MONOKULTUR

Den ene har produceret tre børn, den anden diverterede med sine erfaringer i fertilitetsbehandlinger. Vicepræsidentdebatten rykker i udgangspunktet ved ingenting med mindre, den ene kandidat er 78 år, som Ann Coulter usmageligt gjorde opmærksom på. Eller med mindre, og det er mere relevant, medierne har opstillet en kæmpe løgn, som blev fuldkommen afsløret, som Collin Rugg summerede

Geraldo Rivera: JD Vance won the debate.

NBC: Does Tim Walz have a problem with the truth?

Chris Cuomo: JD Vance fact-checked the moderators and he was right.

CNN’s John King: Vance carried the important issues.

CNN’s Jake Tapper: JD Vance is a better debater.

MSNBC: *Live meltdown*

Og, kan man tilføje “ABC is comparing Tim Walz debate performance to Joe Biden’s”. Hvilket fik X-profilen Amuse til at spørge “Are they going to replace him on the ticket with Shapiro?”. Lige så snart man tager Trump ud af ligningen, begynder mediernes hjerner så småt at virke igen. Walz er klasser over Kamala Harris, men ikke i nærheden af Vance. CNNs værter mener at Walz har forberedt sig for meget, indstuderet var ordet jeg brugte om Harris, men at Walz sælger det bedre, hvor Vance, med sine mange interviews og pressemøder og interaktioner med vælgerne, er mere ‘øvet’ og derfor gjorde det bedre. Vance blev altså i debatten og interagerede, mens Walz koncentrerede sig om sine ‘talking points’.

En god ide er at se på klip uden lyd, for bedre at se deres fremtoning. Vance udstråler den præsidentielle ro, som Bill Clinton og Barack Obama excellerede i. Walz er hektisk, let desperat og plæderende, som dette klip, hvor Walz ser ud til at være med på team Trump. Og så er der selvfølgelig ordvekslinger som denne

MODERATOR:  How does immigration impact housing and rental prices?

VANCE:  More people competing for the same number of houses makes homes cost more.

MODERATOR:  But what does that have to do with immigration?

VANCE:  Immigrants are people.

JD Vance, Trumps kandidat til vicepræsident, er præsentabel, intelligent, sympatisk, seriøs og har den form for ‘præsidentielle’ udstråling, som Bill Clinton og Barack Obama. Overfor Kamala Harris kandidat, Tim Walz, var det ingen konkurrence. CNNs Republikanske politiske kommentator Scott Jennings kaldte før debatten Walz for “a buffoon” fordi han pralede med at ingen af hans elever klarede sig ind på elite universiteterne (i modsætning til Vance), og undskyldte sine løgne om sin livshistorie med, som formuleret af Scott Jennings, “Me no understand words good”. Scott Jennings sagde efter debatten på CNN

Don’t you think on these VP debates, though, there’s two issues: One, does this person look like they’re capable of stepping into the job? Walz totally failed on that. Vance rose to the occasion. The other thing is, people are evaluating Trump and Harris on their choices. And up until now, we’ve been told what a terrible choice Trump made and what an inspired choice Harris made and now the veil is off. The charade is over and I think it calls into question — I mean, she’s got to staff the whole government. This was her first choice?

Morning Joe Scarborough forsøgte desperat at sælge Walz som en sympatisk almindelig mand fra midtvesten, og den Demokratiske analytiker David Axelrod havde helt opgivet at sælge noget som helst og mente derfor at det hele var ligegyldigt. Glenn Greenwald var derimod en af mange, der pointerede endnu en medieskabt myte, der blev punkteret live på tv: “The difference between the actual reality of JD Vance and his life glaringly visible last night, versus the media demonization of him as a weird perverted freak, could not have been starker.” For Byron York på Washington Examiner var debatten ovre nærmest i det øjeblik, den kom igang

Chris LaCivita, the co-manager of the Trump campaign, said he could tell what was happening almost immediately. When I asked what the key moment of the debate was, LaCivita quickly answered, “The first 20 seconds.” Why was that? “Because the first question out of the gate is dealing with leadership on the world stage, everything going on in the Middle East, and Tim Walz comes up on stage and he’s completely rattled. He does not project the image of the type of leadership that you want in the White House. So right then and there framed the whole thing.”

