in World News Vance was great, Walz was mediocre, the moderators were vile, and the whole debate insulted American’s intelligence
By Andrea Widburg
The debate really depressed me. It wasn’t J.D. Vance, who gave the best debate performance of any political candidate in decades. Nor was it Tim Walz because I knew going in that he was, as he described himself, a “knucklehead.” It wasn’t even the biased harpies who called themselves moderators because that was to be expected (although they angered me). What depressed me was that our political discourse has devolved into watching candidates get asked stupid questions so that they can give canned statements for two minutes and then bicker for a few seconds with each other.
Let’s start with the general review. First, the greatest non-verbal moment in American debate history:
The debate in one photo: pic.twitter.com/cGumD946BF
— Matt Margolis (@mattmargolis) October 2, 2024
While we wait, send us your best Vance eyes memes.
We want to see them all.
(h/t @OfAthenry) pic.twitter.com/RhRrRc3oK9
— National Review (@NRO) October 2, 2024
On the one side of your screen, you see a young, brilliant, charismatic man who politely lets the world know he’s listening to BS. On the other side, the BS.
Vance was in complete control of himself. He’d memorized his lines, he never forgot to remind everyone that Kamala is effectively the incumbent and could always have implemented the fixes that she now promises, he showed complete factual mastery, and he was not “weird,” the appellation the satchel-mouthed Walz had appended to him.
Because he never lost control, Vance made his points frequently and well:
Kamala’s administration has left Americans poorer. Trump’s economic plans will help, and we know that because Trump’s economic plans proved themselves during his presidency.
Abortion is no longer a federal issue, but we need to (a) let the 50 laboratories of democracy work on the issue and (b) make abortion less compelling to women by providing them with more options.
Trump kept the world safe, and Harris’s team has utterly failed.
Vance also handled the inevitable January 6 question with grace and wisely turned to the Democrats’ desperation to censor Americans.
I would have preferred a bit more fire. While Vance did wrangle with the utterly disgusting leftist shrews running interference about Haitians—before those termagants cut his mic—he let several of Walz’s lies go unchecked. He also didn’t challenge the bias in the CBS shrews’ questions, whether on “climate change,” childcare, or anything else. And he failed to highlight the radical leftist extremism that is the real Harris-Walz ticket.