Vance Shows the Power of a Silver Tongue

October 8, 2024 by Christopher Roach

Vance presented Trump’s policies in a completely different way; he was polite yet firm, steeped in deep knowledge of policy, and rich in empathy for ordinary people and their struggles.

J.D. Vance was my number one draft pick for vice president, and his complete slaughter of Tim Walz at the debate last week only reassured me of my choice.

Vance is a breath of fresh air for many, including conservatives still harboring misgivings about Donald Trump. Vance is appealing because he has qualities that used to be more familiar in politics and lately have become rare, as most offices have become less competitive and the American people have become less engaged in the process.

Most important of these qualities, Vance is a “good talker,” and this used to be a prerequisite to being an effective politician. By this, I mean he was articulate, organized, calm, and friendly. He also was steeped in detailed policy knowledge, avoided rhetorical traps, calmly and politely objected to the biased moderators’ fake fact-checking, and generally did circles around Walz.

Walz was tongue-tied, looked nervous, and rarely made his points in an articulate way. Even though Kamala Harris and Walz have had longer careers in public life, Vance is everything they are not.

There has not really been a skilled debater on the presidential stage since Bill Clinton. We have instead been burdened by a parade of tin-eared, rhetorical failures. Neither George W. Bush nor Al Gore were compelling speakers, nor were John McCain or John Kerry. Stilted, stammering, and just generally unsmooth and unmemorable describes them all.

Obama had a deserved reputation as a good speaker, and he was certainly more skilled than most of his peers, but all of his words were completely vaporous and forgettable. What the hell was the “audacity of hope?” Also, while Obama was a decent orator when he had a teleprompter and a good speechwriter, he was not particularly memorable on the debate stage or when speaking extemporaneously.

Trump is an uneven speaker and debater, regardless of one’s agreement with his policies. Joe Biden, of course, was so bad on the debate stage that his poor performance led to his ouster as the Democratic Party nominee.

There is a lot of understandable dissatisfaction with the decline of rhetoric and the rise of shouting matches on cable news. These formats do not favor deep thought. The primary debates, where 10 candidates stand side-by-side on stage interrupting one another, were worse than useless.

The problem is not just one of structure. The audience for these things is not what it used to be. The famous Lincoln-Douglas debates went on for many hours, and both speakers made long, complex arguments, each with clearly articulated premises and evidence. This took place before the age of television, radio, and the internet, all of which have made us less informed and less capable of sustained attention. Even the Nixon-Kennedy debates showed a degree of sophistication that would stand out today.

I recall in a recent presidential debate with extremely short allotments of two-minute responses and one-minute rebuttals that Biden was prompted to use his full time. In high school debate, we used to speak in ten and six-minute segments. Even those amounts of time flew by and really required economy of language to get one’s points across. To run out of things to say in two minutes shows complete unfamiliarity with the subject on which one is supposedly expert.

For all the heat he takes for his bull-in-a-china-shop style and rambling, Trump was a TV star before running for office, and he understands the common man’s need for spectacle as well as his short attention span. This is why, rather comically, so much of what he says is memorable, even though he is not considered a great orator by the media class. We all know “build a wall” and “Crooked Hillary,” but who can remember a single thing Barack Obama said?

Trump, of course, is controversial. The Deep State and establishment hate him equally as a threat to their sinecures and privileges, as well as his alien style. And many ordinary people, particularly in the professional classes, find his disorganization and lack of couth frustrating, even when they like his policies.

This is all why Vance shined. He presented Trump’s policies in a completely different way; he was polite yet firm, steeped in deep knowledge of policy, and rich in empathy for ordinary people and their struggles. Even in addressing the volatile issue of abortion, his response expressed understanding and humanity for women facing an unplanned pregnancy, while also defending his position. Vance stands out because he is so much better at the basics than most of his contemporaries.

Unfortunately, we tend to get the politicians we deserve. All of the flaws of our leadership class—stupidity, ignorance, cupidity, and low empathy—simply reflect and amplify the same qualities held by the electorate. That is, we are a fractured and unhappy nation, more concerned with the present and our self-interest than the future and our progeny, and our politicians share these vices.

Even so, the politicians are much worse than the voters. Basic self-interest would suggest that sending hundreds of billions to Ukraine and importing millions of unskilled and criminal foreigners is not good politics, in addition to being bad policy, yet it goes on.

Bad things persist because both parties benefit from the current order. This is why so much mediocrity abounds; the folks in office have figured out how to stay in office while being minimally responsible to the public. And this is also why they hate Trump and Vance so much. These newcomers represent a threat to the system and its beneficiaries, and this threat arises simply because they listen and are willing to deliver for the large group of forgotten Americans who have been neglected by our politicians.

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Christopher Roach is an adjunct fellow of the Center for American Greatness and an attorney in private practice based in Florida. He is a double graduate of the University of Chicago and has previously been published by The Federalist, Takimag, Chronicles, the Washington Legal Foundation, the Marine Corps Gazette, and the Orlando Sentinel. The views presented are solely his own.