Trump’s worst decision
Trump has done so many awful things that it’s hard to single out any one example. But for my money, picking Vance as his VP is his single worst decision. Vance is my least favorite US senator. Picking Vance confirms what I already suspected. The traditional Republican Party is dead—it’s officially the party of nationalism from now on.
PS. Here’s Politico:
“I’m a Never Trump guy,” Vance said in an interview with Charlie Rose in 2016, a clip used in both the new ads. “I never liked him.”
Both ads also feature a screenshot of a Vance tweet from October 2016. “My god what an idiot,” he wrote, referring to Trump.
Vance expressed a similar sentiment in other interviews and since-deleted tweets from that time, including publicly mulling the idea of supporting Hillary Clinton, calling Trump “noxious” and “reprehensible.”
And you guys think I’m deranged. Perhaps Vance’s “reckless rhetoric” motivated that young man in Pennsylvania that shot Trump.
Although Vance is deeply evil, he is a smart guy. I have have no doubt at all that these continue to be his private views of Trump. Vance is no “idiot”.
So here we are. Biden is surrounded by staff that privately think he’s senile, and Trump is surrounded by staff that privately think he’s an idiot:
Update: Here’s Reason:
Vance, a former U.S. Marine and graduate of Yale Law School, has a troubling history of engaging in illiberal rhetoric. He argued on the Senate campaign trail that conservatives should “seize the administrative state” and use it “for our own purposes” rather than trying to roll it back. He floated the idea that a Republican president could simply ignore court rulings he doesn’t like. He called for seizing the assets of nonprofits that promote “woke” ideology and redistributing them to politically favored groups. And he told The American Conservative in 2021 that his voters “hate the right people.”
And here’s that famous Hitler reference that keeps popping up:
“I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole like Nixon who wouldn’t be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he’s America’s Hitler,” he wrote to a friend in February 2016. He ended up voting for independent Evan McMullin.
And here he channels Neville Chamberlain:
“I got to be honest with you, I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another,” Vance told Steve Bannon in an interview in 2022.
But then you find pearls of wisdom:
“Trump is cultural heroin,” he wrote in a story in The Atlantic. “I think that he’s noxious and is leading the white working class to a very dark place,” he said on NPR.
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15. July 2024 at 13:35
One thing about Vance is that he almost certainly will never outshine Trump. He’s kind of the Republican version of Harris in that regard.
15. July 2024 at 15:31
From a certain economics blog the day after the 2020 election:
“Early in the evening I was rooting for a Biden win. But when I saw how close the election was, I wondered if we’d be better off with a Trump win. That would mean at most 8 years of Trump, then we get the virus out of our system.
Now with a “stolen election” we face a scenario where Trump returns in 2024 (possibly from jail, just as Napoleon returned from Elba) and runs against an old and likely unsuccessful Democratic president, who disappointed his supporters by being unable to get anything through the Senate. Or perhaps against a minority woman candidate. Trump will say, “Remember how good you had it in 2019!”
”
That guy was pretty smart!
I guess at this point the best hope is that Trump does exaclty what he says he will: high tariffs, near-zero immigration, tax cuts, and low interest rates. The negative supply shock and positive demand shock would destroy the economy, crash the stock market, and lead to the total destruction of the new republican party. The UK may be one election ahead of the US.
15. July 2024 at 15:33
Well Scott for once, you and I are fully in lockstep on something. Trump just gave my vote to RFK Jr. Same reason he lost my general vote last time, Pence.
15. July 2024 at 15:52
Vance graduated from Yale Law? And wrote an article for The Atlantic?
Odd fellow.
In my own view, Putin and Hamas must be crushed.
But I guess there is a libertarian argument that geopolitics outside of the US is none of our business.
15. July 2024 at 16:18
BTW, Trump’s fist-pumping to the crowd after having part of his right ear shot off by an assassin was the greatest US political theater in the post-war era.
Give credit where credit is due. Trump, having escaped death by an inch, gave a spontaeous, heartening and rousing performance.
I will still vote for RFK2.
15. July 2024 at 16:26
not a marine, not summa grad, not yale law, not a senator. why do we credit anything sumner says. oh, his film reviews are 20% good. the manque in all, wishes he was perseus, but is sinon.
15. July 2024 at 16:36
Always the same talking points.
Tariffs = nationalism.
Borders = nationalism.
Questioning the competency and efficacy of NATO and other top-down, Rejecting unelected suprnationals = nationalism.
Rejecting DEI = nationalism.
Rejecting globalism = nationalism.
Farting = nationalism.
