The Daily Orange is a nonprofit newsroom that receives no funding from Syracuse University. Consider donating today to support our mission.

The vice presidential debate restored my faith in American politics. After the trainwreck of the first presidential debate last week, it was reassuring to see two people who at least showed each other respect, and discussed policies like they had a clue of what was going on in the country. With that being said, Sen. Kamala Harris won the debate. She exposed the Trump/Pence administration for the multitude of failures that have taken place under their administration, and showed the promise of the Biden/Harris ticket.

Harris started the debate by hitting Vice President Mike Pence hard when speaking about his failure in handling the COVID-19 crisis. “This is the biggest failure in American history,” she said. Pence completely fumbled the defense of his leadership as the head of the White House’s Coronavirus Task Force, instead bringing up Biden’s failure to control the swine flu, which had 12,469 American deaths, opposed to the more than 210,000 COVID-19 deaths under Pence’s watch so far.

Pence lost the debate when he failed to formulate any sort of reassuring statement over the Trump administration’s plan to combat the climate crisis. From disregarding the question asked by moderator Susan Page — asking if he believes that man made climate change real — to claiming the devastating wildfires in California are because of a lack of forest management, he completely failed on the discussion of climate change.

As a college student who will undoubtedly inherit the climate crisis, this topic was very concerning to listen through. Neither candidate said enough to convince me that they understand the severity of the issue. Harris tried, but Pence made no effort to pretend that he cared. He simply just didn’t answer the question.

Pence was guilty of repeating corny catchphrases that his team had clearly worked on in his preparation for the debate. “You’re entitled to your own opinion, but you’re not entitled to your own facts,” he repeated multiple times to Harris. She calmly laughed off these statements, as it was obvious that he spent time practicing them.

Harris won the debate. She was clear, confident, and showed that she has what it takes to be a successful vice president. Although she did win, it is important to acknowledge that Pence was a good participant in the debate. He was respectful, concise and showed drastically more characteristics of a leader than President Donald Trump did a week ago.

The debate was solid, nothing too outrageous or too special happened, and I’m sure that the debate did not change who viewers were going to vote for too much, but I am sure that it restored a little faith in American politics for many of us. The debate showed that there are people in government who are leaders, and who can act like adults.

Nathan Fenningdorf is a sophomore political science major. His column appears bi-weekly. He can be reached at nlfennin@syr.edu.

Published on October 8, 2020 at 12:14 am

Contact Nathan: nlfennin@syr.edu