Since the vice-presidential debate, J.D. Vance has repeatedly been asked whether Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, and he has refused to give a direct answer. I should note the level of absurdity to which the political situation in this country has descended to even have that as something that would be questioned. But welcome to the world of Trumpian alternative realities.
Vance usually diverts from the question, saying that he and Trump are focused on the future while throwing in the “what abouts” like gas prices, grocery prices, immigration, and other typical Republican distraction points. Then, with straight-faced non-irony, he turns his focus on the past and claims that the Hunter Biden laptop story was “censored” by big-tech social media. Throughout this, the journalists continue to reiterate the initial question, generating no direct answer, but they fail to properly call him out for his diversion attempts. The following video has two examples of this.
Vance does not want to confirm that Trump lost in 2020 because he knows that it is a sticking point for his running mate. The former president has repeatedly claimed that he was the victor at the polls that year and that the election was stolen from him by fraud (despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary). He then made repeated attempts to overturn the results, ultimately culminating in the January 6th insurrection, which brought us to the first time since the Civil War that there was not a peaceful transfer of power in the Executive Branch.
Vance continues to say that he and Trump are focused on the future, despite the fact that the former president regularly returns to the past to reassert the stolen election claims. And Vance pulls out the Fascism 101 ploy of Whataboutism, trying to redirect attention to a supposedly failing economy (even though the country is doing quite well at the moment) or the immigration crisis (even though border crossings are down and Trump single-handedly stopped a border bill from passing).
When the journalists keep pushing Vance, he then goes back to the past of the Hunter Biden laptop story, claiming that it was censored by big-tech media and that it cost Trump millions of votes. The fact is that Twitter did clamp down on hate speech at that time, and they did temporarily block tweets put out by the New York Post relating to the laptop story. This resulted in claims that the company was censoring conservative voices (ultimately resulting in Elon Musk buying the company and turning it into a free-for-all).
But there are some glaring issues with the claims made by Vance and others about that story. First of all, Twitter is a private company, and Republicans themselves claim that companies should be able to run their businesses as they see fit (though they change their tune when they perceive that impacting them negatively). The story was still available across the rest of that little thing called the internet, and other social media sites did nothing to block it. Twitter execs themselves admitted they were too quick to act against it (fearing it was similar to the DNC story that hurt Hillary in 2016) and eventually allowed the story to be shared on their site. But that short delay did very little to stop the story from getting out.
But most importantly, the Hunter Biden laptop turned out to be a non-issue. The Republicans had the laptop and produced no damning evidence from it. Apart from Marjorie Taylor Greene committing what, by all accounts, appeared to be revenge porn by holding up nude photos of Hunter in Congress, nothing shocking ever came from that device. Vance, Trump, and the Republicans are fixated on the past when it comes to that laptop, but in truth, it was one big dull dud of a political conspiracy.
And ultimately, this is where the media fails in calling out Vance. They could fact-check him and point out any number of metrics that prove the economy is rolling along just fine. They could pull up numbers that show fewer illegal aliens are coming across the border and also call out Trump for killing the bipartisan border bill. And they could also confront Vance for his avoidance in answering a crucial question and the threat that his actions represent to our Democratic system. But instead, his propaganda points (which are outright lies) go uncontested, leaving the audience to assume they could be true.
The fact is that journalists have played things far too nice these days despite dealing with people who regularly act in bad faith. It is true that they pushed to get an answer from Vance, and they realize that his non-answer speaks volumes. But they could, and should, take it to the next level and pick apart Vance’s diversion tactics. His refusal to answer the question is just one more example of the contempt he and Trump have toward the Free and Fair elections that are at the core of our Democratic system. And as part of the press (another pillar of Democracy), it is the duty of these journalists to point out the threat this poses to our country.
The fact is that Vance’s response may very well be seen by the general public as the “damning non-answer” that Tim Walz called it in the debate, and it is doing much more harm to the Trump campaign. But it would certainly be nice to see a more thorough challenge from journalists on the issue. They are pressing Vance and making it quite apparent that he will not provide an answer. But they could also easily cut through his diversions to prove that he and Trump refuse to accept the results of our electoral system (unless the ballots are in their favor) and are therefore unqualified to hold an elected office in this country.