Former – and if the polls are correct – future President Donald Trump picked Ohio Senator J.D. Vance as his Vice-Presidential running mate on Monday.
It is far from a bad choice – in fact it is probably a very good one – but why did he pick someone who only about eight years ago called him “reprehensible” and “an opioid of the masses”?
That part is rather simple – Vance is a Marine vet, his upbringing is straight out of Horatio Alger (he went through so many ‘parents’ he took his grandparents name) and going from Appalachia to the Marines to Yale and then Wall Street, and then writing the best seller Hillbilly Elegy about the destruction of “white trash” like him by unemployment and, well, opioids. And even though Trump is notorious for personally disliking facial hair, the beard lends Vance a more “grown-up’ quality (he has a bit of a baby face, in fact).
But that youth is what most likely secured the spot. Trump, with this pick, is playing the long game. He’s willing to forgive some past statements – Vance very much came around to Trump’s way of thinking (not surprising considering the nascent populism of Elegy) and one of the reasons – a big reason – Vance was elected to the Senate in 2022 is because of Trump’s endorsement.
By the way, since Barack Obama went from Senator to President in four years, it’s okay to go from Senator to Vice President in two.
Trump cannot run for re-election and is aware that a large part of his support is personality rather than ideologically based. He knows he needs someone credible to face down the Uniparty Blob of D.C. after he is gone and Vance – at 39 – can do that for the next 40 years, no matter what happens.
The pick is a stick in the eye of the Republican ‘establishment’ in D.C. It’s a way of saying “get ready to be gone forever” if we win.
Like the Democrats, the anti-Trump Republicans have focused on his personality, the chaos, the changes, his general political messiness. Vance is not like that, which will leave the establishment and its deep state enforcers at a loss as to how to go after him.
True, Vance doesn’t “get” Ohio for Trump – he already had that. But Vance brings to the ticket a personal history-seriousness. Trump – for all the money he made (and lost) on his own – couldn’t stop people from noting that he was born into money, even if it was, sneeringly, “new money”. Vance was not.
Vance also appeals to the Trump supporters that may love him but hate the pandemic response he put into place. Vance introduced and worked hard to pass a bill – that even President Biden signed – that banned the federal Department of Transportation from imposing “mask mandates”. The pandemic response was pretty much over by the time it was signed into law, but it showed Vance’s commitment both to personal freedom and questioning the horrible federal overreach involved in the pandemic response.
As for the rest of the potential VP candidates – starting with the reported finalists (the whole Apprentice spin is garbage – every candidate ever has used a similar process) one can expect the following:
- Florida Sen. Marco Rubio continues to grow his power on Capitol Hill, can remain a Senator for life pretty much, and is always available to pinch hit if need be.
- North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum can expect a serious cabinet post if Trump wins, possibly even Treasury.
- Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley will be sent as ambassador to whatever country hates Trump the most. One can almost hear the “Snidely Whiplash” snickering in the background. Listen closely, and you might even hear Muttley, too.
- Vivek Ramaswamy will also end up in the cabinet – Commerce Secretary, anyone? – or have a special consultant advisor job involving some aspect of tech created out of whole cloth for him.
- Ben Carson will continue to serve his country as Secretary of Health and Human Services – what will the nation do without Xavier Bocckarhea? – or Chief of the NIH or some other health-related gig.
- South Carolina Senator Tim Scott will stay exactly where he is, most likely for a long time (his Presidential campaign ran the gamut from smart and emotionally moving to “what the hell?” within minutes of one another).
- New York Congresswoman Elise Stefanik almost certainly wouldn’t have even taken it even if offered as it would cut into her growing power in the House of Representatives.
- Florida Congressman Byron Donalds stays where he is for the time being, especially since he really shouldn’t have been a serious contender – at this point – anyway.
- Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton will, like Rubio, continue to grow in stature in the Senate. And if the New York Times starts printing the facts again, he may even send them another op-ed or two.
- Former Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard was my wildcard pick for the gig. A woman, not even a Republican (but no longer a Democrat) and the most closely aligned to Trump’s foreign policy of the bunch, she could have been very interesting. Expect to see her in the cabinet.
So this fall, we will have a Trump/Vance ticket. Seems pretty strong and it has – I say this as a person who has run for office and designed campaign material and such before – another big advantage. They both have five letters in their name:
TRUMP
VANCE
Fits perfectly on a sign.
