Trump’s running mate had the greasy self-assurance of someone used to lying to people he thinks are stupid
Maybe he thought the pink tie could help. JD Vance, the Ohio senator and Donald Trump’s running mate, clearly set out to make himself seem less creepy at Tuesday night’s vice-presidential debate, and a major target of this project was aimed at convincing women voters to like him. Vance, after all, has what pollsters call “high unfavorables”, which is a polite way of saying that people hate his guts.
Much of this stems from Vance’s extreme and inflexible views on abortion, his hostility to childless women, and his creepy statements about families and childrearing. He had to convince women that he’s not out to hurt them or monitor their menstrual cycles; he had to try and seem kindly, empathetic, gentle. The resulting 90 minutes felt like watching a remarkably lifelike robot try to imitate normal human emotion. He smiled. He cooed. He spoke of an anonymous woman he knew whom he said was watching, and told her: “Love ya”. And occasionally, when he was fact-checked or received pushback on his falsehoods or distortions, the eyes of his stiff, fixed face flashed with an incandescent rage.
A generous characterization of Vance’s performance might be to call it “slick”. Vance delivered practiced answers to questions on healthcare, abortion rights and childcare that were dense with lies and euphemism. Asked about his call for a national abortion ban, Vance insisted that what he wanted was a national “standard” – a standard, that is, to ban it at 15 weeks.
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It’s a shame that stupid people are so easily manipulated. We shouldn’t be so permissive and accepting of blatant lies.
It’s fascinating to watch. Vance, the old-school spin doctor, using euphemism, misdirection and weaseling to not-techincally-lie (eg, we want a national “standard” for abortion, not a national ban) versus Trump who just goes all-out loud, easily disproven, total bullshit. And that side seems to like Trump better, like they’ve been trained to recognize the used-car-salesman shtick, so it makes them uncomfortable even if they don’t recognize the lies, but the loud liar just cows any chance of disbelief with sheer volume.
I feel like there’s really interesting psychology to study there, among the…let’s say “reality challenged” population, if anyone could figure out how to recruit them.
as I have climbed higher in the corporate world, this is becoming clearer and clearer. people respond far better to a confident idiot than they do a pensive expert.
you know what else is slick:
snake oil
At least someone calls it out. Everyone else seems far too impressed Vance didn’t make gay/tampon jokes about Walz at this particular venue.
Fucking dumbass media - he wasn’t polished or slick… he was smarmy.
That was kind of my takeaway too. I hope people get the sense he’s a liar, but ultimately I imagine most of the night is forgettable. The main goal for Vance is name recognition in 4 years while also not offending Trump, and he kind of did that.
You know, I used to be a little like him when I was younger and that style does work when you have at least an ounce of charisma. But then I stopped being a fuckboy and started growing real relationships; being a smooth liar is a hollow existence.
