So Who Won Yesterday? 

Do political debates even matter? 

Seriously. Think about it. 

How many debates were actually pivotal since television was invented? In the last 60 years, what were the real pivotal events in these genres? There’s really only a handful. 

There was Nixon versus Kennedy and the famous “five-o-clock shadow” problem that allegedly clinched it for JFK. 

Then there was the hilarious moment in the Reagan-Mondale debate when the Gipper quipped that he wouldn’t hold his opponent’s youth and inexperience against him. 

And who can forget the devastating “You’d be in jail!” mic-drop retort of President Trump to Hillary Clinton back in 2016? 

But that’s 3 moments over six decades. Can you even come up with just 2 such pivotal moments for Vice-Presidential debates? 

Tough, right? 

But perhaps I taking to the political junky or an audience that clearly knows its mind and is a committed patriot. What about the shocking number of people who aren’t really “political,” who don’t listen to hours of talk radio daily, or click onto the Breitbart website every morning over their first coffee? 

Perhaps the value of political debates is measured by how those voters react to them. From that perspective, what can be said about last night?

Apparently, Tim Walz and the Dem team were very worried in the run-up to the rhetorical duel. And he should be. Despite decades as a politician including in Congress and as Governor, he is not what you would call a skilled orator. 

I can’t ever recall any politician of any strip actually labeling themselves a “knucklehead” from the debate stage. Yet he did because he had no other answer to the moderator’s question about why he has repeatedly said he was in China during the vicious suppression of the anti-Communist demonstrations on Tiananmen Square when in fact he traveled to Hong Kong – and not mainland China – months after those horrific events. 

By contrast, Senator Vance, who has only been in politics for a handful of years, was cool, calm, and collected. Perhaps that has to do with having graduated from Yale Law School, although I think it’s more a function of innate intellect. How strange it was when Walz the erstwhile “schoolteacher” boasted about never having his charges make it to Yale. I guess he’s a fan of mediocrity. 

Although I would have liked to hear Vance ask the real question about Walz and China, i.e. How does a serving member of the National Guard visit Communist China more than 30 times?, he was clearly aiming his restrained critiques of Walz in a fashion that the non-committed or undecided who aren’t hardcore MAGA can relate to. To that end, of course, he was the victor. 

But at the end of the day, the harsh reality remains: of America’s two parties, one believes we don’t need borders, men can become women, and we should keep sending billions of dollars to our sworn enemies. The other party is led by and made up of those who love America and are working to save it. They want you to be part of that team. Join President Trump and J.D. Vance today by going to www.TrumpForce47.com 

Sebastian Gorka Ph.D. is host of SALEM Radio’s AMERICA First and The Gorka Reality Check on NEWSMAX TV. A former Strategist to President Donald Trump, he is a member of the National Security Education Board of the Pentagon. His latest book is The War for America’s Soul. Follow him on his SubStack page and website. He is a regular contributor for the Association for Mature American Citizens (AMAC).

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.