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Froma Harrop

He could summon all the oily debate tactics needed to evade questions and renovate lies. But one thing that J.D. Vance couldn’t find in his toolbox was the courage to say something that is totally obvious: Donald Trump lost the 2020 election.

Until that point in the vice presidential debate, Donald Trump’s running mate had gussied up some of the Trumpian malevolence and appeared less repulsive than the miscreant who admittedly spread racist lies at the expense of an Ohio city he represented.

Vance fell apart at the end of the debate when asked whether he agreed with the results of an election certified by every governor and upheld by 63 courts. “I’m focused on the future” was his weasel response. And that enabled Tim Walz to come back with his strongest rejoinder of the evening: “That is a damning non answer.”

Walz then turned to the audience. “America, I think you’ve got a really clear choice on this election.”

Vance was trying to gaslight the entire nation, to make people doubt what they saw on Jan. 6, 2021. He said that Trump “peacefully gave over power on January the 20th.” Like no one remembers what happened 14 days earlier, when Trump sent gangs of thugs to invade the Capitol, resulting in several deaths.

That was when Trump’s then-vice president, Mike Pence, courageously certified the vote as the MAGA mob threatened to hang him. Trump passively watched his goons beating Capitol police with flagpoles on a White House TV, ignoring his own allies’ entreaties to call it off. It was too good a show.

The running mate rarely matters as much as the presidential candidate. But it does matter when the presidential candidate is 78 years old. Were Trump to be elected, he would be the oldest person to enter that office. Furthermore, he’s in serious cognitive decline.

And so there are times when the public cares deeply about the vice presidential pick. That was certainly a factor in John McCain’s 2008 loss. War hero McCain was an attractive conservative who might have defeated Barack Obama, charismatic as Obama was.

But McCain was 72 and had suffered serious bouts with cancer. He had undergone several surgeries and required close monitoring. And he had chosen the poorly vetted Sarah Palin as his running mate.

When a president dies, the vice president automatically becomes the commander in chief. Palin revealed in an interview that she had no idea what the “Bush Doctrine” was. (It was the foreign policy principles set forth by President George W. Bush, mostly in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack.)

We can assume that Vance has a stronger grasp on world affairs than did the dimwit Palin. But his general hostility to women will continue to burden this ticket. That goes behind his calls to ban abortion, something he lied about at the debate. It goes beyond the “childless cat ladies” comment or bro opinions that there’s something wrong with women who don’t conform to his requirements.

The proof came in his indecent mocking of a young woman who got tongue-tied at a Miss Teen USA contest. Seventeen years after her humiliation, Vance reposted video of the teenager’s halting response, writing, “I have gotten ahold of the full Kamala Harris CNN interview.” He wouldn’t have done that to a man.

Set aside the misogyny, the racism, the slavish need to wrap himself around Trump’s most ghoulish concepts. The threat to the democracy is the reason so many Republicans and independents who don’t like everything on Kamala Harris’ menu will vote for her.

The sanctity of the vote is the beating heart of American democracy. And J.D. Vance couldn’t even defend that.

— Froma Harrop is a syndicated columnist with Creators.