Stop civil-washing Vance
Stop civil-washing Vance
In its banal normalization of fascist rhetoric, everyone lost in the vice-presidential debate
Debates may not change minds, may not matter in terms of electoral decision-making, and contests between vice-presidential candidates even less so — but the single debate between Tim Walz and J.D. Vance was significant in just how much Vance’s performance and the framing of the event presented outright fascist arguments and positions as simple democratic choices. There’s been a lot said about bothsidesing and sanewashing, but this brought the elements of banalization together in a tidily disturbing package.
The following exchanges took place last night; the first between CBS debate moderator Margaret Brennan and Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance, a person who could be a heartbeat from the presidency come January 20, 2025:
BRENNAN: “Just to clarify for our viewers, Springfield, Ohio does have a large number of Haitian migrants who have legal status”
VANCE: “The rules were that you guys weren’t going to fact check.”
And later, as the candidates squared off on the invented issue of election integrity:
WALZ: “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: “Tim, I'm focused on the future. Did Kamala Harris censor Americans from speaking their mind in the wake of the 2020 COVID situation?”
WALZ That is a damning…That is a damning non answer.
Vance — no matter how willing he was to lie on myriad issues — couldn’t give an answer as to whether he believed Biden won the election in 2020; he dismissed January 6 by trying to turn the conversation to supposed “industrial scale” censorship (by Democrats); and he maintained his right to lie to the camera about his attacks on his own constituents in Springfield, Ohio.
Sure, Vance was polite, restrained, and affable, a strategy that benefited him as a performer and got him much gullible pundit praise. For the most part, he avoided the overt far-right inside baseball arguments that have dominated his stump speeches and came off as the high-end lawyer that he is. And, caught with only the concepts of a plan on healthcare to defend, he came off as an advocate (in bad faith, of course) for the Affordable Care Act. But it was identity politics all the same — promises to solve problems out of thin air with pseudo-solutions like deportations and tariff revenues. Appeals to emotions. And the fascist appeal, as Ruth Ben-Ghiat has told us repeatedly, is emotional.
For all the talk of a supposed desire for a substantive policy discussion, there was nothing there. Not that it would matter — a point driven home by the fact that whenever the discussion did wander into policy, Walz and Vance largely agreed — on things like the need to build more housing and reinforce the ACA.
Democratic policy, that is. But you don’t argue with fascists on policy.
While Vance might not have railed against childless cat ladies and launched manospheric attacks on women’s autonomy or accused immigrants of cat eating, he lied just as significantly and completely on care, on women’s rights, and continued his assaults on immigration and immigrants — he just did it in way that might not have sounded out of place coming from a conservative of a different, more Reaganite era (keeping in mind, of course, that the ideological currents were simply concealed better below the surface in those days). It’s the same dangerous provocation we’ve seen on the campaign trail, just packaged for an audience that expects — or has convinced themselves they should expect — a “policy” discussion.
But it wasn’t just Vance equivocating dangerously out there last night. Consider the following graphic:
Putting aside the absurdity of a debate on “policy” between the Democratic and Republican tickets, the framing of these positions as alternative “housing proposals” is far worse. On the one hand, we have a proposal to overturn regulations to enable the privatization of public lands and mass deportations of millions of people to proposed camps in south Texas — and then to where, since many of these folks have nowhere to go back to, informed students of history should be able to make some guesses. On the other, we have financial assistance to developers and new homebuyers.
It’s important to call things what they are:
This needs to be read as what it is, a decision to make outright fascist proposals equivalent to other policy choices in a democratic society. The only real takeaway from the debate is a recognition of the fact that the Americans still have the opportunity, however difficult, to reject these fascist positions at the ballot box in November, and to act accordingly.
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yet, if I hear one more word of praise about how JDV showed up and the civility on the debate stage...JD has long shown up well, beyond how he's shown up since he became the Republican nominee for VP. Last night doesn't change any of his stands. He's still against women, LGBTQ+ immigrants, and long-held democratic principles (to name just a few). I was watching his facial expressions shift last night once Tim Walz started on a tear about healthcare, women's freedom housing and our democracy. He was cringing because he knew the veneer wore off (at least to my view). Putting him in arms length of the White House when we wrapped his arms around Kevin Roberts of the Heritage Foundation is a real threat to what America is supposed to stand for. I wish the New York Times, Washington Post or Wall Street Journal had the courage to write this.
I’ve never felt as worried and stressed about a presidential election as I am about this one. I’m in my 70th year and I’ve seen some s**t. I’m not the only one, of course. Collective anxiety is at a nuclear level that, with the exception of the Bay of Pigs, has never been matched. These thoughts are far from original, but it’s somewhat comforting, though short lived, to express it in a safe place. That is all……….