‘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?