JD Vance Is Smoother — but No
Better — Than Donald Trump
Oct. 3, 2024
By Frank
Bruni
Mr. Bruni is a contributing Opinion
writer who was on the staff of The Times for more than 25 years.
I’m
ashamed of myself.
During
stretches of Tuesday’s vice-presidential debate, I found myself admiring — sort
of — JD Vance. I awarded him points for unflappability, wishing Tim Walz could
mimic that composure and tap a well of confidence as deep. I envied his
crispness, willing Walz to state his case as clearly and cleanly.
Vance’s
answers seemed to have commas, semicolons and colons in all the right places,
while Walz’s herky-jerky statements were linked (or not) by ellipses. The
paper-grading professor in me gave Vance a high mark, Walz a barely passing
one.
But
the 2024 election isn’t an essay contest. Nor is it a beauty pageant, with the
debates functioning as the interview segment. It’s a morality play. It’s about
fundamental values. And Vance’s are rotten, no matter how much oratorical
perfume he sprays on them, no matter how eloquently he diverts you from the
stench.
The hell of the debate matched the hell of this
presidential campaign, in which there’s a temptation — a pull — to evaluate
performance, parse communication or dissect policy, employing criteria that we
attentive citizens have used across the decades. But such assessments are
utterly beside the point. The race for president pits a Democratic ticket with
many shortcomings against a Republican ticket with no scruples whatsoever,
decency against indecency, respect for the democratic process against unfettered
ambition, and psychological stability (Kamala Harris) against a spectacular
lack thereof (you know who).
In
that context, it’s pointless, even reckless, to dwell on Walz’s visible
nervousness during the debate or his many missed opportunities.
Yes,
he failed to nail Vance appropriately and effectively for spreading the
dangerous calumny — or is it cookery? — that Haitian immigrants in Springfield,
Ohio, were eating other people’s pets. Yes, that suggested a discouraging limit
to Walz’s political skills.
But
it didn’t erase those lies, just as Vance’s mild, even milquetoast manner on
the debate stage didn’t expunge his record of hateful, bigoted remarks that
demonize whole groups of Americans in the interest of whipping his followers
into an election-delivering frenzy. Vance would drive a truck through and over
a huddle of thirsty people if they were the sole obstacle between him and
higher office. Walz would hit the brakes, climb out of his vehicle and offer
them some of his Diet Mountain Dew.
Our
reflexes prompt us to observe and analyze this election as we have many others,
and so some of us chide Harris for avoiding interviews and, when she does give
one, often leaning on vague, canned answers. That’s a fair, worthy complaint to
the extent that it’s pushing a person who’s seeking the most powerful office in
the world to flex her intellectual nimbleness and present a comprehensive plan.
Some of us tuned in to the vice-presidential debate to
gauge Walz’s steadiness in circumstances with higher stakes and higher
visibility than the ones he was accustomed to before Harris made him her
running mate, and we’re disappointed that he wasn’t sturdier. That’s
understandable, and that’s responsible in and of itself. Walz could end up a
proverbial heartbeat away from the presidency.
In
addition to which, the range of skills that he and the other players in the
presidential contest demonstrate and the degree of competence that they project
could determine the election’s outcome. Those factors are tactically relevant.
But
as I wrote last week and will surely write again
before Nov. 5, the normal stuff — the details of one economic proposal versus
another, the major and minor line items on the candidates’ curricula vitae —
doesn’t matter in this abnormal election, because a single consideration
nullifies all others. It’s this:
One
candidate is prepared to incite violence if it serves his purposes. We know
that because he has done so already. That candidate will invent ugly fictions
and promote illegal schemes to overturn the results of an election that doesn’t
go his way. That’s not my paranoia talking; that’s his record. He places his
vanity, his cupidity, his every want and whim above the integrity of our
democracy, the dignity of the presidency and the welfare of the nation. Just a
week of his social media posts and a month of his rallies make that clear.
And
the crucial takeaway from the vice-presidential debate was Vance’s audacious
claim — I questioned my own hearing — that Donald Trump honored the peaceful
transfer of power from one president to another when his administration ended
and Joe Biden’s began. In what alternate timeline? In what parallel universe?
With
that comment and with others, Vance laundered and sanctioned Trump’s depravity,
telling us not merely that he stands with Trump but that he sinks every bit as
low as Trump.
I’ll
take all the ellipses in creation over that exclamation point.