Thomas Buckley is the former Mayor of Lake Elsinore, California and a former newspaper reporter. Subscribe to his Substack here.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
How about this on a sign:
adVance
Trump
He also said this about the UK now Labour are in charge, lol. He’s not wrong. I didn’t know he wrote that movie though. It was really good, if you’ve not already seen it;
“What is the first truly Islamist country to get a nuclear weapon? Maybe it’s Iran, maybe Pakistan already kind of counts. Then we finally decided maybe it’s actually the UK since Labour took over.”
https://x.com/DaveAtherton20/status/1813113980275065078
Yes, I liked that comment which, whilst it may strictly-speaking not be true its certainly the direction we’re heading in. Various Labour Ministers have had some extremely vicious things to say about Trump, it’s good to see some kicking back …. and they’re going to have to eat their words if they want the “special relationship” to be maintained.
This shows that Trump is willing to forgive, which is an admirable quality.
More than forgiving I think the admirable quality is pragmatism as opposed to taking things too personally. Perhaps his narcissism is being kept in check a bit at present.
I don’t see any evidence for Narcissism in Trump. Vanity, yes. Narcissism no.
Well you probably know more than I do – what’s the difference?
It’s hard to imagine a more ridiculous statement.
I do like Trump but he doesn’t like being criticised. Remember watching him in a meeting and some dude making himself heard, you could see Trump fighting his inner rage LOL.
Who does like being criticised? Its perfectly normal to not like it!
I didn’t know much about him until now, but it seems the usual cast of characters are lining up to start the demonising process on the way to declaring him Vice-Hitler, so clearly he was the right pick and a good bloke.
Good article thanks. Don’t know anything about Vance but I do love the Appalachian hillbilly-marine-ivy league-wall street-journey. Quite a travel. 39 is young, but like you said, playing the longue duree.
If the election is fair, Vance/Drumpf win 45 states and ~ 65% of the vote. 160 million are registered to vote. Apparently in 2020 the turnout was 95%, a little above the historical average of ~65%. I guess Rona satisfied one of its major objectives.
See that Vance wants to end the WW3 warmup conflict in the Uketopia as the Americans attempt to take over the country and its purported $10 trillion in mineral/natural wealh https://www.rt.com/news/601128-ukraine-trump-vance-china/
Undemocrats have made cancelling Uke funding an impeachment probability for Drumpf/Vance in their first year. This is called a ‘thriving democracy’.
Off-T
https://order-order.com/
Gething has gone. I think we are back to where we started aren’t we – the first ministers of the Home Nations are now all stupid whiteys as opposed to thick sun tans?
He is against abortion even when the woman’s life is in danger and thinks that women should stay in abusive marriages “for the sake of the children’.
As a convert to Catholicism he seems to be a bit of a zealot, I don’t find that reassuring.
Sounds like Islam would be more up his street! I didn’t know a thing about him, to be honest. But if those two facts you state are true then he’s an out and out misogynist so I wouldn’t go near him with a barge pole. But people always put their shiniest, most appealing selves forward to the public so possibly these facts about him aren’t so well known.
Maybe find out a bit more before tarring him with the old ‘M’ word, eh.?. He is permitted to have his opinions about things, as we all are.
Anyone who thinks women should stay in relationships that are abusive or should avoid an abortion even if their life is in danger is an actual misogynist, end of. Whether those things are true, no idea, maybe ask your namesake. You don’t like MY opinion? Maybe take your own advice and ”shove it up your arse”. That clear enough?
Until you hear him say that I don’t think you should condemn him just yet eh?
Did you miss the part where I say, ”But if those two facts you state are true…”? As in, I’m not going to automatically jump right in and take something that somebody posts online without a source to support their statement as *irrefutable proof*. As in, anybody who would think those things about women is absolutely a misogynist but it’s quite possible this label does not apply to this dude, that I’ve not even heard of until now. This is probably why it’s always best practice that, if you’re going to assert things or say ”he/she said this”, then it’s always best to back that up with supporting evidence.
I hope that clarifies my position for you. I’m not condemning anyone and best not to misconstrue my posts in order to accuse me of doing so, eh?
Not true.
“On July 7, Vance told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he supported mifepristone “being accessible.” Mifepristone is used alongside misoprostol in abortions before 10 weeks of pregnancy.”
He converted to Catholicism because his Upper Caste Hindu wife persuaded him to convert, though she herself did not, but no doubt will further down the line, like so many others.
You could well be right but he seems to have change his opinions to suit the moment. Perhaps he’s on a journey, I guess all our opinions change over time.
From the Washington Post in 2021 https://archive.is/Q7QLp
I don’t know anything about him but I think it too early to start throwing stones. I’ll wait to see how he shapes up.
I’ll get excited when they start cutting back the government and state bureaucracy. And by that I mean the money going to it.
