# Who will be Trump's running mate? (J. D. Vance Has Been Chosen) **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Tags:** trump\ **Created:** [January 22, 2024, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-be-trumps-running-mate-j-d-vance-has-been-chosen/996511 "2024-01-22T20:48:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 25
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2024, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-be-trumps-running-mate-j-d-vance-has-been-chosen/996511/482 "2024-07-15T23:41:41Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Is his wife here legally? Because that card could just as easily work the other way. MAGAs often say “We aren’t against immigration, we’re against ILLEGAL immigration.” (Whether they actually mean this or not is a different question.) I don’t know what MAGAs usuallty say, but Trump is constantly demeaning, as Hitler demeaned the Jews, the brown people trying to get into the country, even if they are _legally_ seeking asylum. He doesn’t say, “I love all these Mexicans–just wish they’d come here legally.” So that can be thrown in Vance’s face during debates, etc. As for Melania, she clearly got a free pass from the fascists because she is white (had she not been, then of course they would have made up some sort of excuse anyway…). ---
**Author:** ![BlankSlate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blankslate/32/80_2.png) [@BlankSlate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlankSlate)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2024, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-be-trumps-running-mate-j-d-vance-has-been-chosen/996511/483 "2024-07-16T00:08:17Z")
Vance had Trump nailed, but then got on his knees and begged for forgiveness. This guy is supposed to be presidential material? Principles? What are those? [![](https://i.imgur.com/9CEMcmj.jpeg) ](https://i.imgur.com/9CEMcmj.jpeg) ---
**Author:** ![flurb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/51bf81/32.png) [@flurb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flurb)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2024, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-be-trumps-running-mate-j-d-vance-has-been-chosen/996511/484 "2024-07-16T00:48:17Z")
I expect most of the folks here to shit all over JD as Trump’s VP pick (or any other pick he made, honestly), but the pick signals to me that Trump is looking to double down on an economically populist message. That was the one thing that really made him seem to stand out in the 2016 Republican primaries – he promised to protect Social Security and Medicare, revive American manufacturing, overturn unfair trade agreements that had given away the store to foreign nations paying their workers subsistence wages. Now, of course, when he got into office he turned over economic policy to free market zealots like Russ Vought and Americans for Tax Reform. But, for reasons I cannot personally fathom, his voters who feel left behind by the modern American economy never fully lost faith in him. Vance is well positioned help Trump push an economically populist message that will help reenergize and reengage these voters. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2024, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-be-trumps-running-mate-j-d-vance-has-been-chosen/996511/485 "2024-07-16T00:54:22Z")
> [@flurb](#): > > (or any other pick he made, honestly) Nikki Haley would have been the smart choice, and I wouldn’t have shit on that decision, but I would have shit on _her_ for being a principle-free sycophant (just like JD) for having accepted the job (though she had already proved that by sucking up to get the job). > [@](#): > > Vance is well positioned help Trump push an economically populist message that will help reenergize and reengage these voters. Why? Vance is a rich VC guy in tight with other West Coast fascists like Thiel et al. Yeah, he can try to resell the whole hillbilly elegy thing, but I don’t think it’s believable to anyone at this point. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2024, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-be-trumps-running-mate-j-d-vance-has-been-chosen/996511/486 "2024-07-16T00:57:02Z")
> [@BlankSlate](#): > > Vance had Trump nailed, but then got on his knees and begged for forgiveness. This guy is supposed to be presidential material? Principles? What are those? Ever heard the phrase “politics makes strange bedfellows”? ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2024, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-be-trumps-running-mate-j-d-vance-has-been-chosen/996511/487 "2024-07-16T00:58:17Z")
