JD Vance is the perfect troll

MIlwaukeeBe afraid, be very afraid.

Look at J.D. Vance's record, as many of my colleagues here have done over the last few days, and you will see a man with no qualifications, who will say and do whatever it takes to continue the climb that took him from the screaming hills of Ohio Appalachia to Yale Law School to the top of the New York Times It went from bestseller status to the U.S. Senate, and now sits second on the Republican ticket.

But that’s not the man I saw last night at the Fiserv Forum. Or at least that wasn’t the impression he gave on the convention floor, and probably not to the television audience. The Vance I saw last night delivered a speech that, with its scathing critique of deindustrialization, its sober acknowledgement of the domestic costs of imperial adventurism, and its moving evocation of working-class pride, could easily have been delivered by his fellow Democrat from Ohio, Sherrod Brown:

Jobs were shipped overseas and our children were sent to war, Vance said. The American ruling class wrote the check and communities like mine paid the price.

It is simply impossible to imagine Joe Biden, who voted for the Iraq War and was a strong supporter of NAFTA in the Senate, saying such a thing.

Or consider Vance's five sentences explanation of the housing crisis:

Wall Street barons crashed the economy and American manufacturers went bankrupt.

As craftsmen desperately searched for work, house construction ceased.

The lack of good jobs has of course led to stagnant wages.

And then the Democrats flooded this country with millions of illegal immigrants.

So citizens had to compete for valuable housing with people who shouldn't even be there.

Some on the left, including Bernie Sanders, have long argued that Democrats need to better define not only their goals but also their enemies, and that the path to victory lies in choosing a populist fight against Wall Street and the billionaire class. Given the party’s dependence on Wall Street donors since the days of Bill Clinton, this idea has been hard to sell. And it is certainly true that Vance’s claim to be a tribune of the people is belied by his demeanor. sponsorship byand his devotion to Peter Thiel, the PayPal founder, Facebook investor and, through his stake in Palantir, government contractor and war profiteer.

But as my colleagues have pointed out, Vance's shameless hypocrisy is a characteristic, not a flaw, that allows him to utter phrases like “We're done taking care of Wall Street.” Well, let's commit to the man who works with honeyed sincerity.

Despite having a highly accomplished wife (who, judging by her own speech last night, is also poised and pleasant), Vance, whose opposition to abortion brooks no exceptions, is unlikely to bring many women into the GOP fold. But for Republicans these days, as Trump's song for his departure Last night reminded us that this is a man's world. And even though he apparently had a close trans friend In law school, his opposition to gay marriage – one of the few fixed points in his chameleon-like career – may not help him climb the ranks. The Log Cabin Republicans. (Although it clearly didn't hurt him with Thiel.)

But the vision of belonging he invoked was a pleasant version of the Midwest nationalism of blood and soilcould have been grown in a lab aimed at winning Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Vance’s repeated invocation of the Kentucky family graveyard was a signal that, while inaudible to rootless cosmopolitans like your correspondent, likely resonated strongly with Appalachian migrants whose descendants constitute a crucial voting bloc throughout the Ohio Valley.

In choosing Vance as his running mate, Trump did three things, none of which are good news for Democrats. Like Joe Biden in 2020, he showed the confidence to pick a strong former critic, rather than a benign figure. But unlike Kamala Harris (at least according to recent data), Vance is also the perfect troll candidate. His speech was peppered with harsh criticism not only from anti-NAFTA Democrats like Brown and Sanders, but also from JFK (citizens who wonder what our country wants from us) and even FDR:

We have a big tent on this party, on everything from national security to economic policy.

But my message to you, my fellow Republicans, is that we love this country and we are united to win.

I think our disagreements make us stronger. And my message to my fellow Americans, to those watching from all over the country, is this: Shouldn't we be governed by a party that is not afraid to debate ideas and find the best solution?

If you don't think the sting at the end of that last quote was aimed squarely at the Democratic National Committee's recent machinations, not just around an early virtual roll call, but also to stifle debate on Palestine and Gaza, you are seriously underestimating the opposition.