I watched the vice-presidential debate Tuesday night to the bitter end. The debate was disappointing in that JD Vance managed to impersonate a normal human being, and the event did not expose his most extreme, odious views. That said, the debate was civil—that counts for something—and Tim Walz , who lacks Vance's Ivy League background, mostly held his own. Vance, of course, is slick—I don’t mean that in a good way—and anyone who pays close attention to politics could see through his myriad lies. I rate the debate as a tie. These vice-presidential debates seldom make a real difference, and this one likely is no exception.
Although I won’t try to analyze the entire two-hour event, I will offer two rejoinders to Vance’s arguments that I had hoped Walz would deliver. They are important for the presidential campaign generally.
First, Vance continually blames Kamala Harris for not having pursued programs she is now advocating while she was vice president, during the “Harris administration,” as Vance would have it. This is ridiculous. One would think that the Republican candidate for vice president would have some clue as to what his role will be should he be elected. (Perhaps his arrogance leads him to believe that he will rule the White House.) The vice president’s role is to support the president, offering advice, to be sure, but standing with the president, who ultimately determines policy. Never, referring to the time when Donald Trump was president, have I ever heard anyone refer to the “Pence administration.” Harris cannot be blamed for the policies she didn’t initiate because she wasn’t president.
Then there is the concept, so enamored of Donald Trump, that (1) abortion law is properly handled by individual states and (2) that this is what “everybody” wanted all along. The second proposition is, of course, so ridiculous as to simply be an outright lie. When Vance asserted that abortion should be a state responsibility, Walz countered by saying that control over one’s body should not depend on one’s place of residence. Were I debating Vance, I would say that also. But I would go further. I would ask whether freedom of speech should be left to the states. Surely, Mississippi is less fond of this freedom than, say, California. What about freedom of religion? Or freedom of the press? Should states decide whether women can vote? How about black men? To say that abortion should be left to the states is to admit that states may make different choices. That abortion rights have been affirmed whenever put a vote of the people, and the fact that restricting abortion is damaging the practice of medicine and actually killing women, abortion should be left to the people, an option offered by the Tenth Amendment.
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I am repeatedly irritated by interviews of voters who say they will vote for Donald Trump because of high grocery prices, presumably because they think we will return to 2017 prices if the Republican candidate is returned to the White House. These people are mistaken, or, should I say, deluded. The recent inflation is mostly the result of COVID disruptions. It has come down dramatically under President Biden. Reduced prices will only happen if we have a severe recession, something unlikely to be appreciated by Republican voters. Moreover, if Trump is elected and imposed his promised tariffs, prices across the economy will go up. In other words, Trump will create more inflation. In fact, the economy (Biden economy?) is in fine shape. That, of course, does not mean that everyone’s economic situation is equally satisfactory/
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