The vice-presidential debate this week has shown how swathes of the American public are now desensitised to fantastical claims
JD Vance and Tim Walz square up before their vice-presidential TV debate this week. Photo: Brendan McDermid/Reuters
In this week’s US vice-presidential debate, Republican JD Vance refused to say whether he believed Donald Trump actually lost the 2020 election.
Democrat Tim Walz probably thought he had lined up a zinger, telling the TV audience that this “non-answer is damning”. But it wasn’t: people just shrugged. Nobody seems particularly shocked by the kind of evidence-free claim that Vance put forward any more.
