Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance arguably had one job going into Tuesday night’s debate: convince the American public that he, and his party, don’t hate women.
Even with that painfully low bar, I’d say he failed to do the job. The once anti-Trump senator did wear a pink tie, but did not face up to his past comments about menopausal women, “childless cat ladies” and a historically low favorability rate. Instead, he used most of his allotted speaking time to mansplain his views to the two women who were moderating, women who vote, and even his own wife.
He used most of his allotted speaking time to mansplain his views to the two women who were moderating, women who vote, and even his own wife.
During a question on immigration, Vance tried to talk over CBS moderators Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan, after he regurgitated dangerous lies about Haitian immigrants living in Springfield, Ohio. To Vance’s dismay, Brennan reminded the audience that the immigrants in Springfield are there legally.
“The rules that you were not going to fact-check,” Vance quipped, referring to CBS’ statement that it would leave it to Vance and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz to fact check each other during the debate. “And since you’re fact checking me, I think it’s important to say what’s actually going on.”
Vance talked over and interrupted both O’Donnell and Brennan as they tried to move forward with the debate.
“Thank you, senator, for describing the legal process,” Brennan said, before the network then muted Vance’s mic.
“The audience can’t hear you because your mics are cut,” Brennan said. “We have so much we want to get into. Thank you for explaining the legal process,” she added, in a tone every woman sitting in a cubicle, boardroom or classroom knows deep in her bones.
Unlike his windmill-, shark– and Hannibal Lecter-obsessed running mate, Vance deftly wields a very specific type of misogyny that, while far less obvious, is just as insidious — one that can come off as empathic, but is undeniably condescending as it normalizes the most draconian right-wing policies.
One example of this was Vance consistently referring to Brennan — a woman he does not personally know — by her first name rather than addressing her appropriately. The slight-of-hand misogynistic move may have been Vance’s attempt to appear likable and down-to-earth, but many viewers saw it differently: condescending, patronizing and rude.
Vance himself admitted that the Republican Party has a problem when it comes to women’s trust. He reminded women watching Tuesday that they do not trust Republicans when it comes to abortion and the human right to bodily autonomy — yet failed to explain how he, his running mate and his fellow party members plan to address the problem.
“We’ve got to do so much better of a job at earning the American people’s trust back on this issue where they, frankly, just don’t trust us,” Vance said, before claiming that is “one of the things that Donald Trump and I are endeavoring to do.”








