Ad-Vance Notice
In terms of increasing votes, Trump’s pick of JD Vance doesn’t make much sense. He’s a senator from a currently red state (where he didn’t perform as well as much of his cohort). He’s extreme on issues like abortion where Trump is trying to soften the message. He’s been strikingly critical of Trump in the past. He once called him a ‘moral disaster,’ and possibly ‘America’s Hitler.’ As I said yesterday, with the pick of JD Vance, Trump locks up the already committed angry white males who have nothing to be angry about vote. So what gives? Dan Pfeiffer explains what goes into picking a VP candidate and why Trump (with a big push from his top funders) chose this one. It’s not about running the election. It’s about running the country. “Donald Trump does not give two shits about governing. He’d likely struggle to explain how a bill becomes a law or distinguish between an executive order and a presidential memorandum. His knowledge of the responsibilities of the cabinet agencies under his administration would likely be lacking as well. However, Trump picked Vance for the same reasons George W. Bush picked Cheney — someone who has the smarts and know-how to implement the MAGA agenda. Trump may not even know this is why he picked Vance, but it’s why so many people behind Project 2025 supported Vance’s appointment.” Trump Picked Vance to Make Project 2025 a Reality.
+ The growing economic divide has created a fertile environment for a troubling but familiar political reality. Those at the top are able to use their breathtaking spending power to fire up feverish populism among those who feel they’ve been disregarded (or worse) by the elite. (Never mind that the inciting messages are coming from the elitest of the elite.) In the moments after Saturday’s shooting, Elon Musk endorsed Donald Trump (maybe the least surprising news of the decade). Now we’ve learned that he’s “planning on supporting Trump’s presidential campaign by committing $45 million a month to a new super PAC backing the former president.” Another one of the original Pay Pal Mafia is Vance’s biggest backer and influencer. “Peter Thiel, the billionaire tech investor turned digital defense contractor, enabled his entire political career.” Tech mega-VCs Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz are also making big donations to Trump PACs. Welcome to American politics, where you have to hope your billionaires are willing to spend as much as the other guy’s billionaires.
+ “Vance is, in some ways, a case study of Republican loyalty after January 6th, in which those who backed Trump after the insurrection at the Capitol have tended to go all in—their careers and reputations have become inextricably tied to the former President. But plenty of Republicans are diehard Trump loyalists. Vance’s rise has also depended on his populism.” The New Yorker: Why Donald Trump Picked J. D. Vance for Vice-President. “He is an attack dog for Trump, but he is also something more emergent and interesting: he is the fuse that Trump lit.”
+ “We chatted for a bit about the connections between right-wing movements across the world, and what American conservatives could learn from foreign peers. He was friendly, thoughtful, and smart — much smarter than the average politician I’ve interviewed. Yet his worldview is fundamentally incompatible with the basic principles of American democracy.” What J.D. Vance really believes.
+ “I got to be honest with you, I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another.” Politico: 55 Things to Know About J.D. Vance.
