Ms. Mair you are self-branded as a strategist, i.e. a paid troublemaker, as the last line of your piece shows "I'll take your hate mail now," i.e. I wrote this piece to annoy you---sorry, must put in your own jargon, I wrote this to piss your off. Instead of all this 'siblings under the skin' bite size psychology got from Amazon Prime on special. Let's look at the reasons someone like me feels uneasy about Trump's selecting Vance:
1. The hard anti-Trumper of 2016 who couldn't decide if Trump was a cynical asshole(very Mair-like way with words) like Nixon or a new American version of Hitler is now a 100% Trump backer. Such 180 degree conversion in such a short time make me uneasy, wondering how much calculation versus conviction is in the Vance mix.
2. Vance is a US Senator. Look at what the Senate has contributed to American presidential politics:
2008 Obama,, both and McCain, both sitting Senators. That combination had conservatives everywhere grabbing for the Maalox bottle.
2016: Hillalry a former Senator. Bring on the Maalox, spiked with Xanax.
2020: Biden a career Senator. Bring on the Maalox, spiked with Dilantin
Beyond that, the GOP position is too shaky to rely on Vance's departure blithely. Yes, I'm sure DeWine will appoint a GOP replacement, but for all Ohio's going red for Presidents more often than not, Senate elections are a much more depressing thought.
3. Trump is limited to one more term. In about two years, or even sooner people like you whether in the liars gallery known as the press or the well paid troublemakers---sorry, "strategists" will be cooing at Vance telling him he's sure to be the next GOP nominee, Trump won't have any choice but to support him for 2028. That these pieces are lies is a given. The object is to stir up Trump and sow disunity inn the GOP. Then Vance has to decide which is bigger: Loyalty to Trump or his own present and future presidential prospects.
4. I don't see Vance as being a big help to the ticket, in the manner of Sarah Palin to McCain in 2008. His one win in Ohio was not so big as to excite admiration. Nor can I see him helping out in, for example Wisconsin compared to, say, Scott Walker.
5. What will Vance do while VP that won't run afoul of Trump's first commandment, "Thou shall have no other gods before me?" Pence did better than most others would have done as Trump's VP, but his tenure ended with a crash, leaving Pence without a career and being a not very voluntary Never Trumper.
Having read Hillbilly Elegy, I encourage you to followup on this piece by focusing on Vance's story of his mother's addiction. There is something in his story -- we'll see how he handles it in his acceptance speech -- that will resonate with a lot of Americans, including some who graduated from "elite" eastern colleges (as I did).
I have now lost two college friends to addiction, having learned just today of the second's passing. I knew he had health issues, but did not know that he had an alcohol problem. We care for these people. We wish we had known about their problem, wish we could have helped.
It's a very real struggle. Vance's books made for powerful reading. It humanizes him, makes him relatable. The way he approaches on the convention podium tomorrow night could well set the trajectory for the rest of the presidential contest, flipping the script of 2012 when the Democrats won as the party of compassion. (Bill Clinton did that too back in '92.)
I see a bunch of people complaining that Vance is a relatively poor campaigner with limited political experience. To a degree I think that's actually a strength, particularly the lack of political experience. Vance has outside DC experience, lots of it and only half a decade or so as a slimy would-be pol.
He also seems to be capable of speaking sensibly off the cuff without a teleprompter. That's also a low bar but one that many US pols fail at (Trump being a notable exception, though he tends to ramble)
My concerns with Vance and Trump are that they tend to isolationist and that's not good for the world. However if, as part of their isolationism, they stop uncontrolled immigration and help the US decouple from its current dependency for components and raw materials processed in West Taiwan that seems like a couple of positives. The world outsourced far too much basic manufacturing to the Chinese and now we have a single point of failure as we all found out during the Wuflu.
I agree with Vance on Ukraine. I don't care who rules that country (or if it even is a country), and we really don't have major interests there. The USA must have other priorities as to where we spend our resources.
