With Vance VP Pick, Trump Looks Past 2024 to a Risky Future

Choosing Vance is not about 2024. It’s not even about 2028. It’s about firmly planting MAGA as the GOP brand and allowing Trump to dictate the direction of the party for decades after he’s gone

When Trump announced somewhat unceremoniously on Truth Social that Ohio Senator J.D. Vance was his new running mate, many were confused. How would picking a neophyte senator from a state that has decisively swung to Trump and holds little cross party appeal help the ticket? 

I’ll admit that I was slightly disappointed with the choice. My gut told me this was unlikely to draw in new voters and would only invigorate Trump’s core supporters, already invigorated by an assassin’s bullet, to vote for him. 

I’m still not entirely convinced by arguments that his veteran status or his Hillbilly Elegy upbringings are going to resonate enough to make a difference. These are absolutely positives for Vance, but I don’t think they’re so magnetic that they’ll pull swing-state voters in Pennsylvania to the MAGA brand. 

When I reflected on the pick more, I came to realize choosing Vance is not about 2024. It’s not even about 2028. It’s about firmly planting MAGA as the GOP brand and allowing Trump to dictate the direction of the party for decades after he’s gone. 

Trump has been given a unique opportunity to define his second term given a near 100% certainty he will get one. 

President Joe Biden is a universally despised candidate. Prior to the assassination attempt, the active news cycle was how his own party was attempting to push him aside for a better chance to win. His approval ratings are in the toilet and he’s putting states that he handily won in 2020, like Virginia, back into play. 

Given that many of the normal criteria for presidents selecting their VP like shoring up weaknesses or winning key battleground states no longer seem to apply, Trump can use his second-in-command slot as more of a long term investment than a short term boost. 

No need for Mike Pence to balance the ticket when you have carte blanche on your protogé. 

And Vance has been building his case to serve as the new MAGA standard bearer for years now. He’s used his two years in the Senate to attack ongoing US aid to Ukraine, pushed for increasing taxes on university endowments, and advocated for various pro-natalist policies. Vance serves as a spirited evangelist for Trump’s populist vision of America. 

Though, Evangelist might not be the best label for Vance. He converted to Catholicism in 2019 which some argue was more of a craven political act than a genuine movement of faith; a way to signal to potential doubters that he spoke their language and had the right values. 

Indeed, some of the fiercest critics of Vance are not on the left, but the right. 

Vance comes off to some as a charlatan. He made his way through Yale Law School to Silicon Valley where he became buddy-buddy with New-Right billionaires like Peter Thiel who spent $15 million to help him win his Senate seat. Initially labeling Trump as an “American Hitler,” Vance seemingly made an about-face when he started thinking about getting into politics. And his positions on abortion range from “100% pro-life” to arguing the abortion drug mifepristone should be accessible. 

Those concerns aside, Trump has decided that Vance will be the MAGA movement’s vanguard when he leaves politics so it’s worth analyzing whether he serves as a good proxy for those goals. 

There is little doubt that Vance is an intelligent and potent interlocutor for the populism he espouses. Reading Hillbilly Elegy, one gets the sense that this is a man who has thought deeply about the issues facing a ravaged Rust Belt, and can effectively speak for those downtrodden. 

But is that all that’s required to be the next leader of the movement? Intelligence and charisma? If the America First movement hopes to survive, it needs an effective executive who can push through key policy goals. 

Vance is untested in this regard. There is potential for him to show he’s up to the task, obviously. Four years in the VP slot is a long time to build a portfolio and I suspect Trump is keen to give Vance opportunities to lead while he serves out his second term basking in MAGA glory. 

But what if, God forbid, he’s not up to it. Four years is a long time to wait for someone better to emerge and it wastes a lot of momentum. 

Thus, the risk is not that Vance will drag Trump down in the 2024 election. The risk is that Vance will cause issues for the GOP down the line. 

Those fears aren’t entirely unwarranted. In an article for UnHerd, Emily Jashinsky quoted a senior GOP strategist as saying “Vance’s last election nearly cost Republicans a US Senate seat and wasted millions of GOP fundraising dollars.” In a state as ruby red and Trumpy as Ohio, that should raise alarm bells. 

Perhaps I’m just fear mongering. Perhaps Vance will rise to the occasion and lead the New Right and MAGA movement into the golden future. I certainly hope he does. 

But I’ll admit that feeling in my gut when I first heard Vance was the pick hasn’t quite faded away. And I doubt it will for years to come.