and “Cultural Heroin” (both quite perceptive and true), and telling Terry Gross that Trump is “leading the white working class to a very dark place.” Vance has explained that he changed his mind about all this when Trump proved to be such a great president from 2016 to 2020. But the recent release of statements Vance made in 2020 put the lie to that explanation. At the end of Trump’s first term, he said “Trump has so thoroughly failed to deliver on his economic populism, I think Trump will probably lose [to Biden in 2020]” (again, perceptive and true). People do change their minds and allegiances, but Vance’s mind and allegiances seem particularly plastic.

In this, he has learned from the master of transactional ethics. He’s also learned the value of making outrageous statements in public to make news: we’re being led as a nation by “childless cat ladies,” mass shootings are now “a fact of life,” and Haitian immigrants are eating the dogs and cats of true Americans.

I didn’t read Hillbilly Elegy when it came out in 2016, but I thought I should at least try to read it now that Vance has advanced to the threshold of total power. I failed. I found the writing wooden and the sensibility stultifying. I also found the exploitative representations of my birth class and culture so infuriating that I couldn’t continue reading it.

Then I watched Ron Howard’s Netflix movie version of Hillbilly Elegy from the same year. Through the whole first half of the film, I had a pain in the pit of my stomach that grew worse and worse as I watched this typical Hollywood depiction of poor rural people as stupid, mean, or crazy, and deserving of whatever awful things happen to them. This is the way liberal elites imagine working-class people. It made me sick.

In both book and movie, JD is the only character who is good, who has a moral compass. His mother is a monster, as is pretty much everyone else around him (except Usha). Vance is now one of those elites who see the people in the culture he came out of as just not good enough to do what he did to escape it. They’re poor because they’re losers, not killers.

These are the people that Trump and Vance are using to gain power, by convincing them that they are speaking for them and working for them, while privately detesting and denigrating them. Trump and Vance share a deep and abiding contempt for the people they claim to be championing. This is the sickness at the heart of their movement.

I maintain that the first two-thirds of the debate tonight were good for JD Vance, who came into this event with historically dismal approval/disapproval ratings, just north of Dan Quayle. The first two-thirds were a substantive debate in which Vance more than held his own. He’s a good debater, and introduced himself to “Undecided” voters as a smart, reasonable candidate. Vance is a shape-shifter, and tonight he presented a kinder, gentler JD. He didn’t sound crazy at all.

Tim Walz came in nervous and halting on Iran and Gaza and it looked like it was going to be a long night for him. He began to find his footing on the hurricane in North Carolina and climate change, and then took off when he talked about healthcare and the ACA. He seemed overwhelmed by Vance at first, but began to speak more confidently as the debate wore on. JD Vance was often caught on camera looking over at Walz as if he was surprised by how much sense Walz was making.

It gradually became clear that Vance had made the decision to burnish his own reputation and prospects for a future post-Trump life in politics with this debate, which will probably be the largest exposure he will have in this campaign. He seldom defended Trump at all, even when prompted to do so. At one point, he said, “I just want to defend my running mate a little bit on this.”

But then, at the end of the debate, everything suddenly shifted. One of the moderators, either Norah O’Donnell or Margaret Brennan, brought up the issue of January 6^th, and Walz asked Vance if he believed that Trump had lost the 2020 election and Vance refused to answer the question. Vance: “Tim, I’m focusing on the future.” Walz: “That’s a damning non-answer.”

JD Vance has previously confirmed that he believes the 2020 election was rigged against Trump and that if he would have been in Mike Pence’s position then, he would have intervened in the elector count and installed Trump into office. And furthermore, Vance said he would do this if it came up this year, again. He is proclaiming that he will not follow the US Constitution.

To which Tim Walz replied, “I think this issue of settling our differences at the ballot box, shaking hands when we lose, being honest about it . . . But to deny what happened on January 6, the first time in American history that a president or anyone tried to overturn a fair election and peaceful transfer of power. And here we are four years later, in the same boat. I will tell you this, that when this is over we need to shake hands—this election—and the winner needs to be the winner. This has got to stop. It’s tearing our country apart.”

This is why this particular election is unique, because it’s ultimately not about policy disagreements. It’s about an imminent threat to the Constitution and the rule of law. Tonight’s debate was mostly an engaging exchange on the former, but it thankfully ended with a stark realization of the latter.