VP debate: a quick impression

JD Vance may have singlehandedly saved the Trump campaign from Trump, a man given to bombast who tends to wander into the weeds when he talks.* Trump can be an engaging speaker, but he's never been that great of a debater. The consensus opinion seems to be that Vance won the VP debate; the rightie and alt-media outlets suggest this was a stomping, a massacre, and even some of the leftie outlets concede that Vance won. Does this move the needle much? I have no idea about anything anymore, but my impression is that Vance's performance certainly didn't harm Trump's chances. We'll soon see.

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*I'm not saying Trump is blitheringly incoherent. The media keep trying to portray him that way, especially in retaliation for the legitimate rightie criticisms of Biden's senile incoherence and Harris's embarrassing word salads, but Trump's problem is that of a man with a big ego who likes to ramble to be engaging—a strategy that's probably better for bigger audiences than for smaller ones. That said, he's a thousand times better than Biden at keeping facts straight, and even at his most rambling, he's not word-salad-y in the way that Harris is. 

If Trump's speech pattern reminds me of anyone, it's of older Koreans. I had to administer oral exams to a group of elementary, junior high, and high-school English teachers back in the 90s, and one older gentleman took what I thought should have been a simple question and provided a long, rambling, circuitous answer that nevertheless made perfect, coherent sense by the end as he drew his spiel to a close. He ended up producing the best answer and getting the best grade. I've heard it said that Korean notions of writing "essays" are based on something like this form: the narrative bumbles along hither and thither like an animal drunk on rotten fruit, stumbling through tall grass and picking up burrs and little bugs but eventually arriving at its destination. There's no attempt at Euclidean linearity helped out by a strict outline structure of intro/thesis, body, conclusion. But Koreans who discourse this way nevertheless follow their own version of logic, and as long as you flow with the general current of the narrative, you'll be borne to a proper stopping place. Trump, too, rambles until it's time to drive the point home. But it may take a while.