How Walz approached Vance during the debate.

What happens when a teacher debates a lawyer

Walz is a teacher. Vance and Harris are both lawyers. Lawyers never try to change the minds of the lawyers they argue with in the courtroom. No lawyer has ever stood up in court and said "I guess you're right. My client is guilty”. (Except in a few movies.) A lawyer’s goal is to change the mind(s) of the judge and/or jury who is listening to the debate. If the other lawyer hates you at the end of the debate, that is not a problem. In most cases, that means you've won. Your goal is to show that no sensible person should believe what the other lawyer is saying, which is usually going to be humiliating for said lawyer.

In the the Harris/Trump debate, Harris used her skills as a prosecuting attorney to humiliate Trump. She knew from experience how to make a con artist reveal his guilt on the witness stand, and he fell into every trap she set for him. She also showed that she had the skills to deal with international con artists like Kim Jong Un and Putin, unlike Trump, who fawned at their feet, and conceding almost everything to them while getting essentially nothing in return. Watching her at work was a satisfying experience for those of us who wanted public demonstrations of both Trump’s incompetence and Harris’ excellence. We were looking forward to a similar performance from Walz, and these expectations often led to a disappointment which I will argue was unjustified. Walz's performance was in its own way every bit as skillful as…