Senator Vance had some good moments, such as pushing back on the remarkably biased conduct of moderator Margaret Brennan. But Vance's biggest fail was in the closing statement, failing to skewer Walz' closing statement quote that "Kamala Harris is bringing us a new way forward. She's bringing us a politics of joy."
I would have responded "We got only one question about the deteriorating international situation under the Biden-Harris administration. Not a word was said about Ukraine. Judging from Iran's attack on Israel today, we could be on the verge of WWIII. Grinning has its uses, but in an international crisis it often signals weakness and naivete. When you are giggling when others are focused on a crisis it can mean that you fail to understand the seriousness of the situation."
[Harris'] campaign has placed too many chips on the idea of the mood, the vibe, the picture. “She’s bringing us a politics of joy,” Gov. Tim Walz said, again, in his summation the other night in the vice-presidential debate. But look, “the politics of joy” didn’t help Hubert Humphrey when he used exactly those words in his announcement for the presidency in April 1968. The country was becoming undone by Vietnam and he was talking about . . . joy? It made no one smile or feel inspired except his opponent, Richard Nixon.
It didn’t do Mayor John Lindsay any good in 1966, in the middle of a transit strike and other municipal strikes, with crime starting to creep up, when he called New York “fun city.”
He meant to sound upbeat. It came across as cheery mindlessness, a deep cluelessness. New Yorkers resented it. Doesn’t this guy know what time it is?
Americans feel surrounded by crises—inflation, the Mideast, Vladimir Putin, AI’s gonna eat your brain and no one’s gonna stop it, China. You can see this in the right track/wrong track numbers, which continue underwater—the whole country fears we’re on a losing slide in a dangerous world.
They feel like Brad Pitt as Billy Beane in the movie “Moneyball.” The Oakland A’s have lost another one, and the manager, Beane, walks by the locker room and hears music. He walks in, the players are dancing and joking, and he slams a bat against the wall to silence them. “Is losing fun?” he asks them.
They shake their heads. “What are you having fun for?”
That’s more like how people feel. Is losing fun? Then why are you proclaiming joy and having fun?
Senator Vance had some good moments, such as pushing back on the remarkably biased conduct of moderator Margaret Brennan. But Vance's biggest fail was in the closing statement, failing to skewer Walz' closing statement quote that "Kamala Harris is bringing us a new way forward. She's bringing us a politics of joy."
I would have responded "We got only one question about the deteriorating international situation under the Biden-Harris administration. Not a word was said about Ukraine. Judging from Iran's attack on Israel today, we could be on the verge of WWIII. Grinning has its uses, but in an international crisis it often signals weakness and naivete. When you are giggling when others are focused on a crisis it can mean that you fail to understand the seriousness of the situation."
Peggy Noonan had the same thought in a WSJ column to appear in print on Saturday:
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/do-americans-really-want-a-politics-of-joy-a9a6a02b
[Harris'] campaign has placed too many chips on the idea of the mood, the vibe, the picture. “She’s bringing us a politics of joy,” Gov. Tim Walz said, again, in his summation the other night in the vice-presidential debate. But look, “the politics of joy” didn’t help Hubert Humphrey when he used exactly those words in his announcement for the presidency in April 1968. The country was becoming undone by Vietnam and he was talking about . . . joy? It made no one smile or feel inspired except his opponent, Richard Nixon.
It didn’t do Mayor John Lindsay any good in 1966, in the middle of a transit strike and other municipal strikes, with crime starting to creep up, when he called New York “fun city.”
He meant to sound upbeat. It came across as cheery mindlessness, a deep cluelessness. New Yorkers resented it. Doesn’t this guy know what time it is?
Americans feel surrounded by crises—inflation, the Mideast, Vladimir Putin, AI’s gonna eat your brain and no one’s gonna stop it, China. You can see this in the right track/wrong track numbers, which continue underwater—the whole country fears we’re on a losing slide in a dangerous world.
They feel like Brad Pitt as Billy Beane in the movie “Moneyball.” The Oakland A’s have lost another one, and the manager, Beane, walks by the locker room and hears music. He walks in, the players are dancing and joking, and he slams a bat against the wall to silence them. “Is losing fun?” he asks them.
They shake their heads. “What are you having fun for?”
That’s more like how people feel. Is losing fun? Then why are you proclaiming joy and having fun?