What Ever Happened to Answering the Question?

“These were not typical evasions regarding policies; they were evasions regarding principles.”

Many political commentators are correctly hailing Wednesday’s Vice Presidential debate between Vice President Mike Pence and Senator Kamala Harris as a “throwback.” In many ways, it was. It seemed like a fairly standard, pre-Trump, Democrat vs. Republican debate as the candidates routinely exceeded their allotted speaking times, did not interrupt one another much, and focused their messaging on typical wedge issues such as taxes, abortion, health care, and climate policy. All the while, both Vice President Pence and Senator Harris evaded a great deal of questions, opting for talking points rather than direct answers. This too was a form of conventional, pre-Trump status quo politicking.

But there were some evasive answers that should give all of us pause, as they speak to the unique dysfunction and danger of our current political moment. Senator Harris’s refusal to disown the prospect of court packing and Vice President Pence’s unwillingness to commit the Trump administration to a peaceful transfer of power in the event of an electoral loss were not standard debate fare. These were not typical evasions regarding policies; they were evasions regarding principles. And when both presidential tickets are wary of upholding two of the bedrock principles of our democracy like the peaceful transfer of power and the independence of the judiciary, it is time for all of us—no matter our partisan persuasions—to worry.

Thus, Vice President Biden and Senator Harris’s refusal to forsake the prospect of court packing is both confusing and worrisome.

Senator Harris’s evasion on the question of court packing was to be expected, as her running mate, former Vice President Joe Biden, has evinced a similar, strange aversion to answering this very important question in a straightforward manner. What is at stake here is judicial independence. As Michael Walzer recently admonished his fellow liberals and progressives in Persuasion, “stop attacking the Supreme Court as an undemocratic institution. Judicial review is a necessary feature of constitutional government and of liberal democracy.” Court packing and attacks on judicial independence—such as President Donald Trump’s attacks on the capabilities and even-handedness of a federal judge due to his Mexican ancestry in 2016—are the marks of populists unconstrained by norms and principles. They are not the marks of a campaign that is otherwise quite convincingly geared towards restoring respect for norms and civility in our politics.