When Donald Trump was holding off on naming his running mate — usually announced before each party’s national convention — it seemed he was waiting to see if President Joe Biden would step down as the Democratic nominee.
If Biden didn’t step down, Trump’s selection of a second white MAGA male on the Republican ticket would hold. If Biden did step down, Trump understood Vice President Kalama Harris would likely be the Democratic candidate and, perhaps, he would be advised to select a woman or someone more mainstream to attract independent voters.
Biden, however, didn’t give Trump that option. Facing the start of the Republican National Convention, Trump named JD Vance as his running mate. Less than a week later, Biden made his announcement. Trump was not happy. He had been outsmarted by Biden.
Trump selected Vance because he thought he would run away with the presidential race with Biden at the head of the ticket. He didn’t need, he thought, to balance his ticket with a woman or a more mainstream candidate. Instead, he doubled down on appealing to his base. Also, selecting Vance was encouraged by Trump’s eldest son, Don Jr.
Vance has had a lot of negative things to say about Trump. During Trump’s first campaign, in an email to Democratic Georgia state Rep. Josh McLaurin, his college roommate, Vance wrote he went “back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical a-hole like [Richard] Nixon, who wouldn’t be that bad … or that he’s America’s Hitler.”
Vance said he could not vote for Trump in 2016 because he was “reprehensible.” He wrote “There is no self-reflection in the midst of a false euphoria. Trump is cultural heroin. He makes some feel better for a bit. But he cannot fix what ails them, and one day they’ll realize it.”
Trump’s supporters are still flying high on their “cultural heroin.” Perhaps Vance had a higher regard for Trump supporters than they deserved. To date, they have not fixed “what ails them.”
Vance decided to join the “false euphoria.” His previous comments about Trump, however, are well documented and will fit nicely in Democratic ads.
For Trump, everything he does is personal and transactional. To get ahead in Trump’s world, one must think transitionally and be willing to sell your soul. Vance seems to have made that calculation, even if that meant running with someone he thought could potentially be “America’s Hitler.”
The selection of Vance has not gone well for Trump or Vance. You can tell Republicans are afraid of Harris by their response to Biden’s decision to step aside. Suddenly they are expressing deep concern about how Democrats treated Biden. Isn’t that nice? Never mind, of course, how Republicans treated him.
Even after Biden dropped out, Trump and his allies could not manage to say anything positive about Biden or thank him for decades of service to our nation.
Republicans are saying Democrats are undermining democracy by making Harris their nominee after Biden received the majority of primary votes. This is rich coming from the same folks who tried to undermine democracy by keeping Trump in the White House after Biden won the 2020 presidential election.
The formal vote for a party’s president and vice president nominees is usually held during a state-by-state roll call on the first day of their national conventions, as we saw during the Republican National Convention.
Democratic delegates will have that same opportunity to vote for Harris or anyone they want.
Another Republican attack on Harris is that she laughs too much. To me, this indicates Harris is happy and Republicans are desperate.
One Republican member of Congress, Andy Ogles of Tennessee, has resorted to introducing an impeachment resolution against Harris. Again, more desperation.
Republicans are also trying to sell the idea Harris is a diversity hire, that she has achieved her current status because she is a minority, not because of her extensive education and experience.
We all knew Republicans would be playing their sexism and racism cards, but I’m surprised at how quickly they resorted to this strategy, which has already started to backfire.
As stated by Robert Hubbell on Substack.com, the diversity “attack is offensive not only to the highly qualified Harris, but to all Black Americans.” Hubbell reminded his readers that Harris “spent 14 years as a county prosecutor, eight years as attorney general of California, two years as a U.S. senator, and 3.5 years as vice president. It is hard to imagine a more qualified presidential candidate.”
More than 350 national security leaders from previous Democratic and Republican administrations have endorsed Harris for president. They wrote that Harris “would enter that office with more significant national security experience than the four presidents prior to President Biden.” They also wrote, “Trump is a threat to America’s national security.”
During a 2021 interview with Tucker Carlson on Fox News, Vance called Harris, and others, “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.” Harris has two grown stepchildren with her husband, but Vance doesn’t appear to recognize them as legitimate children.
The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page wrote, “The comment is the sort of smart-aleck crack that gets laughs in certain right-wing male precincts, but it doesn’t play well with the millions of female voters, many of them Republican, who will decide the presidential race.”
Vance continued his war on childless women by making the argument that women with children should have extra votes. More children, more votes.
He has also argued that childless families should pay more taxes. This has elicited responses from conservatives like Dave Portnoy, founder of Barstool Sports, who asked on X “You want me to pay more taxes to take care of other people’s kids? Are we sure this dude is a Republican? Sounds like a moron.”
Does Vance understand that Democrats are not the only Americans who either can’t have children or who made the decision not to have them? Hypocritically, while Vance has attacked women without children, he has voted against protections for women trying to have children by using in vitro fertilization (IVF).
One has to wonder if Vance was vetted by anyone in the Trump campaign besides Don Jr. In addition to his history of insulting Trump, Vance has a habit of insulting the voters they will need to win in November. He might be the best thing to happen to Democrats since Biden withdrew from the race.
Tom Zirpoli is the Laurence J. Adams Distinguished Chair in Special Education Emeritus at McDaniel College. He writes from Westminster. His column appears on Wednesdays. Email him at tzirpoli@mcdaniel.edu
