Donald Trump’s unforced error
Let me be clear on Donald Trump. I am a never-Trump guy, I never liked him. I would sooner vote for a dog than Trump. Trump is a liar. He’s America’s Hitler.
Wouldn’t you agree? Well you’re not just agreeing with me. You’re agreeing with someone else. You see, I was just quoting JD Vance. I was paraphrasing what JD Vance — Trump’s new pick for his running mate — said in 2016. I was quoting what JD Vance really thinks of Trump, not what he’s telling everybody today that he thinks.
In other words, like Lindsay Graham, Ted Cruz, Mitch McConnell and dozens of others, JD Vance knows exactly who and what Donald Trump is. But one day he did something I or you or most sane people would never do. He pretended he never said any of that. He pretended instead that Donald Trump was the greatest thing for America since Abe Lincoln. He saw the advantage, the recognition, the downright personal political opportunity he’d gain by cynically pretending to come around to the MAGA point of view.
What’s more, JD Vance is Mike Pence 2.0. Another white boy yes-man who’s willing to be stupid and compliant in the name of MAGA conformity, political gain and blind obeisance to the convicted felon Trump. And it just might cost Trump the election.
Trump’s big mistake in picking Vance is that he thinks he can win by using the same formula he used to win in 2016. But in 2016 he didn’t need anyone to help him. He could pick a place-holding vanilla nobody like Pence because back then Trump was the whole show and that show was brand new. This time he needs all the help he can get, and by picking Vance he’ll lose nobody in the seething, drooling MAGA claque. But Vance isn’t not going to help him gain anybody either.
Trump had women and people of colour to choose from, which also would have been okay for MAGA, or at least tolerated by MAGA. Either way their votes would count the same. But a woman or person of colour or both might have helped him make marginal gains among low-information, undecided voters. Vance will be no help there. He’s just another Pence, he’s just more gallows fodder.
What’s more, Vance is a full-on evangelical Christian, and as such he’s taken onboard its most radical anti-abortion tenets. He has no mercy for rape victims or incest victims, believes in no exceptions for instances where pregnancy puts the mother’s life in danger. He wants to force all of them to carry their unwanted packages to term, no matter what. In other words, he is just another unqualified, inadequate white boy telling women what to do with their bodies.
In all other ways, Vance is “a clone of Trump on the issues,” as President Joe Biden put it. He is in lockstep with the man he once called Hitler. He thinks Project 2025 is just fine.
Of late Vance has been caught deleting old tweets confirming what he used to think of Trump. Unfortunately for Vance, those tweets have been archived and are available to all. The interviews where Vance severely criticises Trump are still available. They could prove a major problem for the Trump candidacy.
Vance, who was born James Donald Bowman, then later changed his name to James David Hamel, then in 2011 (finally?) changed his name to JD Vance, is a practised chameleon. He will be whatever the convicted felon tells him to be, whatever the convicted felon needs him to be.
With the assassination attempt of Trump already fading from the headlines, with Trump’s ham-fisted attempt to showcase himself as hero after first diving behind the lectern then, thinking better of it, later fist-pumping the air, with a very safe and cowardly pick for Veep, with Biden’s age and debate performance fading into the past, things are returning to normal. Or what passes for it in these wild times.
Trump has just ensured that the times also stay boring, and his running mate choice will help to ensure that a deadly torpor settles over his campaign. His unforced error in picking Vance is going to hurt him, and I think we should do everything we can to make sure that hurt is exploited to maximum. Or at least, as Napoleon so aptly put it, “Never interrupt an enemy when he’s making a mistake.” And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe. Donate
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.