“Picking JD Vance, the junior senator from Ohio, as his running mate suggests that Donald Trump must be feeling confident about winning the election. Vance is young, relatively inexperienced in electoral politics, and brings very little by way of independent political strength or appeal to the ticket. He does provide two things of value to Trump, however.
The first is that he has spent recent years signalling at every opportunity that as vice president he would be totally loyal to Trump no matter what. Unlike Trump’s previous VP, Mike Pence, Vance would have no qualms about facilitating an effort to have the declared winner of an election he lost. He has also suggested that Trump could and should simply defy court rulings when he sees fit, and encouraged him to carry out mass firings of civil servants while replacing them with 'our people'.
The second is that he is more ideologically committed than any of the other VP possibilities who were in the running to turning ‘Trumpism’ into a dominant agenda for governing in the Republican Party that can outlast the man himself. On a range of issues, from regulation to industrial policy, to trade, to foreign alliances and military commitments, Vance has been a vocal supporter of Trump’s efforts to bury the Reagan-era consensus and move the Republican Party toward protectionism and illiberal nationalism. If elected, Vance will provide those in the party who want to complete its transformation along these lines with a younger and more focused figurehead than the president.
In short, Vance’s selection does little to improve Trump’s chances of being elected. But if he is, it will likely prove a consequential choice for what comes next.”
