Madness!

 In the otherwise dry and policy-oriented vice presidential debate that just concluded, there was one absolutely jaw-dropping moment. This occurred when Walz got around to asking J.D. Vance point-blank whether he conceded that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election.

This was a great strategy on Walz's part. Vance, throughout the night, was trying to portray himself as a reasonable and moderate person—not someone who was living in an alternative epistemic universe from the rest of us. And yet, as Donald Trump's running mate, he cannot explicitly disavow the former president's most bananas claims about things; they are, after all, the official positions of his campaign. The best Vance can do, when these things come up, is to ignore, downplay, and dodge. 

And that is precisely what he proceeded to do. And yet, Walz had managed to ask such a direct question on the point that Vance's deviousness was obvious to everyone watching. "Did Trump lose that election?" Walz asks. "You know Tim," Vance replies, "I'm focused on the future, not the past"—or something to that effect. The nation gave out a collective groan. The dodge was just so blatant and cheating and obvious. "I'm focused on the future." Gimme a break!

It was the same line Vance had used a minute or two earlier, as well, when he was first asked about January 6. "Let's stop talking about the past. My campaign is focused on the future." 

According to Joseph de Maistre, this was the same answer the French Revolutionaries gave, after enough time had passed that they had begun to repent of having executed the king. Maistre references a writer from the revolutionary faction, who had a chance to reflect on the events in France a few years after tempers had cooled from the peak of the Reign of Terror. "Let us leave Louis under the shroud," the writer opined, "Now all good citizens must turn their wishes, their talents, and their strength toward the future." (See notes in Lebrun edition). 

As Maistre mockingly sums up the argument: "Very well, it was perhaps unnecessary to assassinate the king; but since the deed is done, do not mention it again and let us all be good friends." (Lebrun translation.) He then gives us his own succinct diagnosis of such an argument: "Madness!"

Indeed, this was the same preposterous argument Vance was making. "Okay, okay, so maybe my running-mate did try to subvert the election; maybe he did conspire to overturn the results of the democratic process; maybe there was a mob that stormed the Capitol to try to halt the certification of votes; maybe Trump was the first U.S. president in history not to honor the peaceful transfer of power—oh well! It was all perhaps unnecessary. But since the deed is done, do not mention it again."

"I'm focused on the future, Tim, not the past," Vance said. Just as that writer in the Moniteur universel said, to which Maistre was responding. Let us leave democracy in the shroud. We must now instead "turn our strength to the future." 

To which my response—and the response of every American watching the debate at home, who cares about the continuity of our Constitution, our democracy, and our way of life—could only be: "Madness!"