Maribel Hastings
Posted Oct. 10, 2024
Although a vice presidential debate will not determine the result of the general election, the encounter between Democrat Tim Walz and Republican J.D. Vance marked the contrasts between the Democrats’ and Republicans’ visions and shone a light on who these individuals—a heartbeat away from the presidency if either of their leaders were unable to complete their term—are.
We experienced two opposing visions, with Vance echoing the lies and extreme proposals of Donald Trump but, unlike the former president, doing so without losing his composure, which makes him even more dangerous. Due to the cordial tone of the debate in general, what Vance did was try to reinvent Trump and the Republican team as promoters of bipartisan consensus who have only been “misinterpreted” this entire time, even when Trump instigated the violent assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to impede certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 win. For Vance, what we all witnessed was a “peaceful” demonstration.
On immigration, Vance repeated Trump’s same lies: that the borders are open; that Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for the presidency, was the “border czar” and failed in her duty, which is false; that border crossings are out of control, which is also false, as they have been going down; or that undocumented people traffic fentanyl to the United States — although more than 80% of those convicted are U.S. citizens, and 90% of the drug seizures occur in legal ports of entry or vehicle inspection sites inside the country, and not on routes crossed by undocumented people. He also blamed undocumented people for the high cost of housing, gun violence, and lowering U.S. citizens’ salaries.
After all, Vance, a U.S. senator from Ohio, promoted the lie that Haitian immigrants are eating the pets of Springfield, Ohio residents, even when his team corroborated that the information was false.
Together with Trump, he advocates for the mass deportations contained in Project 2025, from which he has sought to distance himself. He even wants to widen the net so that those mass deportations include immigrants currently protected by programs like TPS or humanitarian “parole.” But he avoided answering whether he would deport undocumented parents if they have U.S. citizen children; he also didn’t explain how he would implement the plan that would provoke legal, humanitarian, and economic chaos.
Moreover, Vance, like Trump, promotes the great lie that undocumented people are voting in federal elections.
Vance is the one who also criticizes women who do not have children based on their own decisions or because they cannot, calling them “childless cat ladies.”
Vance, like Trump, promotes the great lie that undocumented people are voting in federal elections.
Now he defends Trump, even though in 2020, he said that the ex-president’s economic agenda had failed and that he would surely lose the elections. But he has been a loyal spokesperson for Trump’s big lie that the election was “stolen” because there was “fraud,” and he also said that were he vice president in 2020, he would not have certified the results as ex-Vice President Mike Pence did. In the debate, he avoided answering whether Trump lost the election because he wanted to “focus on the future.”
For his part, Walz appeals more to the working class with his history as a teacher, coach, congressman, governor, and vice presidential candidate.
The Minnesota governor presents himself as capable of having empathy with diverse sectors, including immigrants. On that front, America’s Voice has enumerated five points in Walz’s immigration record in Minnesota: his support for Dreamers and immigration reform, his extension of driver’s licenses to undocumented people in his state for the logical reason of safety for all, his support for refugees, his opposition to Trump’s family separation policy, and his opposition to the border wall.
As the elections approach, the Harris-Walz team has hardened its positions regarding the border and asylum. But they also promote immigration reform with a path to legalization.
It’s not about justifying positions or advocating for the “least bad” candidate on immigration matters. But it is about recognizing that these are the alternatives we have at hand and that apathy or not voting cannot be options when one of the parties in this contest has made racism their calling card to lead a diverse nation, racially and ideologically speaking.
At least the “childless cat (and dog) lady” writing this didn’t buy the wolf in sheep’s story that Vance tried to project in the debate.
Maribel Hastings is a Senior Advisor to América’s Voice.
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