It is the men in slick suits with the dangerous ‘talk’ whom you have to be careful about.
(Originally published in the Western People on 2024-10-08)
Sen. J.D. Vance and Gov. Tim Walz moderated by Norah O'Donnell and Margaret Brennan on Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024, at the CBS Broadcast Center in New York City. Michele Crowe/CBS/Getty Images
‘One of these candidates is much slicker than the other, is a much more practiced, kinda professional, debate-style speaker — and the other candidate won’. So went the post-Vice Presidential Debate analysis on the liberal news channel MSNBC, as summed up by panel host Rachel Maddow. Elsewhere, former Washington Post and CNN political commentator and journalist, Chris Cillizza, claimed JD Vance was ‘outstanding’ for 99 per cent of the debate, against an ‘uneven’ and nervous Tim Walz, before failing to disown Trump’s lies about non-existent election fraud in the previous election. Meanwhile, on the pro-Trump Fox News network, the CBS moderators were condemned for fact-checking Vance on his campaign’s infamous claims of illegal pet-eating Haitians in Springfield, Ohio. Meanwhile, Donald Trump Jnr crowed ‘that it was a masterclass, it was a spectacular performance’ by his father’s running mate. Immediate post-debate polls of focus groups showed Vance winning slightly. Many commentators expressed how strangely nice it was to see Republican and Democratic politicians actually discuss policy issues and avoid character assassinations, while not appearing to detest each other. In reality though, how much does any of this matter?
All in all, a prepared JD Vance had a good night. This wasn’t hard as he had come into the debate with a higher disapproval rating than any other recent vice-presidential nominee (including Sarah Palin). Born in 1984, in Middletown, Ohio, Vance was until recently best known for his 2016 memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, which explores his upbringing in a poor, working-class family in rural Appalachia and the challenges they faced. Later a Marine Corps veteran and then venture capitalist, he was narrowly elected as a Republican Senator from Ohio in 2022. Vance's political career has been marked by his evolution from a critic of Donald Trump to a staunch supporter, culminating in Trump's recent selection of him as a vice-presidential running mate. This may be also seen as Trump acknowledging the wishes of Vance’s long time billionaire patron and mentor, Peter Thiel (co-founder of Paypal), who shares many of Trump’s extreme views — including not believing ‘that freedom and democracy are compatible’.[1]
There is something about Vance (and Theil) that makes these slick, rich businessmen so dangerous. They are clever, dressing their radicalism up in coiffed hair and sleek suits, camouflaging their extreme political and social agendas in appropriately temperate language, but knowing how and when to dog-whistle to supporters or disown unhelpful principles. Vance has said childless adults should pay higher taxes and have less voting rights, wants to see mass deportations of undesired immigrants and ‘certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally’.[2] His politically opportunistic support of Trump’s 2020 election fraud lie in is in stark relief to the Vance of 2016 who wrote. ‘I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole like Nixon who wouldn't be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he's America's Hitler’.[3] Yet he (or Theil) is not the ignorantly narcissistic, ultra ego-driven, uninformed Donald Trump and that’s what makes them in many ways worse.
But I had heard this before, about a different man, from a middle-aged Traveller woman whose eyes glistened from recent tears as she sat on the footpath, on a small deserted Galway street, in the late hours of a May night in 2006. I had been delayed with my after-show chores, during the chaotic premiere run of my play, The Tinker’s Blade, in An Taibhdhearc theatre. The production had all the crazy unplanned episodes worthy of Only Murders in the Building TV series, which though were far from funny at the time (that’s another story) – at least by us who experienced them. But eventually, through a great cast and crew we put on sold-out performances and garnered welcome critical praise. I had written the play following the controversial trial two years earlier of a Mayo farmer, Padraic Nally, who shot dead Traveller John "Frog" Ward in the belief he was trespassing on his property to rob him. Using the iconic Twelve Angry Men play template, I wanted to investigate the public debate around the entire incident, through the prism of post-trial jury deliberations in a Galway courthouse, where each of the jurors represented various voices in Irish society.
I had been the last to leave the building, after much talking, handshaking and backslapping, to be surprised by an older woman who was waiting earnestly outside in the entrance. She was a social worker with the local Traveller community and she almost apologetically asked, ‘do you mind if you have a word with Mary? She’s upset about your play.’ Mary was sitting in the dark against the cold building. I sat down beside her, our knees hunched up, as distant city noises evaporated into the growing dark. I instinctively apologised about one juror in particular (who I played) who used particularly vile descriptions of Travellers. Mary looked at me, ‘you don’t understand sir, it was me first time at a play and I wasn’t expecting it. To hear what them people be saying about us, about me, to themselves.’ Suddenly I became aware of her sitting helpless in the darkness of the audience, watching strangers on stage freely talk about her, her family, her friends, often in disparaging and insulting tones. I felt ashamed and apologised again, keenly aware that the bar-owner bigot I played was the most vocally anti-Traveller of the lot. She looked at me steadily, ‘It wasn’t you I was afraid of sir… it was the doctor.’ In my surprise she smiled slightly, ‘You are easy to deal with, we know you, but him….he has the power and people listen to him in his suit and his talk’. Mary had, by accident, seen for her first time what the slick leaders of Irish society actually thought of Travellers and how they persuaded others to do their bidding. We sat silently for what seemed an hour (but was probably less than a few minutes) and Mary gathered herself up to go with her social worker friend, pacing anxiously some distance away. This middle-aged Traveller woman thanked me for the play and in my awkwardness I must have apologised again but Mary turned back to me, ‘No, I’m glad I came’ and then they both were gone into the Galway midnight.
Vance may have written about ‘Hill-Billy’ country and those poor (usually economically disenfranchised white people) often sidelined as ‘trailer trash’ or ‘rural uneducated’, but he is not one of them. Nor is he one of their outspoken leaders like the inflammatory far-right Republican congresswoman, Marjorie Taylor Green. While they wear their background as a badge of provocative MAGA honour, in how they dress, talk and behave, Peter Theil’s protégée speaks carefully, in a toned accent, expressing moderation when needed in appealing to the middle classes and elites. Donald Trump may be unique in being able to straddle both worlds, it remains to be seen if a post-Trump Republican party has leaders who can do the same, but as Mary pointed out, it is the men in slick suits with the dangerous ‘talk’ whom you have to be careful about.
[1] https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/11/how-dangerous-is-peter-thiel/
[2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2024/10/01/what-to-know-about-jd-vances-policy-views-on-abortion-economy-immigration-and-more-before-tonights-vp-debate/
[3] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/07/15/jd-vance-past-trump-criticisms-abortion-shooting/74418450007/