Good hump day, Threaders, Threadheads, and all in between. Damn, this coffee’s good.
I watched what was, in all probability, the last debate of this election. I know many of you decided not to and, hell no, I don’t blame you one bit. Me, I’m a political junkie so I take the good with the bad and try to stay away from the all bad stuff. Yesterday there was good and bad so I watched. Walk with me a little. Bring coffee.
At 9 pm there I was, staring at my phone. The rest of the family opted out and I didn’t feel like watching it in the bedroom or at my desk, besides I am a mobile kind of guy and no smoking indoors so pretty much it’s the phone 90% of the time. I was a bit concerned about the format and the stupid fact checking rules: no moderator checks and each candidate would take that role. Not good. Obviously, when your opponent is a serial liar you’re left with two options.
Either you let him control the debate and spend all your time pushing back at each lie, which means talking about it, or you just brush it off quickly and only real fact check the most outlandish statements, focusing on your message. Luckily for us, despite being an inexperienced debater, Tim Walz went with the second option. The moderators (two women, btw, which was good) were not as bland as I expected and we were in business.
Because Iran had just attacked Israel the first question off the bat was about the Middle East. Surprisingly, Walz made a stronger case for standing with Israel than Vance. There is a dangerous demagoguery in the fascist right that usually poses as “die hard for Israel” in a Bibi kind of way, which makes the Democratic Party’s position seem weaker. It’s not. It’s stronger and it’s very real. The response to the missile attack proved it once more. So a good start.
Walz did a good job, yesterday, though he warmed up to it along the way. From the start it was obvious he was not there to destroy Vance and that’s on brand for the coach. It did pain me he wasn’t more aggressive and allowed a real fascist look like just another guy on that stage, which the moderators were also interested in doing. To me that was the missed opportunity of last night: if you have a fascist POS on stage treat him like one. But no. Did it matter?
Yesterday, in my morning post, I exposed the shape of darkness JD Vance is involved in designing. He is nothing like the smooth liar piece of shit we saw. He is a very dangerous, unscrupulous fascist wannabe with very sinister friends in very dark places. His performance was pathetic but pathetic is more “weird” than dangerous and we know that’s Tim’s vibe, so he stuck to the weird for the most part. It would have helped to expose JD as the menace he represents but… to whom?
Liberals watching already know he’s a fascist and what his real intentions are, conservatives don’t give a shit and mostly go along with it. That leaves the independents, usually less informed. As satisfying as having Vance exposed as a Pluto/Techno bitch would have been I don’t think that exposure would mean much considering that’s not Tim Walz’s expertise. As it turned out, Walz had excellent moments when he exposed JD as the POS he really is. We’re getting there.
As it became the norm with the GOP campaign, the best way to reveal their ineptitude and total absence of rationality is to let them talk a little bit more than they should. And Vance didn’t disappoint in providing lots of cringe moments all by himself. The one that really, really made me cringe was during the abortion part of the debate. For starters it’s odd to watch men debate abortion. Walz did a pretty good job at leaving it to the women, as he understands this.
A woman’s right to choose is nobody’s business but especially, as the coach would say, none of any man’s damned business. Period. If you don’t have a uterus just say women know best and then shut the fuck up. But JD is not of that persuasion and he had a lot to say about women and abortion. After all, he even has a good friend who had one of those. Ouch. I mean… What, the, FUCK? I hope the friend in question applies one of her boots between his legs wholeheartedly. I really do.
Besides that extremely ewwww moment, he spent the rest of his time avoiding to talk about abortion and pointing out, again and again, the solution for it is to give women all they need to have more babies, lots of babies! Like tons of them. He was so obnoxious about it even conciliatory Tim lost it and shot back something along the lines of let’s give women the conditions they need to choose and “then you can have all the babies you want”. I mean… Fucking DUH!
The moderators chose to apply pressure on the candidates’ qualification for the job by throwing two curve balls at them. I expected that. For JD the problem was picking one so I wasn’t curious about it; no matter which he wouldn’t answer and would weasel his way out of it lying, no surprise. So I wondered what the fuck were they going to throw at Walz. I swear I didn’t even know he had misspoken when he mentioned when exactly he visited China. That was it. Okay. Next.
A quick parenthesis to mention the awkward moments provided by the Springfield “Haitian pet eaters”, when JD tried unsuccessfully to mansplain “the law” and the “immigration app” to the moderators who immediately shut him down by cutting off his mic, one of them even fact checking him on the spot, which led to the hilarious moment of the night when Vance admitted on live television the only reason he was there was because CBS agreed not to fact check him. Look it up. The memes abound.
Eventually we got to the good stuff. The stuff that even a honest to God good tempered man like Tim Walz loses his shit over: Democracy. Vance was slowly led to the point where, after wiggling himself out of every question like the spineless douche he is, there was no room to maneuver. He was asked point blank who lost the 2020 election, not by a moderator. By Tim Walz. Aaaaand he doesn’t know. And because that wasn’t stupid enough he got a cherry and put it on top.
Not only didn’t he answer who lost the 2020 election, he looked absolutely convinced (wink wink) TFG peacefully and orderly allowed for the transfer of power to take place at the inauguration of January 2021, just days after January 6, which TFG didn’t even bother to attend because, you know, he’s such a good sport and a paladin of democracy. At first I didn’t believe he said that. I was still recovering from the “who lost the election” knock out by Walz. But yes he did!
As Michael Steele would remark later on, regardless of anything he said in the debate before that moment, the fact Vance can’t bring himself to concede the GOP was defeated in the 2020 election completely disqualifies him for office. ANY office. The “TFG paladin of democracy and peaceful transition” cherry on top was just a bonus. And that, my thriends, was when Tim Walz won the debate. Not because he was losing until then, but a technical KO has got nothing on a real one.
A lot of important matters were discussed during last night’s debate; I mentioned a few. On each topic Vance lied or didn’t address the issue and Walz was knowledgeable and on point. It was a matter of sheer luck CBS left democracy for last but nothing like a knock out to finish a long match. It was perfect. Liberals know why, Republicans don’t care, Independents might. Mission accomplished.
Tim Walz will never be an attack dog. We got plenty of those. He is the honest man who deeply cares about his fellow citizens, those who exist and those not yet born or on the path to being one. He’s a good man and those we don’t have plenty of so be grateful he’s one of them. Yes it’s a hard world full of real threats but if everyone was like Tim Walz we wouldn’t need attack dogs. And the world would be a better place.
No, We’re not going back!
