The VP Debate Snooze-Fest Actually Reveals The Massive Problem Coming Our Way In November

I was all ready for an old-fashioned seventh-grade playground fuss fight, and a vice presidential debate broke out instead.

There was no name-calling, no disparaging comments, no zingers, no one-liners. At one point, the two men involved in what I believed would be a junior varsity version of the main attraction were actually kind and decent to each other. It reminded me of what decorum and restraint and civility looked like from people who are considering running the country — and what a damn snoozefest.

For worse or for worser, former President Donald Trump changed us. He’s changed the way people campaign, he’s changed the rhetoric and the entire political landscape. And, as such, I wanted blood on Tuesday when Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance went face-to-face with his Democratic counterpart, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

I wanted to hear about allegations that Vance has allegedly been intimate with a couch. I wanted Walz to make an emo or goth joke about what appears to be Vance’s eyeliner. I wanted Vance to pounce on Walz’s claim that he “misspoke” when he claimed he was in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests. And we got nothing.

Both men were restrained; so restrained that they could’ve flatlined during the debate and I don’t think viewers would’ve known the difference, because both men just weren’t ready for politics post-Trump.

And I know that was by design.

Vance did the heavy lifting of trying to appear to be the calm to Trump’s storm and to present himself as less of a weasel and more affable and concerned. And he didn’t do a bad job at it — except we know who he is, or at least who he’s been in the past versus who he’s trying to present himself as now.

I think former Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan explained it best in 2022 when he read Vance to filth during a debate for changing his stance toward Trump.

Tim Ryan: “You called him America’s Hitler.”

JD Vance: “That’s not true.”

Tim Ryan: “That is true. And then you kissed his ass. And then he endorsed you. And you said he’s the greatest president of all time.”

Trump later asserted during a rally that same year in Vance’s state, “JD is kissing my ass he wants my support so bad,” CNN reported.

But the important thing to remember from Ryan’s brutally honest takedown and Trump’s demoralizing jab, both at Vance’s expense, is that Vance still beat Ryan for his congressional seat — and in Vance’s inexplicably smoky eyes, the ends will always justify the means.

Which is what got us here to Tuesday, and why the vice presidential debate was such a dud. It’s all Vance’s fault. In order for post-Trump debates to work, someone has to be the heel, and Vance refused to do his part. Vance needed to be the irrational one to make Walz look more quasi-presidential. As boxer Floyd Mayweather once said before his fight with American sweetheart Oscar De La Hoya, “Nobody wants to see two good guys fight.” And he was right.

Especially since there aren’t really two good guys. While Walz did his best to suggest that Minnesota is a heart-warming love fest of paper boys who still ride bikes and the last place on Earth that employs milkmen, Vance, despite his restraint, still showed he’s the lackey we think he’ll be if Trump makes it to the White House. Because who are we kidding? Trump loves nothing more than to surround himself with people who love Trump. At one point in the debate, Vance refused to answer whether he believed the 2020 election was stolen, as Trump has baselessly claimed.

“Did he win the 2020 election?” Walz asked Vance flat-out. 

“Tim, I’m focused on the future,” Vance began answering. And if I’m being honest here, I fell asleep. 

I did wake in time to hear Walz note, “That was a damning non-answer.” 

And really, isn’t that what debates are all about? Damning non-answers. And I guess we’re supposed to weave something together from the threads that are left on the floor. Just threads of policies that may or may not be enacted, or stupid positions like “stronger doors” as an answer for stopping mass shootings of children in schools. (Yes, that was Vance’s answer to gun violence.)

But Walz was caught in a lie, and it’s being used against him by the same people who love Trump, a man who is all about lying. 

Walz claimed that he was in Hong Kong during the spring of 1989 during the pro-democracy protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. Turns out he wasn’t in Hong Kong in May, as he’d said, and had arrived in August that year, after the massacre.

But his justification was such a word salad that I lost weight just listening to it. 

“My community knows who I am. They saw where I was at,” Walz said. “Look, I will be the first to tell you, I have poured my heart into my community. I’ve tried to do the best I can, but I’ve not been perfect, and I’m a knucklehead at times, but it’s always been about that. Those same people elected me to Congress for 12 years.”

When CBS News’ moderators, and I’m paraphrasing here, said, “Come on, fam. Were you there?”

“All I said on this was, I got there that summer and misspoke on this, so I will just — that’s what I’ve said,” Walz said, before adding, “I was in Hong Kong and China during the democracy protests went in. And from that, I learned a lot of what needed to be in, in governance,” he said.

Ummm…what?

I, too, learned a lot from what needs to be in governance. And sadly, I liked it a whole lot better when it was billed as the “The Real Running Mates of Orange Presidents,” as opposed to two adults vaguely complimenting each other while having a light discussion over word salads.