Escape to Civility

THE BIGGEST TAKEAWAY from the debate between Governor Tim Walz and Senator JD Vance, the vice presidential candidates in the US elections, is that it was much more civilised than the one their bosses had some weeks ago, which was just short of wrestling in the mud. Most of the time Walz and Vance cordially addressed each other by their first names, without finger-pointing or offensive labelling.

The second big takeaway is that both sides gave the impression that they would not punch each other where it would personally hurt them the most. Vance, Donald Trump’s running mate, did not grill Walz over his exaggerated military record and neither did Walz roast Vance for once calling Trump “America’s Hitler”. Many experts had wrongly predicted a bloody slugfest on these issues, but that didn’t happen.

Thirdly, Vance scored over Walz in terms of appearances and optics. If Kamala Harris was more poised than Trump, in this case, the Republican did better. Vance looked frontally at the camera, did not fumble over words, and spoke confidently even when he was being repetitive. Walz, on the other hand, kept looking down at his notes and was often at a loss for words. He was also less photogenic and clearly a much older person.

In this debate, Vance came through as a clipped and polished version of Trump. He has a reputation for kickboxing his way out of an arm-wrestling match, but did not reveal that side of himself in this debate. He also showed he had enough confidence to nuance some of Trump’s positions to make them more agreeable. He did this without overturning the pet policies of his temperamental leader.

For example, Vance moderated Trump’s charge that all illegal immigrants in America were let out of jails in countries like Venezuela. Vance brought down the figure of such criminals to one million out of 25 million (we don’t know how). He also, contra Trump, acknowledged that global warming was real, but still made a case for the US to drill for more petroleum and gas in order to earn enough for clean-energy research.

Vance also tempered Trump when he allowed for different abortion laws in different states instead of banning it outright. Trump must thank him for this as it blunts, somewhat, the Democratic offensive on abortion. On gun laws again, Vance admitted that school shootings were frightening, but added this was because the US had proportionately more mentally sick people than most other countries.

On both abortions and gun violence, Walz had great one-liners but he presented them in passing without melding them into a larger whole. They came out impromptu and without design but, nevertheless, could be good leitmotifs of the Democratic Party’s politics. On abortion, Vance pithily asserted that he was not pro-abortion but pro-women’s rights and on gun control, he opposed the stigmatising of the mentally ill.

On the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Walz did way better. He hammered home the point that Trump had no alternative plan and yet would have dismantled ACA but for John McCain, the late Republican Senator, who stood in the way. For some background here, Trump had earlier ridiculed McCain as a loser for he was a prisoner of war in Vietnam. This did not go down well with many, especially as Trump had never served in the army.

Vance’s nightmare moment was when the Capitol Hill uprising by Trump supporters (who wanted the election results overturned) came up. Normally, Vance would have scratched and snarled his way out of this, but because he had probably told himself to hold back, all he could do was to submit that Trump only authorised a peaceful march. Nobody found this convincing and neither, from the looks of it, did JD Vance himself.

To Vance’s credit, and this may stifle Trump in future, he gamely agreed that once the elections were over, both the winner and the loser should shake hands as he would if Tim Walz were to become vice president and not he. This surely wasn’t Trump’s instructions, but Vance stuck his neck out and showed some spine. Though he didn’t have a good grip here, yet, with bruised fingernails, he steadfastly held on.

In the end, neither Vance nor Walz embarrassed their leaders nor did they produce that one-liner which might go viral.

DemocratesJD VanceRepublicansTim WalzUS Presidential Election 2024vice presidential debateviral one-liners