Originally published at: How JD Vance answers a "Yes or No?" question - Boing Boing
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So Harris has accepted CNN’s invitation for a second debate in October and will continue to point out Trump’s cowardice if he refuses to show up, and I just heard someone point out that if Trump doesn’t show then everyone’s last memory of a debate before voting will be the one between Vance and Walz. Not that Trump would do better, but that’s an interesting scenario to ponder…
Despite his general cowardice and all his statements saying “THERE WILL BE NO THIRD DEBATE!!” it’s hard to imagine Trump actually letting Vance or anyone else have the final word in this campaign.
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Hmm…
I don’t not believe that Vance is a couch fucker.
I don’t not believe that Vance really is as much or more an avowed white supremacist Nazi as he appears to be.
I don’t not believe that he has any more actual connection to “hillbillies” than I do to Elvis Presley.
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Vance is many things, but he’s not stupid, and he is a well educated attorney. He knows how to not get himself in legal hot water. He’s not going to say he believes the report about Robinson, because he knows that would piss Trump off. But he’s also not going to say it’s a lie, because he knows he would be lying. It’s the same with the Haitian stories. He very carefully always says that’s based on something told to him by a constituent. He never says it’s a definite fact. Trump has no problem at all blatantly and unequivocally lying. Vance does. So you can always tell when he’s basically lying, because he will qualify everything he says with some plausible deniability. If he knew something was true that benefitted his campaign, he would just say it.
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I understand where you’re going with this but I’m not sure I completely agree with the idea that Vance wouldn’t be willing to just flat-out lie about this stuff. And this isn’t a situation where he’s under oath or anything- there’s no “legal hot water” that he’d find himself in by lying and saying that he believes Robinson.
Some of the recent stuff he’s said about the Haitian immigrants are absolutely bald-faced lies, by the way.
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Wouldn’t surprise me if he orders Vance to back out for just that reason.
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Mr Vance, Is it true that you have you stopped having sex with furniture?
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“I don’t not believe him”
Double negatives can contribute some meaning (e.g. “he’s not unattractive” is different from “he’s attractive”), but what does this (and what was this intended to) actually mean? Belief involves believing someone, not believing them or avoiding the issue by withholding judgement entirely, and since this isn’t a declaration of withholding judgement, I’m struggling to find a possible meaning here that’s distinct from, “I believe him.” It just seems like “I don’t believe him” started to slip out, or he was trying to say, “I believe him” but in a way that casts doubt on his own statement (or awkwardly trying and failing to create some gradient of belief/disbelief in which his position was right in the middle). Which doesn’t seem to serve any sort of purpose.
Vance is so weird.
Is he likely to, with a statement about belief? One could find a lie believable. One could find a person, generally, believable. (I doubt he has insider knowledge or cares about the reality of the situation.) Leaving aside that it’s not like he’s under oath here, and there’s no legal liability in lying about it. Obviously he’s not going to say he doesn’t believe him, since they’re still backing him, but there’s nothing stopping him from just saying, “I believe him.” As far as weasel words go, “belief” seems like the ultimate - an open door through which to tell whatever porkies one desires.
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Faulty programming.
Unpossible.
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Ah, the old ‘have you stopped beating your wife?’ question.
As LBJ said, “Make the fucker deny it.”
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In this particular instance, probably not. But with the Haitians eating pets? Yeah, stating something like that as a fact could open you up to a lawsuit. I mean, my whole point is that he is very intentionally not framing his rhetoric as statements of fact, and not simply answering yes or no. He’s using lots of weasel wordy answers like “if it’s true, then it’d bad, but maybe it’s not true”. If he absolutely knew something was true, and if that fact helped his campaign, he wouldn’t be reluctant to say, unequivocally, that that thing was true. The fact that he is being so ambiguous is how you know he’s full of shit. It’s another way to see through their lies. If it wasn’t a lie, he wouldn’t feel the need to be ambiguous. This is different than Trump’s approach, because Trump doesn’t care if he’s caught in a lie, or if he’s sued over it. Look at the E. Jean Carroll situation. He’s had a court twice rule against him, and he still won’t stop lying about her. Vance won’t ever get himself into a spot like that. That’s all I’m saying.
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Trump’s tell (other than noises coming from his mouth) is whenever he begins a story with someone saying, “sir”.
If you want to really boost the rhetoric, phrase it as, “Mr Vance, when did you stop having sex with furniture?”
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“Mr Vance, when do you plan on stopping having sex with furniture?”
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I mean, a political campaign isn’t a court of law following rules of evidence. What Vance seeks is to spread useful lies with some wisp of a smokescreen of deniability. And no aspiring leader of the free world so stoop to so low a standard.
Remember, if Trump wins this November, Vance is a heart beat away from being president, and Trump is already the oldest candidate in history.
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That’s quite a statement, given our experience over the last 8 years or so. Are you implying that Trump holds himself to a higher standard, or any standards whatsoever?
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Trump is bald in his lies. He’s actually more honest than Vance in that respect.
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Judging by some of its high-profile graduates, I suspect Yale Law offer a dedicated advanced course for weasel words at for students like Vance.
Lawyerly language aside, though, the shillbilly is not going to say anything that alienates his fellow fascists and racists.
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or, a very rapid call for a 25th amendment replacement of an obviously unfit president trump.
insert herr vance, fuhrer of the american reich, 2025.
~ the worst-case scenario.
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When a reporter confronted him on the pet thing and said that no reports of pet eating had been confirmed, his response was:
The child was killed in a traffic accident, but Vance sure seemed to describe it as a confirmed, factual murder.
So my point is that a lot of his rhetoric isn’t lawerly, plausibly-denyable stuff at all. Much of it is straight-up, 100% lies.
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I guess he figures the guy who caused the accident will be too busy in jail to sue him, so he can say whatever he wants.
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