It was bad enough when footage resurfaced of a 2021 interview in which Vance called Democrats “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made.” Things got worse last week when Vance offered a non-apology, blaming “people” for “focusing so much on the sarcasm and not on the substance of what I actually said.”
Uh, okay, but that doesn’t help at all. The substance — which Vance said he stands by — is asserting that adults without children do not deserve an equal say in the nation’s affairs. Another unearthed clip of Vance showed him arguing that parents, when they vote, should be able to cast an extra ballot for each child in their family who is under voting age. He didn’t take that back, either, going only so far as to claim it was a “thought experiment” and not a firm policy position.
The normal thing would have been for Vance to recognize that he said some dumb things and now regrets them. But being Trump’s wingman means never having to say you’re sorry — actually, never being allowed to say you’re sorry.
“These are weird people on the other side,” said Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who is on Vice President Harris’s list of possible running mates. “My god, they went after cat people. Good luck with that. Turn on the internet and see what cat people do when you go after them.”
Trump is weird, too, and that’s increasingly clear. Since last fall, at campaign rallies he has been regularly telling that nonsensical story about a boat, a battery and a shark. When it was pointed out that the whole thing makes no sense and critics laughed at Trump’s ignorance of basic physics, he insisted on his self-proclaimed infallibility. It’s “actually not crazy” and “sort of a smart story,” he told one crowd. Not in this universe, though.
Trump also can’t stop talking about “the late, great Hannibal Lecter,” a reference to the fictional cannibal serial killer portrayed by Anthony Hopkins in the 1991 film “The Silence of the Lambs.” It’s unclear where “late, great” comes from, since the character does not die in the movie and Hopkins is very much alive. Trump even repeated his Lecter riff during his 92-minute acceptance rant at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. No one knows why.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, another of Harris’s possible vice-presidential picks, said Sunday on Fox News that Trump is getting “older and stranger.” It’s hard to argue with that assessment.
Democrats would be foolish to think the weirdness factor alone is enough to defeat Trump and Vance. But a little mockery doesn’t hurt. For months, the party trudged dourly through the campaign as if toward a root canal. Now, suddenly, Democrats are having fun. They can look forward to the coming convention in Chicago as a celebration, a new beginning. The $200 million they have raised since President Biden withdrew and Harris became the presumptive nominee further brightens their mood.
Republicans, meanwhile, are struggling to settle on a new strategy. They were all set to run against Biden’s age and fragility. Now, the instinct of some MAGA zealots is to run against Harris’s race and gender — calling her a “DEI hire,” for example, using “diversity, equity and inclusion” as shorthand for “Black, Asian American and female.”
A campaign based on unapologetic racism and misogyny — on “othering” Harris as somehow alien to “real” America — would, of course, be vile. It would also require convincing voters that Trump and Vance are regular guys, and, manifestly, they are not.
To say that Vance’s attempts at bonhomie are wooden is to insult oaks and maples, as shown by his awkward visit to a Minnesota diner over the weekend. And Trump, meanwhile, has road-tested “laughing Kamala” as a nickname, making fun of the vice president’s robust sense of humor. But at least she has one.
Think about it: We’ve heard Trump snarl and mock, we’ve seen him smile, but can anyone remember him laughing out loud? I can’t. Kind of weird, no?
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