Analysis: Wooden Walz gives Vance a leave pass on Trump’s lies

Wednesday 2 October 2024

By Mark Kenny

A version of this article was originally published by The Canberra Times.

EVEN as a performative staple of American election culture played out in a vice-presidential debate, the chief vandal of its norms yearned to be heard.

So insistent was Donald Trump on hogging the limelight that he did not grant his own running mate the clear air to roll out a case for his re-election.

As the Republican JD Vance and the Democrat Tim Walz leaned civil and even tilted toward agreement at time, Vance’s narcissistic boss fumed tangerine with rage.

The twice impeached felon used his risibly named platform, Truth Social (always handle the hard part in the title) to siphon-off attention branding “Tampon Tim” mentally incapable (for writing notes) and a purveyor of “BS”.

The tirade was a foretaste of future explosiveness between Trump and his mentally much quicker VP, should they win. While stylistically at least, Vance leaned across the great American middle, Trump could not resist reminding people that school-yard boasts remain his bread and butter, fear and abuse, his jam.

Not for Trump, the pair’s polite acknowledgements, their nods to democratic pluralism and intonations of fair play.

Do these debates matter? Counter-intuitively, only if you refuse to do them.

Even the presidential head-to-heads are said to have little measurable influence on results either way – with the exception of total tankers like Joe Biden’s failure in June.

So, with second-string VP face-offs, the writing instructions from the top dog usually resemble the Hippocratic Oath, “do no harm”.

That low benchmark was probably met by both participants in the uncommonly constructive CBS debate on Wednesday morning (Australian time).

Neither man had a shocker although Vance’s disingenuousness was epic and Walz made Biden-style blunders such as saying he was friends “with school shooters” when he meant to say, the “victims of”.

Vance, a bestselling author, conservative thinker, and ivy-league debater, oozed confidence. To some voters, that translates as competence, for others, smarminess. 

His use of the medium was the more adept as he deployed Trumpian arguments trimmed of their most divisive and unpleasant burrs. And while it was Vance, who had confected the whole “they’re eating the dogs” insanity of Trump’s debate debacle with Kamala Harris, the Republican number 2 avoided such embarrassments himself.

He therefore owned the visual element and probably prevailed on the “vibe” of the thing as well.

An older and less fluent Walz got stronger towards the end condemning Trump’s false and ultimately deadly claim that the 2020 election was stolen.

Where the Democrat fell short though, was in truly pegging Vance to his yawning hypocrisy. By signing onto MAGA, the once “never Trump guy” had acquired all of Trump’s abuse and lies, including January 6, and who knows what dangerous mayhem if Trump loses again this time?

So, the point Walz really needed to nail is that respecting democracy must be a two-way street. Has to be. Losing candidates who reject the peoples’ verdict reveal themselves to have been morally unfit to run in the first place. Much less get a second go.

Mark Kenny is the Director of the ANU Australian Studies Institute and host of the Democracy Sausage podcast.

Updated:  3 October 2024/Responsible Officer:  Institute Director/Page Contact:  CASS Marketing & Communications