Those worn out political slogans are getting rather old. Not every populist is Adolf Hitler. It is a double-edged sword. It’s fine to be wary of populism. Populism can descend into mob-rule, but it can also be a force of good, overthrowing elitist, out-of-touch, thugs. Jackson, Roosevelt (both), Lincoln, Kenendy, Reagan, Washington, Jefferson, Adams — all populists. None of them were Hitler.
Your ilk has ignored the working class for fifty years. Your trade agreements are not free trade. Free trade, Scott, as I told you many times doesn’t require an agreement. Economic zones are not capitalist; they are anti-free market tools, designed to centralize power. And the Fed has done more harm than good. At the very least, Americans should be able to audit the Fed, and you should not be able to print money whenever you feel like it. This is precisely why decentralization of currency will win the battle. It’s only a matter of time.
RFK jr. is also a great choice, although remember that his vice presidential pick is not that great either; she sponsored radical prosecutors. She’s deeply connected to the radical George Soros.
She claims to be “empathetic” while her thugs in Oakland roam and rampage in broad daylight. Empathy can be a disease. Beware of pity!!!!!
15. July 2024 at 17:08
Like Vance, I wasn’t a Trump guy either in 2016, but he won me over.
I would have preferred Rubio, but constitutionally that was a major hurdle (Florida residency).
Also agree with everything said on RFK jr. Pro’s and Con’s have to be weighed for both. Dems not on my radar until they unwoke themselves and end their racist DEI campaign.
15. July 2024 at 17:42
OMG. Are you really so dumb that you think calling someone an idiot, noxious and reprehensible is the same as calling them Hitler? Do you really not see the difference?
15. July 2024 at 17:45
I’m surprised by the amount of cannon fire you’re directing at Vance. He’s basically just a pasty-faced idiot who couldn’t complete an obstacle course on Parris Island in under 10 seconds. His opportunism and flip-flopping is standard; he probably learned that from Lindsey Graham.
The main thing he’ll deliver to Trump is loyalty–but for how long?
15. July 2024 at 18:32
“Although Vance is deeply evil, he is a smart guy. I have have no doubt at all that these continue to be his private views of Trump. Vance is no “idiot”.”
Would you rather Trump have picked a true believer?
15. July 2024 at 20:14
Scott,
I agree with you on this one. Disappointing choice. A clever one with similar politics would have been Tulsi Gabbard. A moderate one, Glenn Youngkin.
Unfortunately, I also plan to sit this election out. The assassination attempt seems to be strongly tending toward severe incompetence by the USSS. The FTC looks completely dysfunctional. Lots of other cases where whole departments seem to be struggling not just a few bad point policy failures.
I don’t know if this is just generational-change incompetence or a lack of seriousness in Biden’s inner circle and his process for picking department heads, but we are not on the right track as a country.
15. July 2024 at 21:13
Vance wrote a book entitled “Hillbilly Elegy”.
I had to look up the word “elegy” and it means something like “lamentation for the dead”.
I am always impressed by people who use words I do not know, especially if they are small words.
This may not be a reason to vote for Vance, but the guy seems way too classy for Trump.
15. July 2024 at 22:08
Vance is scary because he is smart, articulate, and competent. He actually has a chance to do all the bad things that Trump just talks about. He did more than just “float” the idea that presidents can disregard Supreme Court rulings. He flat out stated, “That’s the way the Constitution works,” that the president can disregard the Court’s “illegitimate” rulings [https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/jd-vance-defends-trump-claims-invoking-jean-carroll/story?id=106925954]. By that logic, Biden could order the federal marshals to go into states that outlaw abortion to defend abortion clinics, if Biden viewed the Court’s ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade as “illegitimate”.
In the same interview above, Vance said that, if he were VP in Trump’s first term, he would have brought in “multiple slates of electors” from states like “Pennsylvania, Georgia, and so many others” and had “Congress [fight] over it from there.” That’s what he called the “legitimate way” to handle the 2020 election.
Vance is like Steve Bannon except, instead of throwing verbal bombs for talk radio ratings, Vance is smooth and charismatic enough to navigate Congress and go on mainstream media. Picking Vance might be Trump’s “worst decision” from a Freedom and Liberty perspective. But, he was probably the “best” choice if Trump truly wants to make his nationalist-populist-authoritarian vision a reality, unfortunately. Unlike Trump, Vance is no buffoon.
16. July 2024 at 04:46
Scott: the simple explanation is that after a term of OBidenism, Vance realized, as have even many monetary economists [gasp! no! yes!], that Trump is currently the lesser of the two evils; that the OBiden evil is by far the worse of the two and must be countered immediately; and that OBiden and most of his accolytes are just stupendous morons (rent control? I mean, did this guy even graduate kindergarten?).
