Opinion | What does J.D. Vance mean for the future of the GOP?

So I asked my colleagues Ramesh Ponnuru and Jason Willick: What does this choice mean for the future of the party?

Megan McArdle: What does this choice mean, not just for the GOP today but for the GOP to come?

Jason Willick: Vance, at 39, is exactly half Trump’s age. Definitely a generational change, but one that signifies a continuity in terms of the party’s trajectory toward populism and noninterventionism. Another observation: Since the assassination attempt, Trump has been sending signals about the importance of unity. The Vance pick doesn’t project unity either within the party or outside it; it reassures the base that his campaign will remain aggressive and confrontational.

Ramesh Ponnuru: No vice-presidential nominee has had a more meteoric rise since Richard Nixon. Trump’s selection of Vance helps to show just how willing the former is to let bygones be bygones: It’s hard to imagine any other nominee, in either party, picking someone who had once compared him to Hitler. It also, as Megan suggests, means that not only does Trump have an heir, but so does Trumpism, which Vance is developing into an actual vision of governance and not just a set of impulses.

Jason: As much as we project ideological significance onto the pick, it’s important to remember that Vance has been ideologically flexible in the past.

Ramesh: I think Vance’s evolution is both sincere and motivated. That is, he had obvious political incentives to become a Trump fan, but that shift corresponded with some preexisting views and traits of his. And, over time, people have a way of persuading themselves that what they’re saying is right — and indeed that they should go further.

Megan: A number of my Never Trump friends insist that Vance is much worse than Donald Trump — that he is Trump but competent, marrying the neoliberal chops of a Yale Law grad with the populist persona of a working-class kid from Middletown, Ohio. The counterargument is that the persona is a put-on — that the real Vance is the guy who wanted the establishment to just be 15 percent less out of touch, and that if Trump exits the scene, that guy is the one who will actually govern. What do you guys think: Does Vance portend a future for the party that is less radical or more radical than under Trump?

Jason: It depends what you mean by radical. The peak of Vance’s politically “radical” rhetoric was during the 2022 Ohio Senate primary. He’s suggested, for example, that Trump should defy the courts in a second term. That kind of rhetoric has faded since he joined the Senate. My impression is that he was trying to go overboard to prove his MAGA bona fides after being so publicly Never Trump in 2016. Where his heart is, only he knows.

Megan: What do we think his likely role in the party and the White House will be for the next four years? (Presuming that Trump remains hale and healthy until the end of his second term?)

Jason: Vice presidents have historically played a relatively significant foreign policy role compared to domestic policy — and Vance has made his anti-Ukraine aid stance a significant feature of his time in the Senate. I think his noninterventionist views, influenced by his time in the military, are sincerely held. I suspect he will play a role pushing Trump’s foreign policy in a restrained direction.

Ramesh: I suspect that if Trump-Vance is elected, Vance will be very mindful that Trump does not want to be upstaged. He will be Trump’s ambassador to MAGAville, certainly, but I also think he will seek and have a voice in many aspects of policy. He certainly will not be pushing back on Trump’s instincts on trade and foreign policy.

Jason: Of course, Trump likes competition among his subordinates. So whether a Vance pick heralds a generally populist and restrained Trump team — or whether Trump will try to balance him with Mike Pompeos and Tom Cottons — remains to be seen. I think the latter is probably more likely.

Megan: The fact that Trump is not very interested in policy detail will presumably give him more scope than most vice presidents get.

Jason: Yes, I would expect Vance to have a significant policy shop in the White House….