My quick take on the vice-presidential debate last night between Peter Thiel's gimp and Governor Care Bear is that it doesn't matter who "won." If you give a shit about reality, Walz won. If you prefer your political leaders to be smooth-talking sociopaths spewing bullshit, Vance won. Otherwise, beyond a surprise line or two (like Walz saying that his son witnessed a shooting), it was a disappointingly normal debate where the Democrat was overly deferential and polite and the Republican was a merry liar.
But three things stand out for me.
First, to that liar point, the most important moment in the evening was when the moderators corrected Senator JD Vance. Talking his usual fuckery about immigration, Vance said, "In Springfield, Ohio and in communities all across this country, you've got schools that are overwhelmed, you've got hospitals that are overwhelmed, you have got housing that is totally unaffordable because we brought in millions of illegal immigrants to compete with Americans for scarce homes." After Walz spoke, quoting the Bible, moderator Margaret Brennan added, "And just to clarify for our viewers, Springfield, Ohio does have a large number of Haitian migrants who have legal status. Temporary protected status." And that's absolutely, completely true. Vance tried to lump legal immigrants in with undocumented ones.
And that led to Vance whining, plaintively, "The rules were that you guys weren't going to fact-check" and then his mic was cut off when he tried to explain how something legal is actually illegal, which it isn't. TPS was established by the Immigration Act of 1990, which was passed on a bipartisan basis by wide margins. It's the fucking law, upheld against court challenges up to the Supreme Court. You can't just say you don't like the law and therefore actions using it are illegal. It would be like saying, "I don't give a shit if your stupid laws tell me to pay people. I say it's illegal to force me to do so." You're just an asshole if you try to do that. (Yeah, I know who I'm referencing.)
Even more importantly, when Vance got pissy about fact-checking, he was saying, really, "I was told I could lie and get away with it and now you're telling everyone I'm lying. How dare you." He tipped his hand. He showed his cards. He did other gambling metaphors that show how every fucking word out of his smarmy, bitch mouth is a lie. If you fear fact-checking, you fear being found out. And that ought to be the headline: "Vance admits he's a fucking lying piece of shit" or however you wanna couch it. (Yeah, I know what I did there.)
The other significant moment was when Vance couldn't bring himself to fully lie. It was the end when Vance climbed to the top of fuckery mountain and planted a flag, saying that Donald Trump proved he's no threat to democracy "when he peacefully gave over power on January the 20th." Yeah, but that's like saying the rhino that was just charging your jeep is a peaceful creature after you've hit him with the tranq darts. Walz challenged Vance's bullshit head on, in his strongest moment of the evening: "This was a threat to our democracy in a way that we had not seen. And it manifested itself because of Donald Trump's inability to say, he is still saying he didn't lose the election. I would just ask that. Did he lose the 2020 election?" Vance started babbling some conspiracy theory nonsense about Harris censoring people over Covid and then Walz interrupted to say, "That is a damning. That is a damning non-answer." Vance wouldn't say Trump lost. He couldn't bring himself to say the one thing that would alienate the fucking animals on the MAGA side. And he couldn't bring himself to say Trump won, which would have discredited him immediately with future voters he's trying to sucker into supporting his cruel ass after Trump dies or collapses into an amorphous pile of raging orange goo. It was a moment of utter cowardice that should tell you everything you need to know about this amoral, squamous rich fuck.
One more thing is worth noting. Throughout the debate, Walz kept talking about what Harris would do as president. Vance kept talking about what Trump would do. Neither of them talked about what they themselves would do as vice-president because what they want to do doesn't fucking matter. It's not the job. As I've said, sure, they can offer advice, but ultimately, they are there to preside over the Senate or replace the president, both on an as-needed basis. Vance and Trump keep attacking Harris as if she is the president, saying that Harris has had four years to do shit. That's another goddamn lie. She's had four years to carry out the policies of Joe Biden that he wants her to carry out. But the policies come from him. (And let's not even get into the "Border Czar" lie.)
The thing that annoyed me most about the whole fucking thing, which I really do think Walz won on points and on likability, is that, with a frustrating assist from Walz, Vance was allowed to seem kind of normal, which he most definitely is not and would not be if in power. Vance is Ted Bundy to Trump's Vlad the Impaler. Trump's slaughtering people left and right. Vance is gonna try to charm you so you don't see the crowbar behind his back.
