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Notes -
Former President Trump has picked JD Vance to be his running mate.
I must say that this is probably the best pick he could have made if we restrict the selection to just the people on his short list. Vance is the most populist of the potential picks. He has some obvious strengths with a demographic that cost trump his victory in 2020 (white males). The left seems to hate him more than any of the other potentials. He is certainly the most MAGA of the bunch, however it's hard to tell just how mercenary he is. I like that he at least had a life before politics and was a successful person before he came on the scene.
Haley, Rubio, Scott, Burgham, Youngkin. MAGA sees them all as neocon swamp creatures. They were the more moderate choices that would have put the VP just one more assassination attempt away from getting things back to business as usual.
There is a lot to digest here. Trumps statements since Saturday indicate that he wants to run on a Peace, Unity, and Love platform. I think this is a great idea, especially with Vance as VP. He should offer the country an opportunity to unite on his (our, MAGA) terms. It would be a tricky thing to pull off and Trump would need some softer language and a perfect delivery, but I think it's do-able. Let the left reject the call. Trump is perhaps in a unique position to pull this off right now. Vance gives him cover to do this.
It's also been said that VP picks rarely or minimally affect the race. I tend to think that is true which also is a reason to double down on MAGA with Vance. If its not going to be that important to the vote count, might as well go for someone that is ideologically aligned.
I don't love the pick. Vance used to call Trump xenophobic and anti-Muslim only to about-face on immigration and many other issues once it was time to run for Senate and change his views so he could win the election. He did not even vote for Trump in 2016!
For instance, here is an except from a 2016 National Review article by Vance:
"The institutional offshoots of this peculiar moment have monopolized the conversation. Donald Trump is the voice of poor white America. The Black Lives Matter movement is the voice of dispossessed blacks and their sympathizers. Yet if these voices have monopolized the conversation, they certainly haven’t monopolized the good ideas. Trump’s policies, such as they are, offer little substance to those suffering from addiction, joblessness, and downward mobility. And the Black Lives Matter movement, focused primarily on police violence, cannot alone address the full spectrum of problems faced by the black underclass."
But we're supposed to believe that this guy is suddenly a populist? I'm not sure that Vance's "change of heart" is anything but opportunism.
That resonates with me, I used to buy the media narratives on Trump as well.
“You used to say bad things about Trump” is going to be true for a lot of Trump voters in this election.
If anything, a former never-Trumper who has just been so disgusted by the dems that he's reluctantly come around to MAGA seems like the exact thing Trump should want in a running mate. This whole election seems to be dominated by that vibe, and I know A LOT of disaffected centrists who are planning on holding their noses and voting for Trump for the first time in November.
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