Politico analyzed the vice-presidential candidates’ appearance at last night’s debate with some commentary about Tim Walz’s “passionate” eyes and J. D. Vance’s hyper-masculine beard. These things matter, the magazine said:
When Walz felt especially passionate about something, he’d open his eyes wide as saucers. Eye-popping can sometimes be a sign of surprise, but for Walz, it simply revealed his emotional intensity — like this moment during an exchange about abortion. The orbicularis oculi muscle, working in concert with the corrugator and frontalis muscles, contract to raise the eyebrows — a dynamic and emphatic facial motion that grabbed the viewer’s attention. Early humans would have made such facial gestures to communicate strong emotions, like “danger is close.” For Walz, it gave extra weight to his feelings and held our gaze.
. . . One of the first bits of nonverbal communication to appear in the debate was on JD Vance’s face: his beard. As POLITICO Magazine has noted before, Vance is the first White House wannabe to wear facial hair in 80 years. Our appearance is fundamental to our body language, and research indicates that voters see beards as (surprise, surprise) more masculine. That can be positive to some, reading as strength and competence. But to others, especially women, it can be negative, conveying aggression and opposition to feminist ideals.
Walz looked nervous, not passionate, last night. On today’s Editors podcast, Rich compared Walz’s frantic expressions and haphazard note-taking to that of a student in the back of the class who can’t keep up with a lecture. I think that’s right, and I wonder how anyone could interpret Walz’s so-called “passionate” gaze to appear as anything but scared. I was reading a book about emotions to a toddler the other day. There were eyes for every emotion — sadness, anger, happiness — and the toddler was able to easily identify which pair of eyes corresponded to what emotion. Politico’s take on Walz’s eye-popping tendency is a ridiculous spin and probably something a toddler could instinctively refute; see Walz’s eyes for yourself.
But, oh well, all told, I care about Walz’s eyes about as much as the average voter should care about Vance’s beard, which is to say, not at all. What really might make a candidate less politically attractive is lying about his military service, lying about being in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen Square massacre, or supporting abortion up until birth, all things Walz has done.