photo by: Contributed
Georgia Garvey
I asked my husband the other day how the vice presidential debate went. Because I no longer subject myself to torturous events that have absolutely no bearing on my life, I hadn’t watched.
“Not good,” he said.
He was worried that J.D. Vance’s smooth performance against Tim Walz meant trouble for the Democratic ticket.
“Don’t worry,” I told him, waving my hand airily. “No one votes based on vice presidential debates.”
But I could have gone further. Not only does no one vote based on vice presidential debates, very few even vote on the issues. We’re mostly “vibes voters” now. If a candidate gives us good vibes, that’s more than adequate.
There was a time when, for a certain percentage of the population, a politician’s positions on current events were crucial. Candidates expressed specific plans for handling Russia, for abortion rights, for the minimum wage. Their platforms took up dozens of pages of small-type text.
But now, in answer to any real question, mealymouthed politicians speak only vague, unactionable pablum, avoiding at all costs the nightmare of having to live up to a promise. Often, they ignore the question entirely and simply answer the question they wish they’d been asked.
For proof, cast back to the presidential debate, where both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris refused to tackle the hard questions on abortion. Sure, they both generally emitted a sort of feeling about a woman’s right to abortion: Trump anti, Harris pro. But for the nuts and bolts, you’re left to wonder.
Upon direct questioning, Trump sidestepped whether he would allow a national abortion ban, and Harris demurred on whether she could support any abortion restrictions at all.
The same goes for the war in Gaza, for immigration, for the economy: You will not get specifics on any complex matters. You’re entitled only to their vibes.
I remember about 24 years ago talking with a man who said he was an undecided voter in the race for president. He told me that he’d make up his mind while standing in the election booth.
“How are you going to decide?” I asked, flabbergasted.
He just shrugged.
Vibes.
That guy is America, and the politicians know it.
Asked point-blank in the debate whether Trump lost the 2020 election, Vance would only say this:
“I’m focused on the future.”
Now they won’t even answer questions about the past. They can’t even be relied upon to commit to a shared understanding of reality.
“Are our perceptions of the world real, Senator Vance, or is existence as we know it simply a collective delusion?”
I don’t think you’d get a clear answer if you asked.
It’s a Kafka novel, where all questions are speculative, and it is the grossest failure to commit oneself to a definable position. How could they possibly be expected to know what they would do before they did it?
But doublespeak doesn’t disqualify a politician. They don’t have to provide anything substantive because we don’t demand it.
For example: The top stated priority for Americans in the upcoming presidential election is the economy, but the president has no direct impact on the U.S. economy. The president passes no laws, has no control over the stock market and cannot cut or increase taxes. What they do have, however, are vibes: Does it feel like this person is going to help my finances?
If the economy were voters’ true top priority, it would be much more effective to care about their local representatives, who actually do vote on things like property tax cuts and minimum wage increases. But Elon Musk isn’t putting a livestream of school board meetings on Twitter. And nothing has quite the vibe of a presidential election.
The president appoints Supreme Court justices, so for maximum relevancy, reporters should be asking Trump and Harris for their short list of nominees should there be a vacancy. But I suppose the idea that they would pigeonhole themselves on that front is laughable. No chance, pal.
In the end, we get the politicians we ask for: Dissemblers who offer as refuge, not a sturdy house of preparation but a fuzzy blanket knitted from vibes.
They tell us that it’s enough to keep us warm for the coming winter.
And we keep believing them.
It just feels true.
— Georgia Garvey is a syndicated columnist with Creators.
