J.D. Vance.
He’s 39. First VP that would be younger than me (that I’ve experienced).
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I’m beginning to wonder how long ‘JD Vance Damned’ will last for?
By my understanding of these things, Trump’s reasons for running are (partly to wholly) driven by his need to avoid judicial accountability. He is not beholden to structure, convention and especially contemporary optics and the consequences stemming from that. And I’m sure there’s a longer laundry list of contextual thingummies. I don’t know the technical elements that might forcibly cement his original pick, so maybe it’s simply impossible to change now. Humour me if so.
If Vance Damned (VD) continues on his fiery crusade to skewer support, Trump might be forced into a stick/twist decision. Trump will only do what’s best for Trump, which is why I accept the possibility he can upend his VP pick (notwithstanding any technical barriers).
Mitigating factors are whatever-the-deal-was to pick Vance, which presumably involved a large amount of cash. Assuming that transaction can be squared, then let’s also assume he’d pick (and/or be advised to pick) who’s going to politically work for him in a broader tent that contains more than just a single male toilet. So on that basis, my small-world-view conjecture is the choice could result in his calling of Nikki Haley. It doesn’t matter how they feel about each other, this is survival and politicians love that.
On the basis that Nikki Haley has the solution to Trump’s inflamed VD problem, the fight with Kamala Harris will become trickier. My earlier assertion in another thread that Kamala/Whitmer is the more logical (perhaps even ‘nuclear’) offensive choice (on a simple basis of destroying and not merely defeating Trump and VD) would lose its USP.
I think Trump could do something like this. He’s spiteful and vengeful. Having just had the rug pulled from under his bone spurs, he would be itching to return the favour (basic inversion, which is pretty much his whole shtick). However, post the Dem VP nomination, would he have the technical latitude to do that? Would there be enough time? And more comically delicious, could such a late move be legally challenged?
Overall then, I worry about a VD-free Trump ticket. Despite this, my projection for having a planet to live in next year remains very positive, at least from the Americas angle. The talk of Trump ‘not starting wars’ is so utterly disingenuous. You don’t have to be in government to start a war; a stone thrown into a lake should not be measured by its splash, but rather by the ripples that follow long, long after.
Thanks for reading, I feel much better now ha-ha.
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Vance aside, I hope the vitriolic sexism and racism coming from the Trump side has been enough to turn away independent voters.
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Yes, me too. One wonders why Trump’s polarisation of everything hasn’t been enough already to make that cut. I would put it down to two things that immediately jump to mind: (1) indifference to the news cycle; and (2) rose-tinted-Trump-glasses.
The key thing I see with Vance, and indeed any VP pick, is he is more likely to pierce that indifference due to the novelty/importance of his anointing. What changes the balance however is that fewer folk will have those special glasses on when assessing Vance. That’s significant. I think that’s what determines the final cut.
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I like the way you think (and write)! I was also thinking that Trump would ditch Vance for Hailey. Such a crazy race, just when you almost get used to the feeling of impending doom, you get jolted by something akin to hope. Guess we’ll have to see how the weekend goes. 
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Hey, thank you for reading and also your comment. I think it’s important to think in different ways and ditch preconceptions, and most especially if you can hurl deniable insults at the same time 
My whole thinking behind Kamala going double-dragon is based on a simple idea, but one that leads to a golden horizon in my mind. Gretchen is one of the top-n picks and ‘we’ need to consider her. Kamala is! (and I’m assuming here it’s not simply to stop her running for top of the ticket. I doubt that’s the overriding factor).
The consequential impact of that ticket is something that fills me with immense hope for not just America, but also for the rest of the globe. It’s another kind of revolution, a good revolution that we’ve been kicking down the road for a while now.
I don’t ‘care’ about the policies in this unique situation we’re all in, wherever we are. It will continue the polarisation between the old and the new (there are plenty of other words that can fit here as well). That polarisation is needed to elicit meaningful change and Trump was a consequence of it. Harris is a consequence of it too. It’s like a giant dance. We live in amazing times.
Haley would be a smarter pick for Trump. He might get there, who can say? Yet the capacity for his ilk to self-destruct and self-cannibalise wherever they are in the world should never be overlooked. Trump is an extreme case. He’s such a great teacher in that respect.
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