Sequel to (1)
The following portrait of J. D. Vance shows that Trump's running mate, like all populists, is a repository of contradictions. In some areas he is more socialist than Elisabeth Warren, despite severely criticizing the new English Labor government (it happens to be not very socialist) which, according to him, will transform the United Kingdom into the first Islamic State to have nuclear weapons. A false prophecy, because Pakistan already has them, and empty of meaning, typical of those who bring together ignorance, parochialism and radicalism that characterizes Trumpism.
«On economics, Mr Vance is one of the new breed of Republicans who have appropriated Democratic contempt for Wall Street and professed admiration for the working class. He is solicitous of labour unions, but dislikes “Big Labour” (along with “Big Tech” and big business). He has more in common with Elizabeth Warren, a progressive Democratic senator from Massachusetts, than you might expect. Last year he introduced a bill with her that aimed to claw back compensation from bank executives. He once endorsed a German-style proposal for giving workers seats on company boards. He has praised Lina Khan, Mr Biden’s antitrust enforcer and a pariah to Silicon Valley, as “one of the few people in the Biden administration that I think is doing a pretty good job”.
He has made positive sounds about industrial policy, tariffs and expanded tax credits for families. He justifies immigration restrictions by claiming they raise the wages of the native-born. “At the basic conceptual level, he’s in favour of worker power,” says Oren Cass, the founder of American Compass, an outfit that is taking conservative economics in a more populist direction. “Vance is the most distinctive possible choice [for Mr Trump], which shows that the centre of gravity for the Republican Party has permanently shifted.”
On foreign policy, Mr Vance has managed to outdo even Mr Trump in his scepticism towards NATO and opposition to American aid for Ukraine. Mr Trump is often elliptical on Ukraine, claiming that he would somehow settle the conflict in one day. When Volodymyr Zelensky visited Capitol Hill to beg for more military aid and urge Republicans against linking it to extra border funding, Mr Vance criticised the Ukrainian president’s actions as “disgraceful”. “There are a lot of bad guys all over the world, and I’m much more interested in some of the problems in East Asia right now than I am in Europe,” Mr Vance told the Munich Security Conference.
Still, Mr Vance maintains that it is important for America to continue giving military aid to Israel because that, in contrast to Ukraine’s case, has “clear end goals”, including weakening Iran. Like Mr Trump, he is sceptical of America’s capacity to shape the world. At a recent confab of anti-globalists he even fired some shots at America’s closest ally. “I was in London last year, and it’s not doing so good,” he said, before musing that Britain might be the first Islamist country to have nuclear weapons, given Labour’s election victory.
The vice-presidency can be a tragicomic position. And those who drift too close to Mr Trump can find themselves excommunicated or in serious legal trouble. Might Mr Vance wind up similarly sidelined? Two reasons suggest he might not.
First, he has already proved adept at managing up, successfully moving beyond his past publicised worries about Mr Trump as “cultural heroin” and “America’s Hitler”. Such canniness does not just disappear. Second, when Mr Trump became president he was content to delegate policymaking to congressional figures like Paul Ryan, then the speaker of the House, and Mitch McConnell, then the Senate majority leader. His vice-president, Mike Pence, was not a policy maestro. All three were from the old guard. This time he would have not just a sharp vice-president interested in policy, but a Trumpified Congress as well. The speaker of the House if Republicans kept their majority would be deferential to the president. Mr McConnell will be leaving his leadership post.
What began as an insurgent movement within the Republican Party, organised around a cult of personality, has become steadily more mainstream and professionalised. There are now parallel institutions including think-tanks armed with detailed plans for power. Mr Trump and his allies have fostered their own international alliance of like-minded anti-globalists. The next presidential term would be the last for Mr Trump; but it may well not be the last for Trumpism. »
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