JD Vance
Yesterday Donald Trump selected JD Vance, the Ohio Senator, as his running mate.
I got a sinking feeling when I heard the news.
There were others whom Trump could have chosen for different reasons.
Doug Burgum would have been a steady business hand with massive resources. Glenn Youngkin would have reassured moderates and corporate donors. Nikki Haley would have done the same and appealed to women. Marco Rubio would have held demographic appeal and foreign policy chops.
JD Vance is a different kind of choice as a governing partner and now heir apparent to the MAGA movement. He doesn’t have massive stature on Capitol Hill – his legislation has generally not gone anywhere. He doesn’t add that much electoral appeal; Vance underperformed in Ohio which isn’t a swing state anyway. He’s disliked by many. He’s not the fundraising magnet that some others are.
What he does have is an actual perspective and thoughts. He’s a hard right populist who went to Yale Law. Among his stances:
He wouldn’t have certified the 2020 election.
“I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another.”
“If you wanted to kill a bunch of MAGA voters in the middle of the heartland, how better than to target them and their kids with this deadly fentanyl... it does look intentional. It’s like Joe Biden wants to punish the people who didn’t vote for him.”
“Culture war is class war.”
“We are in a late republican period... If we’re going to push back against it, we’re going to have to get pretty wild, and pretty far out there, and go in directions that a lot of conservatives right now are uncomfortable with.”
JD Vance is an alienated darling of the center-left establishment from his time as author of “Hillbilly Elegy.” He began as an institutionalist, starting a venture capital firm and non-profit to help kids in Ohio, and then quickly ditched them to pursue political power in a red state. He’s a never Trumper turned ultimate always Trumper. He won his primary with only 32% of the vote thanks to Trump’s endorsement.
He’s 39 years old and has a deep relationship with Donald Trump Jr. He’s going to be with us a long time.
This is the kind of VP pick you make if you think you’re already going to win and want to inhabit the movement with a philosophy and next-generation leader. For those who hoped that MAGA would fade when Trump passed from the scene, those hopes are going to be futile. If they win in November, Trump has ensured a long-term transformation of the Republican Party in his image. His kids might not have been up for it, but JD Vance is. Trump’s movement will outlive him.
If you want to build a new movement to bring the country together, please check out Forward – we are growing quickly. If you want to encourage the Dems to move on from Joe Biden, go to passthetorchbiden.com. The margin of victory or defeat will matter.
