As Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate came to an end, Gov. Tim Walz (D) used his closing statement to shout out this election cycle’s bizarre political realignment, which has led public figures ranging from “Bernie Sanders to Dick Cheney to Taylor Swift” to come out and support his running mate, Vice President Harris.
A few minutes earlier, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) had been the one mentioning some notable endorsements, name-checking “Bobby Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard” — two “lifelong leaders in the Democratic coalition” who support his and former President Trump’s ticket.
It was a microcosm of a crucially important issue that briefly bubbled to the surface during the 90-minute showdown, and which undergirds many of the policy and style differences between the two presidential tickets. It boiled down to one question: Whom do you trust?
Not you, the voter — but you, the candidate. And what Walz wanted to make very clear, in a remarkable exchange that got little post-debate coverage, was that he trusts the experts.
It began with Walz touting “the experts” that supported the border bill that was killed in the Senate, citing endorsements from the Border Patrol, the Chamber of Commerce and the Wall Street Journal editorial page. A few minutes later, Vance responded to a question on the economy by dismissing the views of “economists” with “Ph.D.s” who “don’t have wisdom” about his side’s tax plan.
Walz used the opportunity to hammer home a point he thought he could score against Vance. “I made a note of this,” he began. “‘Economists can’t be trusted. Science can’t be trusted. National security folks can’t be trusted.’ Look, if you’re going to be president, you don’t have all the answers. Donald Trump believes he does.”
He then transitioned it to a “pro tip of the day” — “If you need heart surgery, listen to the people at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, not Donald Trump.”
It’s hard to gauge whether Walz’s rant on the virtue of trusting the experts was rehearsed or ad-libbed — earlier answers on the Iran-Israel crisis or his lie about Tiananmen Square, which he clearly should have been prepped for, came off as rambling, cringey and at times borderline incoherent. But whether it was a revelation that hit him in the moment or a prepared remark, the inclination was bizarre.
Trust in “the experts” can best be exemplified in polling by Gallup’s “confidence in institutions” survey, which has been conducted yearly for decades. By nearly every measure, Americans’ trust in institutions is at all-time historic lows.
And that distrust is well-earned. As I’ve written before, some of the blame for the decline in trust in “the experts” can be directly laid at the feet of Dr. Anthony Fauci, who so arrogantly bungled the messaging on the COVID pandemic. But he certainly shares the blame with a cadre of other over-credentialed, unimpressive, pseudo-prestigious elites who have failed the public.
And while Walz may have thought he scored an unimpeachable point with his Mayo Clinic quip, no institution was spared the embarrassment of the COVID crisis — recall the 2021 video from the famed medical center, with a supposedly “expert” doctor explaining the way to achieve full herd in immunity in America by vaccinating 70 percent to 80 percent of the population. The Mayo Clinic is expert in certain areas, but an “expert” seal of approval no longer has the sheen it once did after the failures we’ve experienced.
During the debate, Vance pivoted back to the economy as a counter to Walz. “You say trust the experts, but those same experts for 40 years said that if we shipped our manufacturing base off to China, we’d get cheaper goods. They lied about that,” he said. “They 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.”
When Walz appeared to agree with some of that sentiment, Vance said Walz had “acknowledged that the experts screwed up” — a claim Walz dismissed as “a gross generalization.”
Walz planted his flag firmly in the “trust the experts” camp. Good luck with that in November — it’s a dwindling constituency.
“Trusting the experts” blindly, to the detriment of the people, is a losing strategy. But it was his kneejerk deference to authority, institutions, the establishment and the system — in many of the answers that had nothing to do with the “experts” — that led Walz to ultimately lose the debate.
In contrast, Vance’s inherent distrust of these same institutions resonates in our present political and cultural moment.
Politico talked to a body language (yes, of course) “expert,” who scored the debate closer, noting that Vance’s beard could be seen as a “negative” to women, “conveying aggression and opposition to feminist ideals.” Walz’s “wide eyes” were a positive, that “showed his passion,” and “gave extra weight to his feelings and held our gaze.”
There you have it — another guaranteed way to torpedo “expert” credibility.
Dick Cheney, Taylor Swift … and the “experts.” It’s quite a team.
Steve Krakauer, a NewsNation contributor, is the author of “Uncovered: How the Media Got Cozy with Power, Abandoned Its Principles, and Lost the People” and editor and host of the Fourth Watch newsletter and podcast.