I made the comment back when Trump/Pence became the GOP ticket in 2016 that it sounded like a tire blow out. Just remember the last time you hit a nail or something on the road. There was a sharp thump and then a hiss. And that’s what Trump/Pence sounded like to me. Now it’s Trump/Vance. I guess that goes to show the wisdom of the adage, “the more things change, the more they are the same.” The key difference in the ticket, however, is that pundits are saying that Vance would do what Pence would not, which is to refuse to certify an election. And that in fact may be the case. What we do know for sure, is that Vance is pure MAGA. Trump made no effort, despite all his talks about unity, to get any old school GOPer on the ticket. He went for Vance. And this signals, according to some Republicans, the complete MAGAfornication of the Republican party.
When Trump chose Mike Pence in 2016, it signaled his recognition that many traditional conservatives and evangelical Christians weren’t convinced that they were getting what they wanted from Trump and needed reassurance. With Vance, there’s no broadening of appeal; Trump is rejecting the idea that it’s needed.
The selection of Vance — a few weeks before his 40th birthday! — is a declaration that if Trump wins, the Republican Party will remain fervently nationalist and populist for many years to come.
Ohio is looking redder and redder, so this doesn’t change the electoral college map much, unless the Trump team thinks Vance helps him with blue-collar White voters in the Rust Belt, especially in the critical swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.
But Trump is already the embodiment of populist, working-class “retribution”; he shouldn’t need a running mate who emphasizes those traits. If there are Americans who weren’t sure they wanted another round of Trump but will jump on the bandwagon now that Vance has been named, they’re few and far between.
Vance was chosen because he can and will spew the MAGA vile and that’s what Trump wants. All this chit chat about “unity” is strictly that, it is hot air. Trump wants MAGA to succeed. He has picked a MAGA successor. And the old GOP is officially dead, folks. It is being buried in Milwaukee, may it rest in peace, this week. MAGA is alive and kicking and that’s what’s running for office in the fall.
It’s red meat and firebombs, from now until November.
On foreign policy, the selection of Vance offers no reassurance to nervous U.S. allies. Vance famously quipped during a February 2022 appearance on Stephen K. Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, “I gotta be honest with you, I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another.” He later backtracked and declared Russian President Vladimir Putin “is the bad guy” and “we want the Ukrainians to be successful,” but it’s fair to wonder how much Vance means it.
If America puts this ticket in office, we are done. The America we grew up in is no more. And Ukraine already knows it. NATO already knows it. President Macron of France, long before this development today, began talking to NATO nations about “not relying on the American electorate,” but rather Europe taking measures to defend herself. The geopolitical picture could drastically shift come November. The entire world knows what is riding on this election. Do we?
If that happens then we need to follow Ukrainians example. They didn’t lie down passively for evil and neither should we.
I was only half joking when earlier I commented in a different article here that now that Vance is officially the GOP Veep candidate Trump should have a food tester on hand whenever Vance is around. Fredo 1 and Fredo 2 (Don Jr. & Eric) would suit Trump just fine. He doesn’t care if one or both dies as long as HE doesn’t get poisoned by Vance! Make no mistake. Vance wants to be the guy sitting behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. Trump’s old and in bad health to begin with and it’s far from a given HE would live through a second term. Something journalists have ignored all year long and have pointedly ignored since the debate I might add.
However if Trump makes it back in changes will come about that virtually ensure not only no Democrat, but no non-hard-core MAGA will get elected again. What we’ll devolve into remains to be seen but as you say, and as my father predicted would eventually happen back in the late 70s when he foresaw the rise of Reagan and what it would lead to we will live out our lives under a different form of government. And maybe decades from now people will rise up and we’ll have an open rebellion, one in which enough of the armed forces will stand down rather than follow orders to engage in mass killings of their fellow…well I don’t know what people will be then. Serfs like in centuries long past? And if somehow a recovery from the MAGAzation of this country and the world takes place, somewhere records of this era will have been hidden away and found. And they will look back at us, both those who wrecked the country and world, as well as those of us who no matter how hard we fought couldn’t figure out how to win. We will be viewed with equal measures of wonder and contempt.
I’m not giving up and neither should any fellow progressives or indepdendents who might not like us all that much but rightly fear Trump and MAGA. We CAN win but it will take everything we’ve got. Like my parents generations, the WII generation we all have to be in in together doing any and everything we can. That’s what it took to save the world back then and it’s what is required of us now.
We need a strong grass roots effort to remind the members of Congress and the Senate and our fellow despisers of orange jeebus that the country and the world stand to lose everything if he is elected. I’m not sure we as a party are up to it. Hell, there are NO signs nor ads for ANY Democrat in my area, and there won’t be until a few weeks before the election – far too late to do any good. But we need to let people know that this unity crap is just that – a steaming pile of crap. And President Biden needs Dark Brandon back out on the campaign trail, not cowering in fear that someone will say he’s inciting violence against maga jeebus. We need to get to work!! Remind EVERYONE what is at stake. That hasn’t changed, not one iota.
Amen!
I’m a little tired of the Trump.as populist meme. He has done done jacksh*t for the working class. No more money in their pockets. Wants to destroy Obama care which actually does help them.Telling them education doesn’t matter so they don’t feel.left out and can boo the “elites” by which they means college educated people under crushing amounts of debt.
But he has made it acceptable to hate minorities and women and to force women to bear a child they aren’t ready for and consider anyone but conservative evangelical Christians to be second class Americans who should have fewer rights than good upstanding Biblethumpers. And that seems to be his greatest feat: to turn And against each other just because they aren’t white or Christian enough
Those are not mutually exclusive propositions. If Trump** is elected and dies withon the next four years, Vance would still be the next candidate.