Last night, both Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz made the country proud. In an era of constant vitriol and personal attacks, the vice-presidential debate was remarkably civil, respectful, and policy oriented. Gone were the bombastic hot takes that unfortunately permeate our political discourse. In its place was a conversation between two serious people about the future of the country. But beyond the refreshingly civil conversation, another remarkable development from last night’s debate was the emergence of a new consensus on several significant issues.
For the first time in modern political history, both parties are openly campaigning for working-class voters and attempting to speak to their issues. One of the debate’s biggest points of agreement was over the devastating impacts of bad trade deals. In a conversation concerning the validity of “listening to the experts,” Vance responded by saying that experts “said if we shipped our industrial base off to other countries: to Mexico and elsewhere, it would make the middle class stronger. They were wrong about that.”
He added, “they were wrong about the idea that if we made America less self-reliant [and] less productive in our own nation that it would somehow make us better off.” Walz responded by conceding “the rhetoric is good. Much of what the senator said right there I’m in agreement with him on this. I watched it happen too. I watched it [in] my communities, and we talk about that.”
KENA BETANCUR/AFP via Getty Images
While Walz foolishly attempted to message against aggressive tariff policy by calling it a “tax,” he had virtually no response when Vance confronted him over the Biden administration largely leaving Trump’s China tariffs in place. Unlike his California-based running mate, Walz is from the Midwest. He knows firsthand the damage that was done to those communities as a result of shipping American jobs overseas.
The exchange showed how significantly the political ground has shifted in America. Instead of arguing over the existence and reality of the issues impacting working-class people, both candidates were arguing over which team was best equipped to address those issues. That is a remarkable rejection of the neoliberal economic status quo promoted by both parties over the last 40 years.
People are noticing, but not everyone approves. Erick Erickson, a traditional conservative media personality, lamented on X that “The fact that Tim Walz and J.D. Vance found as much commonality on the size and scope of government in our lives will leave a lot of small government conservatives feeling out of sorts.” The problem for many of the people that Erickson is talking about is that much of today’s economic policy questions can’t be answered by just repeating Ronald Reagan’s playbook. Too often, traditional conservatives come across as an old hairband just “playing the hits” instead of releasing new material. The post-NAFTA economic status quo has always been unacceptable, particularly for people in the Midwest. And now that the Midwest is America’s political battleground, the conversations around these issues are changing.
The neoliberal consensus between both parties is collapsing. The economic policies advocated by Donald Trump and J.D. Vance have more in common with Democrats of old than Republicans. In response, Vice President Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are, on the fly, trying to readjust their party back to what it used to be.
Walz and, by extension, Harris are at their best when they reject the advice of the bipartisan cabal of ideological fossils that surround their campaign. When they give in to them, they end up sounding more like Bush than Clinton. It was interesting to see Walz vacillating between attacking Trump’s economic policies while simultaneously arguing that he and Harris could do a better job at implementing them. He knows that the ground has shifted, and Democrats are still trying to figure out how to respond.
Ultimately, it is good for the country that both parties are at least giving lip service to the issues surrounding working-class people. For far too long, their concerns have been ignored and dismissed by Washington’s political establishment. Last night’s debate showed that you can no longer have success at the national level while ignoring the suffering that American citizens are going through. At a bare minimum, you have to acknowledge it. That is a good thing.
Darvio Morrow is CEO of the FCB Radio Network and co-host of The Outlaws Radio Show.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.