All the state’s power comes from all the money it confiscates from all of us and then uses to control us and accrue ever more power. Take away the money and away goes the fuel to create regulations and, more importantly, to enforce them.
I hope I am wrong but here is my prediction – a very measurable, verifiable one. The US Federal budget will continue to increase under Trump. i.e. nothing will really change.
After all is said and done, he’ll try to sell to us the amazing job he’s done and how things have never been better. But that one metric will tell us exactly what he will have accomplished.
True though he may still represent a significant improvement over Biden – on immigration for example. Small government seems to be a lost cause – only a few nutters like us seem to care.
I’m expecting more decision making to be returned to each state, so state activities in DC will contract, like dissolving the federal Dept. of Education, and national coordination/statistics centres for resources, like oil and farming, will move to where their activities operate, instead of all being in the NY – DC corridor.
And, hopefully, some, but not all, Military will return to defend their homeland. And they could do with having a few more diplomats, that is, diplomatic diplomats around.
Let’s hope so
Look closer, and see that the working class Marine veteran with a strong Protestant upbringing married a wealthy Upper Caste Hindu Indian lawyer, Usha Chilukuri, who once worked for two Catholic US Supreme Court Justices, and persuaded Vance to convert to Catholicism, like so many politicians are suddenly converting to Catholicism, part of the planned Global Goddess Religion, into which the Hindu Moon Goddess of Death Kali-Allah will fit perfectly. When asked in which faith they will raise their three offspring, she implied that there will be a kind of mixture.
If Drumpf is elected, Vance will be only the second Catholic Vice-President in US history, after Joe Biden. Drumpf’s Slovenian Communist wife Melania is also Catholic. Vance is tied to ‘Catholic integralism,’ an ideology that seeks Catholic influence over society. Thinkers in the movement herald the importance of a Catholic “strategic adviser” to people in power.
So keep your eyes on the Upper Caste Hindu woman, yet another wealthy Third World female married to an Ethnic European man they hope will catapult them into power, like Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke, Aayan Hirsi Ali, Candace Owen, Priti Patel, Suella Braverman, Nikki Haley, and now Usha Chilukuri.
Hirsi Ali has exposed much of Islam and ended having to ‘escape’ Europe that she thought was a safe haven from Islam.
As Dutch people discovered, she’s a total fraud, a con-artist adept at saying whatever people want to hear. She left the Netherlands because her Dutch citizenship was revoked because of her blatant lies, and she was forced to resign as a Dutch MP.
“In May 2006, the Dutch TV programme Zembla reported that Hirsi Ali had given false information about her name, her age, and her country of residence when originally applying for asylum.”
“Contrary to Hirsi Ali’s claims of having fled a Somali war zone, the Dutch MP had been living comfortably in upper middle-class conditions safely in Kenya with her family for at least 12 years before she sought refugee status in the Netherlands in 1992.”
Then in the US, she demonstrated her defence of “women’s rights” by committing adultery and getting pregnant to steal a British woman’s Ethnic European husband, forcing him to marry her.
Just like that Fake Refugee from a wealthy Kenyan family, Lillian Seenoi-Barr, who fraudulently wheedled her way into Northern Ireland, married an Ethnic European man, and is now the Mayor of a small town there, boasting that she is the “first black mayor”. Then she posed with her wealthy Kenyan family, including her brother who is a Senator in Kenya. She decided to show him that women could do better, by gaining political office in the West. She didn’t need “asylum”— she needs the boot for fraud.
Also, Hirsi Ali never exposed anything about Islam that wasn’t already well known in the West, thanks to courageous researchers like Bruce Bawer, The Gates of Vienna, Fjordman, Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch, and many others, including The Religion of Peace.com
Islam: The Politically Incorrect Truth (thereligionofpeace.com)
So he was against Masks, good, and what about the death jab?
Remember Drumpf’s “Operation Warp Speed” and his chosen favourite Death Jabber Fauci?
I will be generous to Trump as he was lead up the garden path not just by Fauci, but a lesser known Deborah Birx.
https://rumble.com/v4iuf0l-it-wasnt-fauci-how-the-deep-state-really-played-trump.html?playlist_id=watch-history
Trump mentioned Hydroxychloroquine, but the Media’s steamroller rolled on, with misinformation:https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshuacohen/2024/01/07/trump-promoted-hydroxychloroquine-to-treat-covid-19-a-drug-now-linked-to-17000-deaths
And here’s a better understanding:
https://rumble.com/v361k2g-hydroxychloroquine-the-curious-tale..html
Alex Jones comments on X are ominous. Prayers for Trump, Musk, Tucker and anyone else who is a threat to the globalists. Trump’s assination attempt incompetence or an inside job?