Why J.D. Vance for VP?
J.D. Vance was notified one hour prior to the announcement that he was the pick for vice president of the Republican 2024 presidential ticket, an interesting choice since he was strongly against Trump before he was for him. Donald Trump had better watch his back with this opportunistic young senator in the mix. (Watch video of his RNC convention remarks here.)
Two vocal and vitriolic white men at the top of the GOP ticket (no diversity) does not bode well for the women of this country, or the minority community, or immigration, or the LGBTQ community, or women’s reproductive healthcare, or any number of other concerns from voters.
Both men are against funding for Ukraine which would be a dangerous situation for the world. If your number one concern is national security, as is mine, this is not the team to put in charge at this turbulent time in history. Russia, China, and the others who play in that sandbox are not our friends, but Trump and Vance sound as if they will continue playing toesies with them, kick Ukraine to the curb, and remove us from NATO. (The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is an organization formed after World War II to protect the world from aggressive countries and avoid another global war.) That’s just the beginning of the list and, sadly, the isolationist Libertarians who are now part of the ruling wing of the GOP will be on board with those plans.
From Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics comes an insightful analysis of Vance by Joel K. Goldstein, a leading national expert on the vice presidency. Here are some excerpts (The Vance VP Pick: A Selection, and Process, That Breaks the Mold in Key Ways):
The Vance selection … hands Democrats some potentially potent talking points. Notwithstanding earlier suggestions that Trump would use the choice to appeal to women or racial or ethnic minority groups to attract usual Democratic voters, the Trump-Vance ticket repeats the Republicans’ perennial pairing of two white men, further associating that party with those demographic groups. Whereas four of the six Democratic tickets since 2000 have included at least one woman or one person of color or both (as the 2024 ticket likely will), Republicans have included no persons of color and only one woman, then-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, on the seven tickets this century.
Those Trump reportedly vetted included only one woman, Stefanik, three Black men (Scott, Donalds, and Carson), and one Cuban American, Rubio. Rubio was the only one of those five to reportedly make Trump’s three-man shortlist, and it seems unlikely that Stefanik, Donalds, Carson, and perhaps Scott were serious candidates.
Vance’s limited governmental experience may cause voters to question whether he will be ready on day one to stand a heartbeat from the presidency, a topic Trump’s age and the recent assassination attempt make more salient, or to discharge the duties most modern vice presidents from both parties have performed. Vance has less prior experience in the governmental positions that usually provide vice presidential candidates than any vice presidential candidate since 1940 other than Palin and Spiro T. Agnew of Maryland, both of whom (like Vance) had first been elected to statewide positions in the midterm election preceding the presidential cycle where they were picked as a running mate.
Every first-time major party vice presidential candidate during this period has served as a senator or member of the House of Representatives, governor, or in high federal executive office. Prior to Vance’s selection, the average service in those positions for first-time running mates since 1976 was about 13 years. Vance, along with Palin and Agnew, has less than two years of high-level political experience, but they each had served in local government, as mayor of Wasilla or as Baltimore County executive, respectively. whereas Vance did not.
Experience does not, of course, guarantee that someone will be presidential, but a lack of such experience does raise additional questions about a running mate’s ability to run for or serve as vice president. That noticeable gap in Vance’s resume may not have bothered Trump, who is our only president never to have previously served in public or military office. It is unlikely that many have thought of Vance as the person who should be a heartbeat away from the second-oldest person to ever secure a major party nomination, the oldest if President Biden decides not to seek reelection.
Heather Cox Richardson, in her recap of Tuesday night’s Republican National Convention, also noted the surprising pick of Vance (Letters from an American):
[Vance] is very young—just 39—and has held an elected office for just 18 months, making him notably inexperienced for someone in contention for the vice presidential slot, especially behind a 78-year-old presidential nominee. In the past, he was a never-Trumper, saying that Trump “might be America’s Hitler,” “might be a cynical a**hole,” and is “cultural heroin,” “noxious,” and “reprehensible,” but he came around to embrace the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen and to say that if he had been vice president on January 6, 2021, he would have done what former vice president Mike Pence would not: he would have refused to count the certified electoral ballots for President Joe Biden.
Former Wyoming representative Liz Cheney, who was drummed out of the party for standing against Trump’s attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, wrote: “JD Vance has pledged he would do what Mike Pence wouldn’t—overturn an election and illegally seize power. He says the president can ignore the rulings of our courts. He would capitulate to Russia and sacrifice the freedom of our allies in Ukraine. The Trump GOP is no longer the party of Lincoln, Reagan or the Constitution.”
…
… those who opposed Trump because of his extremism, especially on abortion, are unlikely to have their fears relieved by Vance, who has advocated no-exceptions abortion bans, that people stay in violent marriages, and said: “We are effectively run in this country … by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made. And so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too.”
Virginia’s former Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling has analysis in Bearing Drift (Convention Whiplash):
One thing is clear. The Republican Party as we once knew it is gone. The party of Ronald Reagan no longer exists.
The GOP has been totally restructured in the image of Donald Trump and MAGA. The focus is now on nationalism, isolationism, and populism.
And don’t forget the radical conservative plan, Project 2025, ready to be enacted if Trump returns to the White House. Estimates are 70 percent of Americans have not heard of it but, thankfully, many are jumping on board to read the 930-page right-wing manifesto and alert the country. That will be another post.
Bill Bolling is correct: this is not the Republican Party of Ronald Reagan. Or even the party of George H.W. Bush or George W. Bush.
My pushback against the party’s anti-everything philosophy under a brash, crude, and unvetted (I’m looking at you, Reince Priebus) candidate began in 2015 when Trump was toying with running for president the first time. I didn’t vote for him then, and have never looked back.
Background:
-Reuters: Europeans alarmed by Trump VP pick Vance’s position to Ukraine aid
-‘Scared to Death’: GOP Security Hawks Slam Vance Selection by Jonathan Martin
-Brookings: Trump Chose Vance to Reinforce His Message
-Cardinal News: Coalfields lawyer authors book that says J.D. Vance is a ‘fake hillbilly’ by Dwayne Yancey
-The Atlantic: The Moral Collapse of J.D. Vance by Tom Nichols
-Business Insider: Republicans could be overlooking a potentially devastating problem with JD Vance
-BBC: Project 2025: A wish list for Trump presidency, explained
