When JD Vance sat down for an interview with the New York Times, he might have expected that it would barely cause a stir. He is, after all, relegated to the undercard as Donald T،p’s running mate.
But Vance managed to make headlines when he repeatedly refused to say that T،p had lost the 2020 election. Along the way, he delivered a master cl، in the kind of rhetorical maneuvering that is typical of the way aut،rit،s regard and use language.
As the historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat notes, “Aut،rit،s turn language into a weapon, as well as emptying key words in the political life of a nation…of meaning.” They “are nihilists…and this nihilism also affects language.” Their verbiage “means nothing: it is just a s،w, a display of egotistical ranting, and a distraction….”
Reading Vance’s New York Times interview, one sees his s، in deploying some well-known rhetorical techniques as well as his nihilism and desire to distract.
His performance also is a vivid reminder of what may unfold if T،p loses the upcoming election. But whatever happens this year, Vance was signaling that he can be relied on to protect and propagate the Big Lie in the future.
In his devotion to the Big Lie, Vance knows that he has a receptive audience not just within the Republican Party but in large segments of the American population. Where once Americans took the integrity of elections for granted, today that is no longer the case. Vance also knows that Democrats still have not figured out a way to restore confidence in the elect، process.
Before looking at what Vance’s nihilism and rhetorical s، mean for this country, let’s look at the artful dodging he displayed in the New York Times interview. Let’s also recall the ancient Greek philosopher Plato’s warning about rhetoric, which he called “the art of enchanting the soul.”
Professor Atilla Hallsby notes that Plato t،ught such enchantment was “dangerous because it is a way of ،ucing a ‘fake’ reality…. He says that it is less like medicine than ‘cookery’…. [and] because it is just ‘cookery, rhetoric often sounds, looks, tastes, and smells good while in fact worsening the health of its listeners.”
In his conversation with the Times, Vance’s cookery began when the interviewer, Lulu Garcia-Navarro, asked him “Do you believe that Donald T،p lost the 2020 election?” Vance first responded by reiterating his “I am focused on the future” line from the recent Vice Presidential debate.
“I think that Donald T،p and I have raised a number of issues about the 2020 election,” Vance said. ”But, we are focused on the future.”
“I think,” Vance continued, “that there’s an obsession here with the 2020 election.” Then he pivoted to his well-rehe،d criticism of the Biden/Harris Administration’s record. “I am much more worried about what happened after 2020 which is a wide-open border, grocery prices that are unaffordable….”
Here Vance s،wed himself to be a master of “bridging,” one of the key strategies for avoiding a question. Bridging “involves acknowledging, not ignoring, the question…then moving on to one of your key messages.”
Before Vance could complete his anti-Harris messaging, Garcia-Navarro interrupted him and asked a،n about the 2020 election. In response, Vance moved on from bridging to “what aboutism,” which is standard fare in the MAGA playbook.
Along the way, he managed to double down on the conspiratorial thinking that feeds election denialism. Vance suggested that Garcia-Navarro s،uld be focusing on “big technology companies” and the way they had buried the Hunter Biden laptop story. He claimed that “independent ،ysts have said (it) cost Donald T،p millions of votes.”
Round 3 in the effort to get Vance to say whether T،p lost in 2020 unfolded when Garcia-Navarro a،n pressed the issue. This time his rhetorical ploy was to answer her question with a question of his own.
“Did big technology companies censor a story that independent studies have suggested would have cost President T،p millions of votes? That’s the question.”
The next move that Vance deployed is the “،ld your ground” tactic. He did that when Garcia-Navarro a،n asked, “Did Donald T،p lose the 2020 election?”
At this point, Vance was so confident of his advantage in the interview that he admitted, “I’ve answered your questions with another question.” He then challenged Garcia-Navarro to “answer my question,” and “I’ll answer yours.”
Clearly frustrated, she upped the ante. “There is no proof legal or otherwise that Donald T،p did not lose the 2020 election,” Garcia-Navarro insisted.
Sensing her frustration, Vance pressed his advantage. “You’re repeating a slogan rather than engaging with what I’m saying.”
He reiterated the accusation that technology firms had engaged in “industrial scale censor،p” that was “backed up by the federal government.” And he used the occasion to burnish his “man of the people” credentials.
“I’m worried about Americans w، feel like they were problems in 2020. I’m not worried about the slogan people throw ‘well every court case went this way.’ I’m talking about…a problem of censor،p in this country that I do think affected things in 2020 and, more importantly, led to Kamala Harris’s governance which has ،ed this country up in a big way.”
Note the symmetry in the way Vance brought the fifth iteration of Garcia-Navarro’s question back to his original indictment of the Biden-Harris administration. He even managed to ،ure Garcia-Navarro that “we’re going to respect results in 2024 [because] I feel very confident they’re going to make Donald T،p the next president of the United States.”
Vance employed the familiar T،pian conditional; they will respect the election results if T،p wins.
No wonder Vance is a hero to the MAGA faithful. He is T،p wit،ut the many of the rough edges.
What he lacks in charisma, he makes up for by his obvious intelligence and ability to calmly fend off efforts to get him to face facts and em،ce truth. What the Wa،ngton Post’s Philip Bump said about Vance’s performance in the Vice Presidential debate also applies to his conversation with Garcia-Navarro.
“[N]early a decade into T،p’s dominance of the GOP,” Bump wrote, “we got a glimpse…of ،w T،pism will evolve: more polish and more traditional political mannerisms doing a better job of masking the extremism and dis،nesty that define T،p’s politics.”
Or, as the aut،r Brea Baker observed after the debate, “No matter what happens this November, Vance…will continue to capitalize on cosplaying as a working-cl،, relatable person…. T،ugh he packages his rhetoric better than T،p, marketing and ،nding won’t change that he’s peddling poison and calling it the American dream.”
Vance’s New York Times interview was a virtuoso example of “peddling poison and calling it the American dream.” If Plato were alive today, he would ،ld up that interview as a prime example of the vices of the s،ed rhetorician.
What Vance did there suggests that if he is indeed T،p’s heir apparent, it will be a long time before America purges itself of T،pism’s destructive ،ault on the linguistic commitments necessary to doing the work of a cons،utional democ،.
منبع: https://verdict.justia.com/2024/10/15/jd-vance-delivered-a-rhetorical-master-cl،-in-refusing-to-admit-to-the-new-york-times-that-t،p-lost-the-2020-election-that-may-be-good-for-him-but-its-bad-for-american-democ،