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Jimena Vergara and Sybil Davis:Vice Presidential Debate: Walz and the Democratic Party Help Make the Far Right Mainstream
     Release time: 2024-10-15

  The world is in suspense ahead of the U.S. presidential election, with polarization defining much of the political situation; yet in the vice presidential debate, Tim Walz and JD Vance debated with the tone and gestures of a bipartisanship that we have not seen for a long time. Both candidates exalted the aspects on which they have agreement and focused their attacks on their opponents running mate. In tone, it was a strangely normal debate for a world in turmoil. The debate marked a departure from the preceding presidential debates in that it focused more on policy and the candidates often found areas of agreement. 

  In that spirit, some may see the debate as a return to the center, a welcome breath of relaxed polarization. But behind this lurks something darker the ways that the Far Right has taken up, to use Sunkaras phrase, bread and butter demands and are attempting to position themselves as the megaphones of the working class. Vance was eloquent in presenting himself to the public as a son of the white working class who fulfilled the American Dream, coming from a poor family that survived on food stamps and was affected by the addictions that hurt millions of working class families in the United States. 

  To combat that, Walz and the Democrats have vacillated between following more populist proposals as we saw in the early days of Biden and going to the right in an attempt to outflank their opponents and win the undecided vote. That duality was on full display in the debate as were the Far Rights clever and cynical moves to harness working class anger.  

  Its not only that this substantive debate happened in the context of Israels attacks in the Middle East and the war in Ukraine as Burgis says that makes the normality feel almost surrealistic.  

  There is nothing normal about what the debate presented from the perspective of the domestic dynamics of the election. Vance was able to deliver a far-right agenda that was palatable and presented himself as a coherent politician - far superior to Donald Trump in articulating the politics of the New Right - and Walz did little to challenge him.  

  Throughout the debate, Vance set the tone except on reproductive rights, housing, and healthcare. On the question of reproductive rights, Vance retracted his most atrocious proposals such as a national ban on abortion and emerged from the debate victorious in presenting the pro-life movement as something virtuous without being seriously challenged by Walz. On immigration, Vance repeated terrible slanders about immigrants but did so in a way that seemed balanced and reasonable. In general, Vance won the debate by striking a rational tone despite the deeply reactionary content of his program. Gone are the days of Vance being dismissed as weird. The debate positioned him to be the heir to Trump, although it is premature to know what will happen with the GOP, Maga, and the New Right. That depends in large part on the results of the election, particularly if Trump loses. 

  Seeking the Undecided Vote, Walz Gave Ground to Vances Right-Wing Agenda 

  The vice presidential debate was an interesting contrast to the presidential debate between Trump and Harris. In the presidential debate, Harris sought to bait Trump into his undoing and prove herself to be a viable candidate. Trump, as many expected, was unable to resist temptation and turned into the explosive figure he has gotten so much notoriety for being, which led to him throwing pieces of red meat at his base. The vice presidential debate, in contrast, saw the Democrats and the Republicans both focus on winning over the undecided voters. It also showed what a future without Trump might look like and it is a startling vision for the Democrats who, unable to rely on Trumps outbursts, stumbled a bit. This was reinforced by the fact that the Democratic Party under Harris has moved far to the right in pursuit of the undecided vote, distancing herself from Joe Biden.  

  In that sense, Vance could not show himself as the obscurantist misogynist that he is, nor could Walz seriously challenge Vances far-right agenda. On immigration and almost everything else, Walz seemed to be saying we want to do everything youre saying but make it sound nicer.  

  Indeed, the debate was against migrants who have become the dark object of MAGA hatred and the subject of Vances xenophobic rhetoric. Vance blamed immigrants for driving up housing prices, he blamed them for fentanyl, and he smeared them as criminals. He didnt walk back the Trumpist promise to do the largest mass deportation program in history. Walz, for his part, brought up the bipartisan border bill promoted by Democrats but killed by Trump that sought to provide millions of dollars to the border patrol and reinforce border surveillance with cutting-edge technology and that was killed by the former president. Walzs intervention was meant to strengthen the fact that in immigration matters, Republicans and Democrats have few differences and raise the same anti-immigrant and xenophobic agenda, even if Democrats do not use the racist artillery of Vance and MAGA.  

