The derangement lies in lobbing false, hyperbolic accusations rather than focusing on the actual positions and statements he’s made.
Kos agrees that Vance was the worst pick possible:
This is like the “blinders” comment, attempting to impugn the thinking abilities of the other posters instead of addressing their actual points. If you’re so much smarter or objective than everyone else, then just demonstrate that with your posts. (Just IMHO, not suggesting you are violating any rules, etc. etc.)
Oh man, it’s like comparing a pea shooter to a bazooka. There is almost literally a book’s worth of negative comments from Vance against Trump, including at least one entire newspaper op-ed as well as a longish text to someone that indicates that his private, personal opinion was congruent with his public statements.
“Absolutely”? He has lost his credibility via his extreme Trumpian positions. MAGAs already love him. How many non-MAGA downscale whites can he influence?
This, I will grant, could be valuable to a degree.
Where does this “laugh it up” crap come from? No other shortlisted candidate would have generated criticism on this board like this.
This is not only obviously correct, but it made me laugh. Completely agree!
Not sure what he brings to the table. He turns off women with his draconian views on women’s rights. He’s from Ohio, a state that would go red anyway. In what area is he more of a plus than a minus?
Thanks of sharing that article.
So his come to Jesus moment was when he met a CEO who was complaining that Trumps immigration policies would mean that he would have to raise wages, and so decided that he had to charge into the arms of the party that wants to destroy labor?
Regarding Iraq:
But the more complete truth is that the country never really litigated the mistakes of the bipartisan consensus until Donald Trump came along, and on the right, nobody had litigated the failures of George W. Bush until Donald Trump came along
Regarding Trump the philosopher
The media has this view of Trump as motivated entirely by personal grievance, and the thing he talked the most about — this was not long after Jan. 6 — was “I’m the president, and I told the generals to do something, and they didn’t do it.” And I was like, OK, this guy’s deeper than I’d given him credit for.
Seriously, “People aren’t doing what I say!” is a deep thought independent of personal grievance?
Other observations:
Eliminating jobs through automation is good for the workers but hiring immigrants at slightly lower wages is bad.
The idea that tariffs raise prices is overblown, and doing so will raise enough money to save social security. Raising taxes on the rich, not so much.
We should just let Russia have Ukraine because they will be a in quagmire and won’t be able to rule it effectively.
Trump having no actual foreign policy and just running things on a whim isn’t a bug its a feature since it keeps the other countries guessing.
Ignoring the voters and replacing it with a new slate of electors wasn’t the real danger to our democracy it was not allowing those electors to be considered, because a whole lot of people wanted him to be president and the fact that he lost means their views are being ignored.
I’m not sure who was considered to be on the “shortlist”, but the MAGAverse certainly contains many far worse potential choices. I saw some press coverage suggesting MTG was in play. Or maybe Vivek whatsisname, with no political experience whatsover. Kristi Noem? This guy is clearly scum, but at least he’s a US Senator who wrote a book all by himself.
As far as political considerations, he’s young, vigorous, and a veteran, which makes a nice contrast to Biden. I don’t think there was any candidate out there who would have been “better” in the sense of moving the dial on voter opinion significantly (who would have taken the job).
Moderating: @flurb, insulting others is not allowed. You left it vague, but don’t do this again. You came very close to a warning or at least a thread ban.
Now everyone, drop this sidebar that will potentially hijack the thread.
This topic was automatically opened after 11 minutes.
The argument that Vance is a bad choice is because he primarily appeals to the people Trump already appeals to. The goal of the VP pick is to help shore up your own weaknesses. Even Trump did that with Pence.
It does matter that he’s been very vocally against Trump, because now all Democrats have to do is show that his own VP pick is against him. They can troll Trump with this, without worrying about being accused of setting the wrong tone. They will just be quoting this other guy, not saying it themselves.
And, yes, he is known to be a horrible person. So anyone who was opposed to Trump on ethical grounds has little reason to think the new guy who may take over (as Trump is also old) will be any better. Nor do those who were worried about another January 6 incident have reason to think it would go better if this guy is eventually in Pence’s place.
The first upside I’ve seen is the fact that Vance is a veteran. He will probably run on that. But it’s also a good attack: “why would a veteran support this guy who he says would doom our country?”
It just seems like he brings a lot more baggage rather than benefit to the table.
Trump arguably has the momentum. He needs someone vanilla who won’t cause a lot of controversy.
I heard Vance, Burgham, and Rubio.
It’s true that there are worse potential choices, but not ones that I heard were in serious consideration. Noem was apparently dropped from consideration after “doggate,” lol.
The point is not that he has nothing that could be thought valuable in a VP pick but that he has serious drawbacks while not seeming to deliver much in terms of demographics.
I don’t think those are political considerations per se. Harris is also young-ish and, I guess, “vigorous.” I think his being a veteran is the most helpful thing cited thus far in the thread.
Gotta disagree hard. The consensus opinion seems to be that not only would Haley have taken the job, she was gunning for it. Her presence could have greatly strengthened the ticket IMHO. Help soothe the fears of women and lent Trump a bit of the gravitas he sorely lacks. Normalize him a la Pence.
It seems to me that Haley said just as many negative things about Trump as Vance ever did – and more recently – so it seems like she’d have the same weakness as Vance in this regard. But it’s all hypothesizing.
But I apologize if I’ve gotten too carried away here, so I’ll just duck out.
Vance went hard in the paint against Trump. Haley was negative but walking the tightrope to try and not ruin her future with the base. With Haley it was normal campaign talk. Vance got personal.
With Vance throwing himself at Trump’s feet I don’t know how effective his past words will be but they were much harder than what Haley said. Best thing he’s ever written.
Well said!
Haley is an expert in straddling both sides of an issue or controversy, an aspect of her character that has justifiably earned a reputation as an opportunist and a phony.
Vance is a different type of miscreant–much worse, I think most people on our side would agree. He’s someone who advocated mostly for the right things at one stage but completely betrayed himself and his legacy in order to grab the goodies of power and influence. He’s an execrable POS.
My belief is that almost nobody votes for the VP candidate; a “good” choice won’t earn you more than a tiny number of votes. Conversely, it’s hard to make a choice so terrible that it hurts your chances significantly, though John McCain certainly did it, Other than that, I can’t think of any election in my lifetime where either candidate’s VP choices mattered much. Maybe Bush I gets re-elected with a running mate who wasn’t a walking punchline. Maybe Hillary wins if she picks someone progressives could get mildly excited about.
I don’t think this is a pivotal event in the race, other than that Trump has sadly missed an opportunity to self-sabotage by picking someone like Boebert or Kid Rock.
Under normal conditions, yes. But in this instance, Trump is 78 years old and may very well not live another four years. And the recent shooting may make the public think about how Trump is a particularly incendiary candidate who is likelier to be targeted for assassination than perhaps any other politician in the world.
So Trump’s choice for VP becomes more important than most (in theory,) since that VP will have a decent chance of becoming president himself. At least, I hope voters see it that way,
I think this will be one of those rare cases where the Vp choice will prove out to be a pivotal moment in the race. A pollicaly brilliant move on Trumps part.
Certainly Putin is celebrating, as his desired elimination of the Ukrainian nation and people has become just a bit more likely with Putin-friendly lying scumbags in both positions on the Republican ticket.
I wouldn’t call it brilliant, though.