National Review Online
Tuesday, July 16, 2024
Donald Trump tapped Ohio senator J. D. Vance as his
vice-presidential pick.
The choice wasn’t a surprise but completed a shockingly
rapid political ascent for the 39-year-old Vance, who has gone from an
outspoken Never Trump author to joining Trump on a national ticket in eight
short years.
A former Marine, the author of the runaway
bestseller Hillbilly Elegy, and a success in the world of venture
capital, Vance is smart and sure-footed. He’ll almost certainly be an effective
spokesman for the ticket. He’s given to outlandish statements, especially on
social media, but that isn’t his only mode. He’s very difficult for hostile
interviewers to corner and was perfectly comfortable going on mainstream
outlets during the VP audition period.
More fundamentally, he’s a MAGA pick for an increasingly
MAGA party. In 2016, Trump believed it necessary to reach out and reassure the
Reagan GOP with the pick of Mike Pence. This time around, he didn’t feel any
such gesture was necessary to unite the party, and instead went with a
selection that is intended — although these things are impossible to game out —
to create a MAGA heir apparent to carry on the project in 2028 and beyond.
Politically, the Trump campaign believes that Vance, who
is from a Rust Belt state and whose politics and economics are focused on
working-class voters, can help in the blue-wall states, which could be decisive
in a close race. Vance underperformed other Republicans statewide in his only
race in Ohio, though, and it’s doubtful that he’s going to win voters for Trump
that the populist icon wasn’t already going to win himself. Although VP picks
usually don’t make much of a political difference, other choices would have had
a better chance of helping Trump marginally among minorities, suburbanites, or
Republicans not enamored of the former president.
Substantively, Vance has in recent years become a full-on
national populist, more so even than Trump. He’s an advocate of industrial
policy and has teamed up with Senate Democrats to advance various regulatory
and anti-corporate policies. Like Trump, he is allergic to reforming
entitlements, the main driver of the nation’s unsustainable debt. He’s a
protectionist who wants more tariffs and barriers to trade. And he’s a
so-called restrainer who has crusaded against more aid for Ukraine in its
defensive war against Russia. Although the details and circumstances matter in
any policy question, these are impulses that would, all things being equal,
tend to make America less wealthy and secure.
Vance has also undergone a transformation on Trump that
happened to coincide with his need to get the former president’s endorsement
for his campaign in the 2022 Republican Senate primary. Everyone changes their
mind about things, but Vance went from a fulsome opponent to a fulsome
supporter of Trump, going so far as to say that if he had been vice president
on January 6 he would have found a way to avoid simply accepting certified
slates of electors.
Democrats will detail Vance’s long catalogue of
anti-Trump statements and portray Vance as an extremist, especially on
abortion. It is doubtful that this will come to much. Vance will reiterate that
he was wrong in his past condemnations of Trump (some of which were indeed
excessive, some of which were right). He has already deferred to Trump’s
states-should-decide position on abortion and has even gone so far as to say
that he “supports” access to abortion drugs — a position we hope he finds a way
to modify. A more legitimate concern is whether Vance, who has been in the U.S.
Senate for less than two years, is ready to take over the job of president —
which has added significance given Trump’s age and the horrific attempt on his
life. Having made Kamala Harris vice president, though, Democrats aren’t
exactly in a good position to prosecute this case.
J. D. Vance, a striver who overcame considerable
adversity to become an Ivy League graduate and accomplished venture capitalist,
has now climbed the greasy pole of Republican politics in the Trump era. This
is quite the political achievement, although as his predecessor, Mike Pence,
found out, it can be treacherous up there.
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