I do find it amusing to analyze the top brass of the Dumocrat party. On the one hand you have gym teachers who were so lame even at that that they never even had a job doing that (Patty Murray) and on the other hand Valedictorians Against Free Speech (Klobuchar) and yet on the third hand recovered glue sniffing addict populists like AOC (OK, probably not true but something really bad must have happened to her brain to make her so stupid). Giving these people power is like putting society in the toilet and flushing it.
Maga >>> BLM.
16. July 2024 at 05:14
Can you explain why you dislike Vance, if you believe he privately disapproves of Trump? I feel like I’m missing something.
16. July 2024 at 05:19
He is a former Marine. Therefore, more of a man than you have ever been. Semper Fi!
16. July 2024 at 05:37
At this point I think your blog would be better if you disabled the comments entirely.
16. July 2024 at 05:40
“Vance is my least favorite US senator.”
Sumner, you cannot possibly be serious. I think Vance is about average to slightly above average for a Republican. I suspect you’d like Coach Tuberville even less.
16. July 2024 at 05:44
@Steve: Not really, he was a REMF who wrote puff pieces for Stars and Stripes as well as ran interference for the civilian press and celebrities / USO. It’s where he made his contacts and learned propaganda and self promotion, something the Marines excel at given they are generally useless outside jobs nobody wants like honor or embassy guards. Let’s quit pretending he was storming the beaches of Iowa Jima or anywhere else for that matter.
16. July 2024 at 05:59
“What sort of things would boost the living standards of workers? Cutting health care from 18% to 9% of GDP.”
Sumner; I have to disagree on this one; the problem with American health care is that it is not easy to get health care. Simply cutting health care expenditures won’t solve that; the important thing is to increase supply.
16. July 2024 at 06:05
Vance is basically another authoritarian tech bro from the Thiel/Musk/etc tribe who thinks he’s much smarter than he is and who openly flirts with some pretty disgusting ideas. There’s a decent chance that he meant ‘America’s Hitler’ as a compliment. Hardly a surprising choice, but certainly a sad one.
Worth noting that the only company whose board he served on (AppHarvest) went spectacularly bankrupt: https://www.barchart.com/stocks/quotes/APPH/interactive-chart
16. July 2024 at 08:30
@ Scott
In what way is he “deeply evil”?
16. July 2024 at 10:37
Vance is an excellent suck up, the key trait needed for a Trump VP, or really any of his appointees. As someone noted he is a younger Lindsey Graham. He will take any position needed to secure his career. (I think his beliefs about freely embracing authoritarian tactics and ignoring the rule of law comes from the internal debate on the right spearheaded by the Christian nationalists who believe that they have God’s blessing to carry out their agenda. )
Steve
16. July 2024 at 10:45
LOL, The Sara/Edward/Ricardo centaur claims to favor free markets and oppose Marxism. Have you guys checked out Vance’s views on capitalism? And you think I’m a Marxist!
Alexander, The problem is not his views of Trump, which are accurate, it’s his policy views, which are abhorrent.
Jon, You said, “The assassination attempt seems to be strongly tending toward severe incompetence by the USSS.”
Check out the history of previous assassinations. In one case, federal agents helped the assassin buy her gun. This is nothing new.
Todd, I dislike Vance’s policy views and his ethics (or lack thereof). I agree with his view of Trump.
Tom, BC’s comment is a good place to start, but there’s lots more.
16. July 2024 at 11:21
Reason has some of the best reporting on Vance:
https://reason.com/2023/05/18/the-post-liberal-authoritarians-want-you-to-forget-that-private-companies-have-rights/?utm_medium=reason_email&utm_source=roundup&utm_campaign=reason_brand&utm_content=Grand%20Old%20Populists&utm_term=&time=July%2016th,%202024&mpid=287666
16. July 2024 at 11:37
Another good one:
https://reason.com/2024/07/11/donald-trump-doug-burgum-jd-vance-marco-rubio/?utm_medium=reason_email&utm_source=roundup&utm_campaign=reason_brand&utm_content=Grand%20Old%20Populists&utm_term=&time=July%2016th,%202024&mpid=287666
16. July 2024 at 12:12
“Ever since I read and reviewed his best-selling book, Hillbilly Elegy, and then encountered J.D. Vance personally at a conference, he has struck me as someone truly dangerous. Unlike Trump, who broadcasts lunatic views that rally the faithful but scare off traditional Republicans and swing voters, Vance has a gift for dressing up equally extreme ideas in the idiom of serious intellectual discourse. Unlike Trump, who revels in being a prick, Vance in person is a nice guy.”
https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2024-07-15-trumps-vp-reveal-jd-vance/
17. July 2024 at 09:18
@Will:
While I agree trolls are annoying features of comment sections like this one, it’s easy to just not scroll down below the blog posts, you can pretend they have been disabled and not read them.
(should have said ‘at Will’ instead of using the symbol LOL)