FWIW (not much, IMHO), Cenk Uygur [thinks it’s a smart pick](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuVKibh1-Y4) for the fascist party. His basic logic is that Vance can serve as an attack dog while Trump pretends to be above the fray. I don’t think that will work because 1) Trump has no message discipline,\* 2) Trump hates anyone else to be in the spotlight. \*Actually, it has been pointed out, and I think correctly, that Trump has been listening to his advisors and managed to act more normal at times recently. My caveat is: _at times._ Trump ultimately doesn’t have enough self-control to play the game right. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2024, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-be-trumps-running-mate-j-d-vance-has-been-chosen/996511/488 "2024-07-16T00:58:47Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Is his wife here legally? According to Wikipedia, [Usha Vance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usha_Vance) was born in San Diego, to Indian immigrants, both of whom are professors. She is a lawyer, and was a law clerk to Chief Justice John Roberts. So, yeah, she is. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2024, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-be-trumps-running-mate-j-d-vance-has-been-chosen/996511/489 "2024-07-16T01:01:50Z")
The problem here, that my friend pointed out, is that Project 2025 wants to end birthright citizenship and impose stricter conditions on people in such circumstances. This can be thrown in Vance’s face. Vance is also a big proponent of Project 2025 overall, from which Trump is now frantically and ineptly trying to distance himself. It’s another inconvenience to having Vance on the ticket. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2024, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-be-trumps-running-mate-j-d-vance-has-been-chosen/996511/490 "2024-07-16T01:16:48Z")
> [@BlankSlate](#): > > Worse, I would think. He’s a pup. > > He’s not yet 40 and has two years in the Senate. Is that the right person to take over if Trump dropped dead? This is a Quayle/Palin type pick. It wasn’t Palin or Quayle’s inexperience that was the problem. The problem was they are morons. And Bush still won with Quayle. He might be inexperienced. He might be reprehensible. He’s not stupid. > [@Aeschines](#): > > Yeah, he can try to resell the whole hillbilly elegy thing, but I don’t think it’s believable to anyone at this point. I follow some pages that slant very right. Today I’ve been seeing a lot of “Watch the movie but you really should read the book.” I wouldn’t be so sure that it’s not believable. ---
**Author:** ![Aspenglow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspenglow/32/76_2.png) [@Aspenglow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspenglow)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2024, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-be-trumps-running-mate-j-d-vance-has-been-chosen/996511/491 "2024-07-16T01:19:38Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > She is a lawyer, and was a law clerk to Chief Justice John Roberts. Well, there’s your backdoor channel of communication to the Supreme Court. A channel that shouldn’t exist – but will. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2024, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-be-trumps-running-mate-j-d-vance-has-been-chosen/996511/492 "2024-07-16T01:26:54Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > The problem here, that my friend pointed out, is that Project 2025 wants to end birthright citizenship and impose stricter conditions on people in such circumstances. This can be thrown in Vance’s face. Harsh immigration policies are popular. But war with Mexico is not: [Sen. JD Vance endorses the U.S. military’s going after drug cartels in Mexico](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/sen-jd-vance-endorses-us-military-going-drug-cartels-mexico-rcna91902) ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2024, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-be-trumps-running-mate-j-d-vance-has-been-chosen/996511/493 "2024-07-16T01:27:15Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > I follow some pages that slant very right. Today I’ve been seeing a lot of “Watch the movie but you really should read the book.” I wouldn’t be so sure that it’s not believable. But those are right-wingers who already like Vance. At the time Vance was selling the book on TV, he was a loud Never Trumper. So that ties that book to that time period and messaging. I don’t think he can now go, “Oh my book was great and I’ve become a Trump oral colonoscopist since then–but the book is really great–that’s still really ME!” I don’t think it will work. ---
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2024, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-be-trumps-running-mate-j-d-vance-has-been-chosen/996511/494 "2024-07-16T01:29:46Z")
> [@flurb](#): > > I expect most of the folks here to shit all over JD as Trump’s VP pick (or any other pick he made, honestly), Oh boo hoo, people don’t like the guy that explicitly thinks he needs to do “extra-constitutional” actions to retake the country. He’s an open authoritarian that is bankrolled by another authoritatarion (Thiel) and has a fascist philosophers (Yarvin) as his intellectual backing. ---
