Dear America,
I've been listening to the analysis of the vice-presidential debate over the past two days, and I have to say that I'm mightily disappointed...not in the debate, but in the analysis. I was similarly disappointed in the interview David Brooks, whom I admire greatly, did with Jimmy Vance. It appeared in the NY Times opinion section a few weeks ago, and I remember feeling the same dissatisfaction with Brooks's analysis of Vance's...I guess we have to call them answers to David's questions. No one seems to be able to put a finger on what he does, that slippery old Yalie. Maybe it's because I'm a fellow alumnus of The Bar that I can fathom what he is doing; it is sort of a legal skill for use when you don't really have an argument. Used it myself from time to time, I must admit. But laymen don't seem to be able to identify the tactic. Rather, they find themselves thinking, "something is wrong there, but somehow it sounds right." If you listen to Vance carefully, and if you haven't practiced legal argument in court, you might have the same reaction, so I'm here to explain it to you. It's actually very polemical, and Republicans resort to it often, more often than Democrats do I think, but I'll leave determination of the partisan divide to you. This is what he does. It's common name is misdirection.
I only watched about five minutes of the debate about ten minutes in, and I could see what was going to happen so I switched to a movie I had developed an interest in while channel surfing that evening. What I saw was Vance's answer to an inquiry from Nora O'Donnell about Trump's one-time remark--actually probably more often than once--that climate change was a hoax. She asked Vance if he agreed with his prospective boss. Well Vance didn't want to answer that question, probably because--and I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt here--he didn't want Trump crawling up his you-know-what the next day because Vance believes in science while Trump believes in what will work in the moment. So Vance misdirected. In short, his answer was that bringing jobs to the United States, mostly making solar panels, and mostly from China, would be the best thing with which to address climate issues, and that was what he and Trump were up to, not the Democrats, and by the way, Kamala Harris had failed to do anything about that. You see, no one can argue that bringing jobs making solar panels, or almost anything else for that matter, into the United States would be a bad thing; that's the "sounds right" part. And as to lambasting Harris for not doing that as if it was something she could control, he diverted his questioner from her original question, though O'Donnell didn't grab that opportunity to ask Vance what the hell he was talking about. She could have asked him what job proliferation has to do with climate change, but Vance had sufficiently diverted Nora by using solar panels--clean energy...good for the environment, right--to pillory Harris. That was his nod to climate change, again, something that was beyond argument: more solar power less carbon into the atmosphere. Of course that is not an answer to the question, but as I said, it was a sufficient nod that O'Donnell just went on to Walz without seeming to notice that she had been had much less what to do about it. That's how misdirection works; the victim scratches his or her head and says, "what?" but hasn't gleaned enough from the tactic to formulate a new course of inquiry so the questioner just moves on and cuts his or her losses right there.
If you listen closely, or with this example in mind, whenever old Jimmy talks, that's the way he does it. Every question winds up being about immigration or inflation...the two "I"s. You can throw in a third I in the form of Israel, but there just isn't much to say there as Trump claims to be pro-Israel and Biden seems to be blindly so, but that's another issue. The point is, Vance answers every question with his blather about one of those two things, and what bothers me is that I don't think he has any conscience about doing so. That is how he qualified as Trump's choice for vice-president. He is as amoral as Trump is, and as remorseless too. Throw in intellectually dishonest and you've got the whole Vance package.
Don't misunderstand. Misdirection is politicians' course number 101. Democrat, Republican, Other, you hear it all the time. But lately the Democrats have been on the moral positive side while the Republicans, having cleaved to the Trumpian way of thinking and believing, have no choice but to dissemble. After all, Trump doesn't do anything that is other than a leg up for himself, which invariably means you have to stretch real far to see how it's food for anyone else. So Vance has found a home. The question is, will he get to keep it, and only we have the answer. We'll know in a month. See you at the polls.
Your friend,
Mike
I've been listening to the analysis of the vice-presidential debate over the past two days, and I have to say that I'm mightily disappointed...not in the debate, but in the analysis. I was similarly disappointed in the interview David Brooks, whom I admire greatly, did with Jimmy Vance. It appeared in the NY Times opinion section a few weeks ago, and I remember feeling the same dissatisfaction with Brooks's analysis of Vance's...I guess we have to call them answers to David's questions. No one seems to be able to put a finger on what he does, that slippery old Yalie. Maybe it's because I'm a fellow alumnus of The Bar that I can fathom what he is doing; it is sort of a legal skill for use when you don't really have an argument. Used it myself from time to time, I must admit. But laymen don't seem to be able to identify the tactic. Rather, they find themselves thinking, "something is wrong there, but somehow it sounds right." If you listen to Vance carefully, and if you haven't practiced legal argument in court, you might have the same reaction, so I'm here to explain it to you. It's actually very polemical, and Republicans resort to it often, more often than Democrats do I think, but I'll leave determination of the partisan divide to you. This is what he does. It's common name is misdirection.
I only watched about five minutes of the debate about ten minutes in, and I could see what was going to happen so I switched to a movie I had developed an interest in while channel surfing that evening. What I saw was Vance's answer to an inquiry from Nora O'Donnell about Trump's one-time remark--actually probably more often than once--that climate change was a hoax. She asked Vance if he agreed with his prospective boss. Well Vance didn't want to answer that question, probably because--and I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt here--he didn't want Trump crawling up his you-know-what the next day because Vance believes in science while Trump believes in what will work in the moment. So Vance misdirected. In short, his answer was that bringing jobs to the United States, mostly making solar panels, and mostly from China, would be the best thing with which to address climate issues, and that was what he and Trump were up to, not the Democrats, and by the way, Kamala Harris had failed to do anything about that. You see, no one can argue that bringing jobs making solar panels, or almost anything else for that matter, into the United States would be a bad thing; that's the "sounds right" part. And as to lambasting Harris for not doing that as if it was something she could control, he diverted his questioner from her original question, though O'Donnell didn't grab that opportunity to ask Vance what the hell he was talking about. She could have asked him what job proliferation has to do with climate change, but Vance had sufficiently diverted Nora by using solar panels--clean energy...good for the environment, right--to pillory Harris. That was his nod to climate change, again, something that was beyond argument: more solar power less carbon into the atmosphere. Of course that is not an answer to the question, but as I said, it was a sufficient nod that O'Donnell just went on to Walz without seeming to notice that she had been had much less what to do about it. That's how misdirection works; the victim scratches his or her head and says, "what?" but hasn't gleaned enough from the tactic to formulate a new course of inquiry so the questioner just moves on and cuts his or her losses right there.
If you listen closely, or with this example in mind, whenever old Jimmy talks, that's the way he does it. Every question winds up being about immigration or inflation...the two "I"s. You can throw in a third I in the form of Israel, but there just isn't much to say there as Trump claims to be pro-Israel and Biden seems to be blindly so, but that's another issue. The point is, Vance answers every question with his blather about one of those two things, and what bothers me is that I don't think he has any conscience about doing so. That is how he qualified as Trump's choice for vice-president. He is as amoral as Trump is, and as remorseless too. Throw in intellectually dishonest and you've got the whole Vance package.
Don't misunderstand. Misdirection is politicians' course number 101. Democrat, Republican, Other, you hear it all the time. But lately the Democrats have been on the moral positive side while the Republicans, having cleaved to the Trumpian way of thinking and believing, have no choice but to dissemble. After all, Trump doesn't do anything that is other than a leg up for himself, which invariably means you have to stretch real far to see how it's food for anyone else. So Vance has found a home. The question is, will he get to keep it, and only we have the answer. We'll know in a month. See you at the polls.
Your friend,
Mike
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