Vance-Walz Debate: A Step Away from Partisanship?

Oct 22, 20244 min read

Vance and Walz did something on the debate stage that shocked Americans, a true rarity in the political scene: they agreed with each other.

By: William Levy

Credit: The Wall Street Journal

The best way to describe the 2024 vice-presidential debate that underwent on Oct 1.? Respectable. Sure, there were some remarks of criticism casted from J.D. Vance towards Tim Walz and vice versa—this is, after all, the nature of a debate. However, there was also a level of civility and agreement that we have not seen in the modern political landscape for years now.

The Divided States of America

Partisanship is defined as blind adherence or bias to a particular cause, faction, or in this case, political party. Partisanship is that person you know who votes because of party labels, and not because of policy platforms. Polarization is the natural consequence of widespread partisanship; it is when major groups in society have become radically divided. Polarization is that other person you know who made hating liberals or hating conservatives their personality. Both of these things are applicable to our modern affairs, steadily evolving into the current, greatest threat to democracy as it stands.

This trend began in the 1980s under what political scientists call the Sixth Party System. The two major U.S. political parties had peaked as organizations with unprecedented amounts of money and national influence, holding the highest level of party loyalty among voters to date. This party loyalty was largely thanks to the role of entertainment technology being so widespread. Politicians could reach millions of people and spew dividing rhetoric that radicalized them against the opposing party, bettering their chances at victories.

Credit: Daily Citizen

Take Ronald Reagan for example, who framed himself and the Republicans as the only party which could fight off the Soviet Union. He labeled Democrats “parallel to socialism,” attempting to lead America down the road of “Marx, Lenin, and Stalin,” despite the anti-Soviet efforts the Democrats were enacting. Democrats were seen as dangerous for America and Reagan won two consecutive elections with near-majorities. The rhetoric only grew more divisive with time. Recently Trump made the same comparison between Democrats and Communists, but he took this point further than Reagan ever did by calling them “sick” and “evil,” labeling them an “enemy from within.” That's some pretty divisive stuff right there.

Ironically, it was also Reagan who vetoed the Fairness in Broadcasting Act of 1987, which sought to regulate political misinformation in the media. He had set the precedent that attacking the other side wins elections and terminated the only source of counteracting false attacks. The polarizing nature of this has only been exacerbated with social media, with online echo chambers fueling the hate that politicians plant. It must be emphasized that this divide starts with politicians and then grows through the media. They are the entity that needs to bear responsibility.

The results of this divide have been hostility and competition, which manifest in various ways. Psychological research shows that a partisan individual reflects the naïve bias and anger of a sports team fanatic, stripping political rivals of their humanity down to stereotypes of people who lack morality and sociability. Data shows that in the 1960s less than 5% of Republicans and Democrats, respectively, would be “displeased” if their child were to marry a member of the opposite party. By 2010, these statistics jumped to about 50% of Republicans and about 35% of Democrats. This fact alone is grim, but it is just the tip of the partisan iceberg. A controlled survey showed that the more partisan an individual is, the higher the likelihood they would endorse tactics like “cheating, lying, personal attacks on candidates, [and] voter suppression” in the name of a political victory.

There are serious implications here that pose threats to democracy. We’ve already seen it manifest on Jan. 6, 2021, when the most polarized individuals of Donald Trump’s base stormed the Capitol. We saw it again on July 13, 2024, when there was an assassination attempt on Trump. The nature of partisanship motivates incivility and, at its very worst, breeds violence.

Some Quotes from the Debate

At the end of the debate, Senator Walz apologized for having a previously critical position of his opponent. Vance replied with, “Me too, man,” and both shared a laugh.

Over and over, these two men announced their agreements with one another and acknowledged each other’s humanity through it all. It wasn’t just agreements on mild subjects, either. They agreed on matters of abortion, school shootings, and immigration, subjects where Democrats and Republicans are perhaps most divided. How divided are we really, then?

The American audience quickly took to social media platforms like X (formally known as Twitter) and TikTok to applaud the commonality and courtesy they just saw. ‘These two should be running together instead,’ was a popular sentiment echoed in many of these posts.

The Long Road Ahead to Bipartisanship

I applaud J.D. Vance and Tim Walz for not completely degrading and dehumanizing each other in front of an estimated 43 million Americans.

For once, millions of Americans weren’t given reasons to hate the other side.

Do I think bipartisanship is going to happen this election cycle? Definitely not. Barely two weeks later, Trump stood in front of a crowd and called Democrat voters, “radical left lunatics” who “should be very easily handled by” the National Guard. His most partisan supporters will be echoing this sentiment for the next couple of months, the other side will rebuttal with the same, and we’ll feel that progress has made no gains.

However, the public reaction to the Vance-Walz debate leaves me with a glimmer of hope. It has been proven that people champion bipartisanship when they’re given bipartisanship to champion. I wholeheartedly believe if we can hold our future politicians to that standard, then their committed bases will have no choice but to cooperate.

William Levy is a second-year Political Science major at the University of Florida. He is an online writer for Rowdy and on the DEI team for Swamp Records. He frequently argues with people on social media.