“Yes, it did.” istemmer York og tværer pointen yderligere ud

When co-moderator Margaret Brennan asked about Walz’s oft-repeated tale of having been in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen Square uprising in 1989, when in fact he was in Nebraska, Walz went into a long song and dance about being from a small town. And then he said, “I’ve not been perfect, and I’m a knucklehead at times.” And then he said that he is given to talking too much. “I will talk a lot. I will get caught up in the rhetoric,” Walz said. In that moment, he did an excellent job of arguing that he is too emotional to be a heartbeat away from the presidency. And then, finally, when prodded by Brennan, he admitted that he “misspoke” about Hong Kong. Why didn’t he just do that to begin with?

Til gengæld, fortæller York, var der et problem med spørgsmålet om 6. Januar optøjerne, som den skrivende klasse, som York er en del af, har fået helt galt i halsen, konforme som de er.

Co-moderator Norah O’Donnell turned the conversation to the “state of democracy” and asked Vance about his statement that he “would not have certified the [2020] presidential election.” Would Vance and Trump try to challenge the next one, too?

Vance answered at some length before Walz asked Vance about 2020 in a much more direct way. Trump “is still saying he didn’t lose the election,” Walz said to Vance. “I would just ask that: Did he lose the 2020 election?” Vance dodged the question. “Tim, I’m focused on the future,” he said before trying to change the subject. “That is damning,” Walz said. “That is a damning non-answer.”

Det var også noget, som Demokraterne fejrede, for dem er fortællingen om ‘stormløbet på Kongressens’ hvor det sværtbevæbnede MAGA segment havde glemt deres våben, den sidste store historie, om dem selv, som forsvarere af “vores demokrati”. For amerikanerne er det ikke en historie, ingen voksne mennesker tror på, at magten kan erobres ved at besætte en bygning et par timer. Politik handler om at se fremad.

Jimmy Dore mente, at Walz klarede sig ved ikke at blive udraderet. Det er nok at sætte barren for højt, Walz er trods alt guvernør og således en øvet debattør og leder. Dore mente heller ikke at der var et viralt øjeblik, man kunne slå Demokraterne i hovedet med, men der kom trods alt et billede, der ligner et potentielt meme. Og så brød CBSs værter sine egne regler ved at faktatjekke Vance, selvfølgelig, der ikke fandt sig i det og i stedet satte dem på plads med fakta. Og Walz sagde “I’ve become friends with school shooters”! Men også Dore hudflettede værterne for alle de spørgsmål de ikke stillede. Det er hele tiden et spørgsmål om, hvor barren ligger, som Scott Adams, da der gav Walz “A+ for not being creepy as hell!”

I tråd med medierne har hyldet ‘mænd’ som Tim Walz og Doug Emhoff for at fremme en ny form for maskulinitet, beskyldte Nichole Wallace Vance for ‘mansplaining’

I actually think if you’re a woman, that might be the the worst moment J.D. Vance had, because he was going to mansplain right over that mute button. He was, and again, I don’t pretend to know how everyone will react to this. I think that a lot of women, in positions of authority that should command respect just by virtue of that dynamic, will see themselves and some do that, disrespected them and talk over, you know, I mean, there was a moment like that with, with when vice presidential in the Harris, pence debate.

“Politicians and journalists who promote censorship without considering their own misinformation often suffer from a form of narcissism, which new psychological research finds is driven by Left-wing authoritarianism.” siger Michael Shellenberger og rationaliserer

Pro-censorship politicians like @Tim_Walz should be asked: do you want the government to censor you for your misinformation on everything from yelling fire in a crowded theater to you fighting in a war zone to you being in China during the Tiananmen Square?