Ms. Mair you are self-branded as a strategist, i.e. a paid troublemaker, as the last line of your piece shows "I'll take your hate mail now," i.e. I wrote this piece to annoy you---sorry, must put in your own jargon, I wrote this to piss your off. Instead of all this 'siblings under the skin' bite size psychology got from Amazon Prime on special. Let's look at the reasons someone like me feels uneasy about Trump's selecting Vance:
1. The hard anti-Trumper of 2016 who couldn't decide if Trump was a cynical asshole(very Mair-like way with words) like Nixon or a new American version of Hitler is now a 100% Trump backer. Such 180 degree conversion in such a short time make me uneasy, wondering how much calculation versus conviction is in the Vance mix.
2. Vance is a US Senator. Look at what the Senate has contributed to American presidential politics:
2008 Obama,, both and McCain, both sitting Senators. That combination had conservatives everywhere grabbing for the Maalox bottle.
2016: Hillalry a former Senator. Bring on the Maalox, spiked with Xanax.
2020: Biden a career Senator. Bring on the Maalox, spiked with Dilantin
Beyond that, the GOP position is too shaky to rely on Vance's departure blithely. Yes, I'm sure DeWine will appoint a GOP replacement, but for all Ohio's going red for Presidents more often than not, Senate elections are a much more depressing thought.
3. Trump is limited to one more term. In about two years, or even sooner people like you whether in the liars gallery known as the press or the well paid troublemakers---sorry, "strategists" will be cooing at Vance telling him he's sure to be the next GOP nominee, Trump won't have any choice but to support him for 2028. That these pieces are lies is a given. The object is to stir up Trump and sow disunity inn the GOP. Then Vance has to decide which is bigger: Loyalty to Trump or his own present and future presidential prospects.
4. I don't see Vance as being a big help to the ticket, in the manner of Sarah Palin to McCain in 2008. His one win in Ohio was not so big as to excite admiration. Nor can I see him helping out in, for example Wisconsin compared to, say, Scott Walker.
5. What will Vance do while VP that won't run afoul of Trump's first commandment, "Thou shall have no other gods before me?" Pence did better than most others would have done as Trump's VP, but his tenure ended with a crash, leaving Pence without a career and being a not very voluntary Never Trumper.
It's done, Hope for the best.
Having read Hillbilly Elegy, I encourage you to followup on this piece by focusing on Vance's story of his mother's addiction. There is something in his story -- we'll see how he handles it in his acceptance speech -- that will resonate with a lot of Americans, including some who graduated from "elite" eastern colleges (as I did).
I have now lost two college friends to addiction, having learned just today of the second's passing. I knew he had health issues, but did not know that he had an alcohol problem. We care for these people. We wish we had known about their problem, wish we could have helped.
It's a very real struggle. Vance's books made for powerful reading. It humanizes him, makes him relatable. The way he approaches on the convention podium tomorrow night could well set the trajectory for the rest of the presidential contest, flipping the script of 2012 when the Democrats won as the party of compassion. (Bill Clinton did that too back in '92.)
I see a bunch of people complaining that Vance is a relatively poor campaigner with limited political experience. To a degree I think that's actually a strength, particularly the lack of political experience. Vance has outside DC experience, lots of it and only half a decade or so as a slimy would-be pol.
He also seems to be capable of speaking sensibly off the cuff without a teleprompter. That's also a low bar but one that many US pols fail at (Trump being a notable exception, though he tends to ramble)
My concerns with Vance and Trump are that they tend to isolationist and that's not good for the world. However if, as part of their isolationism, they stop uncontrolled immigration and help the US decouple from its current dependency for components and raw materials processed in West Taiwan that seems like a couple of positives. The world outsourced far too much basic manufacturing to the Chinese and now we have a single point of failure as we all found out during the Wuflu.
I agree with Vance on Ukraine. I don't care who rules that country (or if it even is a country), and we really don't have major interests there. The USA must have other priorities as to where we spend our resources.
Outstanding