**Author:** ![BlankSlate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blankslate/32/80_2.png) [@BlankSlate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlankSlate)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2024, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-be-trumps-running-mate-j-d-vance-has-been-chosen/996511/495 "2024-07-16T01:33:22Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > And Bush still won with Quayle He also lost with Quayle. I tried to read _Hillbilly Elegy_. Smart? Not convinced. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2024, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-be-trumps-running-mate-j-d-vance-has-been-chosen/996511/496 "2024-07-16T01:37:18Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > > [@Loach](#): > > > > I follow some pages that slant very right. Today I’ve been seeing a lot of “Watch the movie but you really should read the book.” I wouldn’t be so sure that it’s not believable. > > But those are right-wingers who already like Vance. > > At the time Vance was selling the book on TV, he was a loud Never Trumper. Correct. He says [he changed his views](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/13/opinion/jd-vance-interview.html?unlocked_article_code=1.7k0.T_Qb.lkma9Ig-QnxU&smid=url-share): > [@](#): > > The fact that this guy saw me as sympathetic to his problem, and not the problem of the workers, made me realize that I’m on a train that has its own momentum and I have to get off this train, or I’m going to wake up in 10 years and really hate everything that I’ve become. And so I decided to get off that train, and I felt like the only way that I could do that was, in some ways, alienating and offending people who liked my book. Before he was a politician, he blamed the poor for their problems. Now that he needs their votes, he blames foreigners. ---
**Author:** ![ShadowFacts](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shadowfacts/32/2934_2.png) [@ShadowFacts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShadowFacts)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2024, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-be-trumps-running-mate-j-d-vance-has-been-chosen/996511/497 "2024-07-16T01:59:59Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > It will have about as negative an impact as it possibly can, so I think it’s actually a pretty big gift Given how well your other political predictions have gone recently, we should all therefore be very concerned about this pick. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2024, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-be-trumps-running-mate-j-d-vance-has-been-chosen/996511/498 "2024-07-16T02:00:49Z")
Well, maybe Vance wouldn’t be loyal to him in that case. But, I think at just a more general level, Trump chose to go with the person who has been most clear that he would choose loyalty to Trump over loyalty to his Constitutional oath. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2024, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-be-trumps-running-mate-j-d-vance-has-been-chosen/996511/499 "2024-07-16T02:04:30Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > I follow some pages that slant very right. Today I’ve been seeing a lot of “Watch the movie but you really should read the book.” I wouldn’t be so sure that it’s not believable. I haven’t seen the movie, but I liked the book. I bought it, recommended it, and loaned it to friends. I’m from Appalachia (West Virginia). He seemed honest, and not really ideological. He said things that pissed off both sides of the divide. I generally like that. I started looking askance (is that another word like “elegy”?) when he ran for the U.S. Senate in Ohio, and said that he didn’t care about Ukraine, or what happened there, and then walked the comment back after being informed that there were a lot of Ukrainian-Americans in Ohio. I think he’s a lying piece of shit. Godspeed. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2024, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-be-trumps-running-mate-j-d-vance-has-been-chosen/996511/500 "2024-07-16T02:06:21Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > He says [he changed his views](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/13/opinion/jd-vance-interview.html?unlocked_article_code=1.7k0.T_Qb.lkma9Ig-QnxU&smid=url-share): He sounds like a non-moron in this article, but what he says is also quite diffuse and makes it hard to pin down exactly why he ended up supporting Trump. Everything he originally said about Trump is true on the surface. The fact that he ended up meeting Trump and liking him isn’t really relevant to the fact that Trump is a dangerous and malevolent demagogue. I think that I would personally like Trump too if I met him and he was cool to me. I also don’t disagree with Trump on every single policy he has supported. None of that changes the fact that Trump, fundamentally, is evil and destructive. Anyhow, an interesting if somewhat confusing read… ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2024, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-be-trumps-running-mate-j-d-vance-has-been-chosen/996511/501 "2024-07-16T02:08:29Z")
I think I ended up being wrong for strange, unpredictable reasons–but if being wrong in this way has a chastening effect, it is to make me more cognizant of the unpredictability of the times. In any case, I always state my reasons, and I think the reasons I stated above about Vance are correct. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-be-trumps-running-mate-j-d-vance-has-been-chosen/996511.md?page=24) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-be-trumps-running-mate-j-d-vance-has-been-chosen/996511.md?page=26)