The Legend of Bagging Vance
Biden bows out; Kamala Harris steps up. Trump selects J.D. Vance for VP, signaling a shift from identity politics. What does this mean for the 2024 election?
By Greg Maresca
As the spool of the American political landscape continues to unravel weekly, keep in mind that you are at this epoch of history for good reasons.
After Jill Biden, err Joe Biden, announced he would not seek re-election, it begged the question…. Was Joe ever president or just another career politico hack who took his marching orders from a committee of unelected Democrat D.C. bureaucrats?
Evidently, Barack Obama finally got through, as Biden told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that only “the Lord Almighty” could get him to abandon running.
Biden could have passed the torch a year ago and left the White House with some dignity. Instead, the smokeless backroom at the Democrat convention in Chicago awaits. Yet, at every opportunity, the left laments how Donald Trump is “the true threat to democracy.”
Incumbents, including President Lyndon Johnson in 1968, have bailed without seeking re-election. However, Biden’s bail is super late. With nearly six months remaining in his presidency, how soon will Biden forget he is not running?
Biden finally came out and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to head the Democratic ticket. However, Biden's admission that he is unfit to run for a second term disqualifies his authority to endorse a successor.
Harris is about the only Democrat less popular than Biden – prior to Biden’s announcement, of course. When the ballot counters were polled, Harris has since pulled ahead of Trump.
When Donald Trump announced that Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio would be his vice-presidential running mate, he underscored again that political convention is not how the former president operates.
Usually, vice presidential nominees are from a swing state, which would help broaden the ticket. Some names that come to mind include Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, or outliers like Elon Musk or even Tom Brady.
The Republican bench is as deep as it is formidable.
Vance doesn’t help Trump broaden his appeal as an ethnic or a woman might have, but he knows that trying to appease a particular block of voters is political malpractice. That is how Harris made the ticket in 2020. It is well past time for America to rediscover merit and put the final nail into the coffin of identity politics.
Trump is forward-thinking by choosing Vance to continue his America First platform when Trump departs the political scene.
You can always tell when someone is sterling by the amount of flak fired by the opposition. Tucker Carlson probably gave the most stinging endorsement of Vance, saying, " Every bad person he’s ever met in Washington is against J.D.” Vance is one of the deplorables Hillary Clinton spoke of, and there is no place for a deplorable Marine veteran like Vance in their America. They fear Vance for many of the same reasons they fear Trump.
On August 2, Vance turns 40, making the age difference between himself and Trump the widest of any presidential ticket in American history. Moreover, this is the first presidential election since 1976 in which a Bush, a Biden, or a Clinton is not on one of the two major party tickets.
Sadly, the Republican platform has gone politically pragmatic on abortion for votes. A wrong is still wrong despite how good the intent may be. This is a stark reminder that nothing politically motivated in this fallen world is worth compromising one’s soul.
Perhaps Vance is “vice signaling,” the antonym of “virtue signaling,” whereby he talks left but is conservative when in office. Democrats have used this tactic for decades.
Vance joined the Marine Corps out of high school before going on to university and then writing candidly in his bestselling book Hillbilly Elegy – a classic reading of the impoverished, white working class in the hollowed-out Rust Belt in Middletown, Ohio. The book was made into a successful 2020 film directed by Ron Howard that starred Glenn Close and would launch Vance to cultural and political distinction.
I know someone whose resume reflects the same, but rather than writing a book, his screenplay: “A Brownstone Generation,” was dismissed by Lion’s Gate and TriBeCa Productions. I understand he drives a bus in retirement, but he monitors the pulse of the culture like a surgeon, as we all should.
After all, that is why we are here.
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