A Brief Recap of The Less Exciting 2020 Vice Presidential Debate

Given the previous debate and the startling news dropped over the weekend, the only way this debate could have moved out of the shadow of the much bigger story is if one or both of the candidates produced a 9mm Radom Pistol from their blazer and began firing it indiscriminately into the audience. So in order to make the following description of a terribly boring debate more palatable I’ll be peppering it with the seven best jokes about Mike Pence I can steal from the internet, and if you can guess whence I took them, post your answer in the comments to win a prize (the prize will be me calling you a nerd).  

This fun little diversion is necessary because the primary purpose of this Vice Presidential debate in Salt Lake City was for Senator Kamala Harris and her opponent, Vice President and Sun-faded Department Store Mannequin (1) Mike Pence, to defend the policies and records of their party’s choice for President of the United States, which is naturally less exciting than the offense maneuvering of a Presidential debate. The VP debates are always the most boring, least-anticipated part of any election season, and if they are watched at all it’s only because there’s always a chance, however slim, that one or both of the candidates will start shooting a WWII-era Polish handgun. The secondary purpose of the VP debate is to smooth over the various lies and calumnies each candidate has used to get where they are now, a task made much more difficult for current Vice President and Clear Gummy Bear (2) Mike Pence, whose party leader is an even more outrageous liar and imbecile than former Vice President and current Presidential candidate Joe Biden. 

This astonishing accomplishment was put into even sharper focus this weekend when it was revealed that Donald Trump, the President of the United States of America, not only tested positive for COVID-19 and was rushed to Walter Reed hospital but had also transmitted the dangerous virus to Republican Party leaders, various staff, and several guests. Reaction to the news was predictable. It appears that the Amy Coney Barrett SCOTUS announcement, held in the Rose Garden of the White House, was the super-spreader event that had infected so many people, news that had everyone rushing to twitter to show off their best “Masque of the Red Death” joke or, if you’re a Harvard professor, stealing one from someone else. As the list of infected politicians continued to grow, so too did the peals of laughter coming from a solid thirty-three percent of the country, providing a nice crescendo to the climax of White House mutant and walking shanda Stephen Miller announcing that he too had been infected. 

Given this shocking and extremely hilarious news, many safety concerns were raised about the upcoming Vice Presidential debates. Kamala Harris’s campaign team insisted on the podiums being placed further apart as well as plexiglass barriers to protect each candidate, a request mocked repeatedly by Vice President and Fat Slenderman (3) Mike Pence’s campaign team. Pence aide Katie Miller told the press “If Senator Harris wants to use a fortress around herself, have at it.” One may wonder what right a mere spokesperson has to opine so confidently on COVID-19, but Miller has the advantage of having tested positive for the virus thirty days ago and, having been one herself, presumably has inside information regarding contagion vectors. 

Given that Vice President and Reverend From the Movie Footloose (4) Mike Pence had a much steeper hill to climb, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Kamala Harris seemed very confident and didn’t have to break much of a sweat to put Pence in uncomfortable positions. Pence has the advantage of being a more practiced liar than his opponent, however, and having no shame means it’s difficult for him to feel any embarrassment. All he had to do to hold his ground was shake his head at his opponent with an expression of wry amusement, repeat the same things he’s been repeating for the last six months, and not let an enormous fly land on his head and sit there for what felt like seventeen minutes. He succeeded at two of these. 

Debate Topics And Distraction Tactics

The topics ranged from the President’s handling of the corona virus to health care to climate change, all common themes in previous debates, but made a short stop in the troubled waters of Religious Discrimination on their way to Supreme Court Issues. The previously mentioned Judge Amy Coney Barrett, slated for a Supreme Court seat, is not just Catholic but Very Catholic, a fact Republicans are trying to use to make a religious discrimination case for Democrats objecting to her appointment to the Supreme Court. A notable flaw in this argument is that Democratic candidate for President Joe Biden is also Catholic, though no one would argue that his faith is nearly as hardline as hers. I’m Catholic and I didn’t even know Biden was too until a month ago, and as someone born, baptized, and confirmed in the Catholic Church, and as the descendant of generations of Irish goblins who claimed the same, I view his Catholicism as a personal failing and it makes me despise him even more. 

Still, this religious discrimination argument is clearly a ruse and only the dumbest twerps in politics will fall for it. Biden is just as Catholic as Barrett, in the sense that both of them will immediately and without question throw away any Catholic value that conflicts with the party goals of the day, and the parties both know this. For obvious reasons this conflict occurs much less frequently for Republican Catholics than it does for Democratic Catholics, but the simple fact of the matter is that this agreement is the only way any Catholic reaches the upper echelons of the US government. Ironically, Matthew 6:24 still holds true even today, though both Barrett and Biden choose Mammon every time. 

I can’t imagine what a freak like Vice President and Manilla Envelope Taped To A Beige Wall (5) Mike Pence thinks about Catholics. He himself was raised Catholic but now describes himself as an Evangelical Christian. Frankly, Pence sounds like the kind of Protestant Who Makes His Teenage Daughter Sleep On The Lawn In A Red-Colored Tent Once Every Month (6) and therefore fears the possibility of another papist in the White House, but there’s no doubt that, if called, he would perform his duty as President of the Senate and cast the deciding vote to appoint Barrett to the Supreme Court, because Mike Pence Sucks (7).