Toward the end of the debate, Democratic vice presidential candidate Gov. Tim Walz asked Vance to affirm that Trump lost the last election. “Did he lose the 2020 election?” Walz asked.

“Tim, I’m focused on the future,” Vance replied, before pivoting to press Walz on censorship on social media.

That is a damning non-answer,” Walz said. “I’m pretty shocked by this. He lost the election. This is not a debate, it’s not anything anywhere other than in Donald Trump’s world.”

Walz noted that the reason that former Vice President Mike Pence — who was the target of “hang Mike Pence” chants from pro-Trump rioters who invaded the Capitol in 2021 — wasn’t on the debate stage is because he refused to overturn the election on Trump’s behalf.


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  • IninewCrow@lemmy.ca
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    11 days ago

    The dumb part here is that the American people and the American political environment and media has normalized all this.

    This is no longer about dumb politicians … it’s just putting on display a very dumb nation.

    • Samvega@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      11 days ago

      The dumb part here is that the American people and the American political environment and media has normalized all this.

      “The truth is not as important as immigrants, queers, and lesbian feminists with pink hair being put in their place. Authorities get to decide the truth, after all, that’s what they’re for.”

      A world based on ‘strong people’ doing what they want is already a world where the truth doesn’t matter. There is no more illogical outcome that can come from this, because trusting in an authoritarian leader is already completely illogical.

    • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod@lemmy.world
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      11 days ago

      Politics has always been theater. And not the good kind with songs and dancing. The boring kind that is incredibly easy to see through while being simultaneously impossible to ignore.

  • floofloof@lemmy.ca
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    11 days ago

    I didn’t watch the debate but it’s a bit disheartening that every headline so far has “Vance” in it but not “Walz”. The media always give the Republicans far more free publicity than the Democrats.

    • jballs@sh.itjust.works
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      11 days ago

      I did watch the debate and my immediate take away was that it was a cordial debate, which is sad that being cordial is now abnormal enough for that to be the first thing that stood out.

      But with that being said, after thinking about it longer, I realized that the reason it was so cordial is because the questions asked were sane-washing almost all of Trump’s positions. I don’t see how the number one question would ever be anything other than:

      "Senator Vance, your running mate has been convicted, by a jury of his peers, of 34 felonies. He is current facing indictments for stealing and concealing sensitive classified documents containing information vital to our national defense. He has also been indicted for conspiracy to defraud the United States, along with three additional charges, for his efforts to overthrow our democracy when he lost the 2020 election. He has also been charged with eight felonies in Georgia, including two counts of conspiracy to commit forgery in the first degree; again, for his attempts at subverting our democracy to install himself as the unelected ruler of our country. He has publicity stated that he wants to be a dictator and throw his political opponents, as well as journalists and others who criticize him, in jail. The only reason your candidate is on the ballot this November is because the Supreme Court ruled that states do not have the ability to keep insurrectionists off the ballot - and they have also declared that various other crimes your candidate have committed cannot be prosecuted due to an alarming declaration that presidents are mostly above the law.

      The question, Senator Vance, is why is your candidate qualified for anything other than wearing an orange jumpsuit in prison?"

    • rhombus@sh.itjust.works
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      11 days ago

      That’s the whole Republican strategy at this point. They realized that any publicity, no matter how crazy they have to be to get it, ultimately benefits them. No matter how well Walz performed, no matter how reasonable and objectively right he is, Vance gets the publicity through his nonstop lies.

  • Maven (famous)@lemmy.zip
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    11 days ago

    If he won the 2020 election then he wouldn’t be able to run again… Do they admit he lost or do they drop out?

    • Samvega@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      11 days ago

      If he won the 2020 election then he wouldn’t be able to run again…

      There are no rules. There is only what lies the masses (perhaps even enough to win election, with a little bit of Electoral College bs) will accept, and there seems to be no clear limit to that.

  • celsiustimeline@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    11 days ago

    Remember when JD Vance called Trump Hitler? Remember when Lindsey Graham called Trump Hitler? Remember when Ted Cruz got mad that Trump called his wife ugly, but then fellated him at every turn? Either Trump paid all of these people to be as sycophantic as possible, which I doubt given the fact that Trump doesn’t seem to have much money, or he has video tapes of all of these men doing degenerate shit. You don’t make a statement like “Trump is Hitler” and then find a way to justify working with the man.

      • celsiustimeline@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        11 days ago

        I guess? They’re already senators with cushy do-nothing roles that net them hundreds of thousands of dollars per year and they don’t even have to show up to work in order to be paid. Personally, I’d be good with that.

  • Chespirito@lemmy.world
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    11 days ago

    What a sleazy person he is. He’s well spoken so his answers seem coherent but if you actually listened to him speak you would pick up that he would say half truths at best. At least he gave the people a presidential debate unlike his boss

    • Flying_Hellfish@lemmy.world
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      11 days ago

      I don’t know if you watched the debate, but his little smirks to the camera after some of his comments were making me ill.

    • Asafum@feddit.nl
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      11 days ago

      And The Base now that they’ve been conditioned into believing it is true.

      We should expect better from these people out of principle, but we really shouldn’t expect any different from them as we know the current circumstances…

  • Cargon@lemmy.ml
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    11 days ago

    Vance was definitely the kid in grade school that plucked and ate the hair of the girl who sat in front of him. I wonder if she’s okay.

  • ansiz@lemmy.world
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    11 days ago

    The biggest takeaway for me is that all the good sounds bites are going to be Vance sticking his foot in his mouth. Vance had a bunch of safe and boring answers so nothing for Trump’s base, who already dislike Vance. Walz was probably nervous but he definitely missed several chances to call things out.

    • celsiustimeline@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      11 days ago

      Nervous shouldn’t be part of the equation. He was governor ffs. He’s one of the most well resourced people in the country. It should have been a slam dunk to destroy Vance.

      • nomous@lemmy.world
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        11 days ago

        That someone was foolish, you can’t play nice with these people. They just interpret it as weakness.

  • JaggedRobotPubes@lemmy.world
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    11 days ago

    And he refused to weigh in on the divisive issue of whether the sky was up or down. Or if water is good for you.

  • Gypsyhermit123@lemmy.ca
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    11 days ago

    “ Censorship on social media”…like Musk blocking users and trying to control the narrative.

    I’m worried about this too!

  • IchNichtenLichten@lemmy.world
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    11 days ago

    This should be disqualifying but Trump has fucked this country so badly that there are plenty of voters that can’t see how big of a deal it is that a VP pick can’t even say if a candidate lost the previous election or not.

    • Cheems@lemmy.world
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      11 days ago

      If he thinks that he was actually in power this entire time he shouldn’t be able to run for a third term