JD Vance will take MAGA into 2028 and beyond

Donald Trump’s selection of Ohio Senator JD Vance to be his running mate was not a major surprise, but it was an unconventional choice. Nonetheless, Trump was thinking about more than 2024 when he put Vance on the ticket. He also was thinking of 2028 and beyond. The last time Trump named a vice presidential nominee, he had more pressing concerns. Trump was the underdog in 2016. Many Republicans especially social and religious conservatives, viewed him as suspicion. Trump picked Mike Pence to calm their fears. Pence had close ties to evangelical Christian voters and to the broader conservative movement. He was the governor of a Midwestern State. He had served 12 years in Congress and was well known in Washington. Now having narrowly escaped and assassin’s bullet and being constitutionally limited to a single term, Trump is prioritizing loyalty and legacy over qualities that past presidents have looked for and vice presidential nominees. By choosing Vance Trump made a clean break with the Republican free traders, entitlement reformers and foreign policy hawks who remain wary of him. The Vance pick is the clear sign yet of where Trump wants the GOP to go after he leaves office. If ants becomes vice president, he also will become the front runner for the 2028 Republican nomination. That nomination will be contested for sure. But there’s no question that Trump intends for the Republican Party to remain nationalist populist, and America first. Like Vance, Richard Nixon was also 40 years old when Dwight Eisenhower chose him as vice president in 1952. And Nixon played a central role in American politics for 22 years. Vance, who graduated from Yale Law School is perhaps the most articulate defender of the Maga worldview. He is a critic of the financial sector corporate monopolies, free trade, global intervention and illegal immigration. He has kind words for organized labor and for industrial policy, and for progressive icons such as Senator Elizabeth Warren, and Federal Trade Commission Chairwoman Lena Kahn. Vance oppose the national security supplemental bill that provided military aid to Ukraine, Israel and to Taiwan earlier this year. When Vance spoke at a recent national conservatism Conference in Washington, DC, he was greeted as a star. He spoke casually and comfortably, and he extolled the growing influence of nationalist populism within the GOP bands, his harshest words dealt with immigration. He summarized his public philosophy by saying American leaders should look out for Americans. There’s every reason to think that Vance’s elevation to the vice presidency would guarantee a Magga presence in the West Wing. He would empower advocates of foreign policy restraint and of government action to rebuild the defense industrial base and domestic manufacturing. Donald Trump has riveted global politics for close to a decade. And the nomination of his new apprentice suggests that the Trump style the Trump policies and the Trump appeal to non college educated voters of every race and ethnicity will rule the GOP for decades to come.