  As the first question of the debate revealed, there is a great degree of agreement between the Democrats and Republicans on the question of Israel. Beyond the rhetoric, there is a bipartisan strategic agreement to maintain the alliance with Israel even as they massively escalate tensions in the Middle East. Walz declared that the expansion of Israel and its proxies is an absolute, fundamental necessity for the United States. Vance said he would support a pre-emptive strike from Israel. While Walz and Harris may claim to feel sorry for the Palestinian masses, let us be clear that there is no lesser evil. They hold the same positions and stand for more Israeli aggression and the continuation of the genocide.  

  Watching the debate, it was hard to see the progressive pro-working-class Walz that the leadership of the UAW headed by Shawn Fain and sectors of the DSA championed just a few months ago. Mere months ago, Shawn Fein said: Tim Walz has been a great governor and is going to make a great vice president. Hes stood with the working class every step of the way, and has walked the walk, including on a UAW picket line last fall, the UAW leader said, referring to the governors visit to a Stellantis auto-parts plant in Plymouth, Minnesota, during the unions strike at the Big Three automakers. 

  About these remarks, Jacobins Alex N. Press wrote in August: Its not hard to understand the enthusiasm. Walz is a union member himself, having spent a decade as a high school teacher in Mankato as a member of Education Minnesota, a teachers union. As governor, he signed a suite of worker-friendly reforms into law. The measures include introducing twelve weeks paid family and medical leave, banning non compete clauses, prohibiting captive-audience meetings, and creating a statewide council to improve working conditions in nursing homes. The reforms, signed into law in 2023 when Minnesota Democrats gained majority control of the House, Senate, and governors office, are a model for raising working-class peoples living standards, whether theyre in a union or not. 

  Jacobins writers are oblivious to the fact that there is a clear shift to the right in the Democratic Party with its insurgent wing totally integrated to the establishment. While Biden portrayed himself as the most pro-labor president in recent history and this profile played an important role in his campaign, Walz stepped back from the pro-union profile in order to target the undecided vote, leaving that space open for Vance to present himself as the candidate who most sympathizes with the struggles of the white American working class. However, in a single exception that proved the rule in the debate, Walz called himself a union guy, adding:Im not a guy who wants to ship things overseas, but I understand that, look, we produce soybeans and corn. We need to have fair trading partners. But we had people undercutting the right to collectively bargain. We had right to work states made it more difficult. We had companies that were willing to ship it over, and we saw people profit. Folks that, folks that are venture capital, in some cases, putting money into companies that were overseas, were in agreement that we bring those home. 

  In this sense, we can see that Walz is trying to position himself against the backdrop of the rightward shift of the Democratic Party as the representative of a certain sector of U.S. labor with a nationalist program. In many ways, it sounds less like Shawn Fein and more like the controversial speech Sean OBrien made at the RNC a combination of unionism and nationalism with the intent to protect American workers at the expense of workers overseas.  

  These apparent zig zags in the Democratic Partys discourse towards the workers and the labor movement are emblematic of its contradictory yet strategic relationship to the working class that has been in historic crisis since 2008. Though Walz and Harris have made specific appeals to the middle class, Walz attacked Trump for his stance on labor at the debate saying Hes willing to give those tax breaks to the wealthiest, hes willing to say, Bust those unions up. Do whatever. Though neither Walz nor Vance even mentioned the strike of thousands of dockworkers organized in the International Longshoremens Association (ILA), Harris put out a statement the following day saying that the dispute was an issue of fairness and workers sharing in the profits of the bosses. The statement then pivots to attacking Trump on his record on labor. Because of dealignment, the Democratic Party feels pressure to put forward an agenda that puts some limits on capitalist greed, while at the same time keeping the working class disciplined with the help of the union bureaucracy. 

  Thirty days from what is bound to be a close election, there are many open questions about the future of MAGA, the Republican Party, and what it means for the bipartisan regime; however, the vice presidential debate gave JD Vance until now a partially unknown, weird MAGA darling the opportunity to naturalize the ideas of the New Right and to make a case for himself as the future of the GOP.  

  Vance is 40 years old, a cadre engendered by the economic recession of 2008 and on the overall organic crises. His strength, therefore, lies in articulating a program of the Far Right deregulating the economy and strengthening the role of the state to shape American culture, abhorrence of immigrants, chauvinism and the reassessment of the Americas relationship with its allies in a common, accessible vernacular. He may not be the tempestuous communicator that Trump is, but he may prove to be an effective one. 

  Editor: Zhong Yao  Wei Xiaoxue 

  From:https://www.leftvoice.org/vice-presidential-debate-walz-and-the-democratic-party-help-make-the-far-right-mainstream/2024-10-2 

    

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