Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio likes to present himself as a serious, thoughtful conservative, one who came to understand by 2021 that Donald Trump was “deeper than I’d given him credit for” and in 2016 recognized that Trump had some “reasonable” things to say and that he “substantively was offering something very different” from conventional Republicans. OK, that’s not an easy case to make, but Vance is entitled to try to make it.
But the thing is, if you want to persuade the world that Trump is secretly deep and reasonable, then you have to demonstrate in your public actions some of those same qualities yourself. And Vance is falling far short on that score.
Take, for example, the issue of guns. One of the very few things Trump got right as president was to ban bump stocks, the attachments to semiautomatic weapons that turn them into rapid-fire machine guns. “We’re knocking out bump stocks,” Trump said in 2018, a year after the Las Vegas gunman used the device to kill 60 people and injure more than 400. But last week, in one of its most dangerous decisions, the Supreme Court said that ban was illegal. When Senate Democrats said they wanted to fix that problem with a bill banning bump stocks, Vance declared the bill addressed a “fake problem” and would “end up just inhibiting the rights of law-abiding Americans.” Presumably, he thinks there’s some kind of right to own a machine gun that even Trump isn’t aware of.
“The question is: How many people would have been shot alternatively?” Vance asked, a question so callous that it should make him an outlier even on Trump’s short list of extremist running mates.
Then there’s the issue of Trump’s criminal conviction. Last week, Vance said he would lead a group of Republican senators pledging to block or slow down all of President Biden’s nominees for judgeships or U.S. attorney, in retaliation for Trump’s felony conviction. (Biden had nothing to do with that New York State prosecution, but the details don’t matter when you’re doing a big pander to the MAGA crowd.) The blockade will last until Election Day, Vance said, and will also extend to any other nominees who “have suggested the Trump prosecutions were reasonable.”
These kinds of blockades are among the most juvenile and petulant tantrums an elected official can throw, putting Vance right there on the lowest level of the Senate alongside Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, the author of another useless blockade and naturally an eager signer of this one. That’s Vance’s real reputation in Washington, and Trump might want to think twice before choosing someone even more preposterous than he is.
But the thing is, if you want to persuade the world that Trump is secretly deep and reasonable, then you have to demonstrate in your public actions some of those same qualities yourself. And Vance is falling far short on that score.
Take, for example, the issue of guns. One of the very few things Trump got right as president was to ban bump stocks, the attachments to semiautomatic weapons that turn them into rapid-fire machine guns. “We’re knocking out bump stocks,” Trump said in 2018, a year after the Las Vegas gunman used the device to kill 60 people and injure more than 400. But last week, in one of its most dangerous decisions, the Supreme Court said that ban was illegal. When Senate Democrats said they wanted to fix that problem with a bill banning bump stocks, Vance declared the bill addressed a “fake problem” and would “end up just inhibiting the rights of law-abiding Americans.” Presumably, he thinks there’s some kind of right to own a machine gun that even Trump isn’t aware of.
“The question is: How many people would have been shot alternatively?” Vance asked, a question so callous that it should make him an outlier even on Trump’s short list of extremist running mates.
Then there’s the issue of Trump’s criminal conviction. Last week, Vance said he would lead a group of Republican senators pledging to block or slow down all of President Biden’s nominees for judgeships or U.S. attorney, in retaliation for Trump’s felony conviction. (Biden had nothing to do with that New York State prosecution, but the details don’t matter when you’re doing a big pander to the MAGA crowd.) The blockade will last until Election Day, Vance said, and will also extend to any other nominees who “have suggested the Trump prosecutions were reasonable.”
These kinds of blockades are among the most juvenile and petulant tantrums an elected official can throw, putting Vance right there on the lowest level of the Senate alongside Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, the author of another useless blockade and naturally an eager signer of this one. That’s Vance’s real reputation in Washington, and Trump might want to think twice before choosing someone even more preposterous than he is.
