As oft noted, Donald Trump is one of the most predictable people in the world. Most people of limited intellect are and it comes as zero shock to anybody that Trump is building up the suspense to his VP pick like it was an episode of The Apprentice. That’s what he knows how to do, is sleazy television. Trump found his true calling in sleazy television. His TV work was the only honest, lucrative income that the man ever made. Everything else Trump turned his hand to was a disaster and ended up in financial ruin and bankruptcy. But not The Apprentice. That ran for 14 years and gave Trump a national profile — and then he coopted the Republican party into his own reality TV show based on his fantasy of being president and you know the rest.
Now the Republican National Convention begins in Milwaukee in a few days. And of course the burning question on all minds is, “Who will be Trump’s VP pick?” I say J.D. Vance. I would be willing to take bets on this. Why am I so sure? A number of reasons, but foremost amongst them is that Vance has become such a toxic mouthpiece for Trump. Trump needs a toxic, ugly voice because that’s the tone of this election going forward. Mark.My.Words.
Plus, Donald Trump, Jr. is a Vance man and that doesn’t hurt. Junior went out of his way recently to say that he hoped that Marco Rubio was not the pick and Rubio presents other logistical problems, because he and Trump are both Floridians. Rubio (or Trump, I guess) would have to have a different domicile. Maybe it would simply be easier for Trump to register to vote in New Jersey.
Doug Burgum doesn’t bring a lot to the ticket except a kind of central casting aspect of looking like a VP candidate. And that’s a big deal to Trump. He only thinks in terms of TV and images and so if you look the part you’ll probably get the part, if he’s the casting director. Whether you can do the job is of little import because he can’t do the job he’s seeking to obtain, so why should competence be a factor, right? The Hill:
“I have some really, really good candidates. And you know, I may be leaning one way and that changes sometimes,” Trump said Friday. “You know, all of a sudden you see something that you like or you don’t like and you lean a little bit differently.
“It’s like a highly sophisticated version of The Apprentice if you think about it,” he added.
There has been some speculation that Trump could announce his pick on Saturday night at a rally in Butler, Pa. The rally is happening less than 50 miles from Ohio, making it a natural place for Trump to potentially introduce Vance as his running mate.
Chatter that the first-term Ohio senator will be the pick has ramped up in recent days in light of the Pennsylvania rally and after it was announced that Donald Trump Jr., who has advocated for Vance as his father’s running mate, will speak at the convention ahead of the vice presidential nominee.
Vance’s allies praise him as the most articulate voice in Congress in laying out Trump’s America First agenda, and he has shown a willingness to do combative television interviews to defend the former president. He is close with Donald Trump Jr. and Tucker Carlson, among others in Trump’s orbit, and his Rust Belt upbringing could help him win over working class voters in key battlegrounds.
The emphasis here is on the “combative television interviews.” That’s what I’m referring to when I describe Vance as a toxic mouthpiece. Vance is the Voice Of MAGA Ugly. We could do a movie, The Ugly MAGAmerican, and J.D. Vance would be the perfect choice for the lead. He has become that person. J.D. Vance is what an intelligent, self-made man who got through law school at Yale becomes when he drinks the MAGA kool-aide. So get ready, this is where this is going, unless I totally misread the tea leaves.
The downside of Vance is that he did call Trump “noxious” and an “idiot” during the 2016 campaign. So that will have to be explained away somehow, but I’m sure a way will be found. It’s also been pointed out that Vance has served less than two years in the Senate but that’s actually an advantage. The entire premise of Trump and MAGA is that government is a do-it-yourself project, where amateurs like Trump can come in at the highest level and run the show. So Vance fits right in. He has the advantage of the right education at least, and some basic intelligence, but his knowledge of government is sparse.
That’s how it’s going to shape up, friends. Unless, as I say, I misread the tea leaves. But as of Saturday, July 13, that’s how I see it going down in two days.
Too bad he doesn’t have to resign his Senate seat to run.
Why? Because once they’re installed, vonshitznpants either gets the 25 Amendment or polonium in his cheeberder and Vance becomes the new shitler.
I’ve had a sneaking hunch ever since his book was made into a movie that Vance was being groomed as a Manchurian style candidate, something about seems really off. If Trump chooses him and wins I don’t think he’ll survive to the end of his term.
“Rubio (or Trump, I guess) would have to have a different domicile. Maybe it would simply be easier for Trump to register to vote in New Jersey.”
No, not really. The 12th Amendment simply demands that the ELECTORS vote for a candidate for President and for Vice-President, ONE OF WHOM must not reside in the electors’ state. I’m guessing that, if worst comes to worst, Rubio will accept the “humiliation” of Florida’s electors casting their votes for some other person (if the electors dared to vote for someone other than Trump as President, their names are a matter of public record and I can safely presume that their homes would be protested–at the VERY least–if they didn’t all find themselves in some kind of unfortunate “accident”).
And, if I thought that Trump had the slightest notion that Rubio would not be selected by his own home state electors, Trump would deliberately pick Rubio just to watch his former rival for the Presidential nomination endure that sort of public humiliation.
I agree with you–this is the guy I have been focused on for quite some time. He is slicker than snot on a brass doorknob, too facile by far, too ambitious to settle for VP position, and with a few of the other commenters, I think too he or somehow someone/something else will orchestrate a way to take out the uncontrollable orange monster before he wrecks their dream of a takeover of the administrative state to allow them to mold it into their own new reich.