In the daylong period since Donald Trump named J. D. Vance his running mate, I’ve borne witness to a series of freak-outs, both public and private, from conservatives who are upset with the Vance pick and the Republican Party’s ideological drift that it represents. As someone who takes some issue with Vance’s current worldview, I am somewhat sympathetic. But I am also astounded at two related phenomena from these anti-Vance conservatives in the aftermath of his nomination.
The first is a fatalistic wallowing that proclaims that fusionism, Reaganism, conservatism — whatever you want to call it — is dead. Not dying, not sick, not in peril, but dead. The second is a series of wild straw-man characterizations of Vance’s views. These responses worry me far more than Vance’s nomination itself does because they signal a conservative “establishment” that, nearly a decade after Trump’s rise, still mightily struggles to understand Trump, Vance, and their respective constituencies. I worry that many Vance opponents do not fully understand the worldview Vance espouses and so are radically unprepared to offer a serious intellectual challenge.
Take the oft-repeated charge from conservatives that Vance is an “isolationist.” The Wall Street Journal’s editorial in the aftermath of Vance’s nomination notes his “isolationist tendencies.” It’s an accusation that sacrifices accuracy for simplicity. Why would an isolationist deliver a speech on the Senate floor criticizing Democrats for not passing an Israel-aid bill? Why would that same person, just yesterday, laud Trump for “punching Iran hard” and initiating the “diplomatic breakthrough” that was the Abraham Accords? That doesn’t sound like retreating from the world stage to me.
I must emphasize that this is not to say that Vance’s foreign policy is necessarily correct. But it is to say that it demands to be taken seriously. And the failure of those conservatives who disagree with Vance to take it seriously does themselves far more harm than it does to Vance.
Now consider the claim from the always interesting Isaac Schorr that “JD Vance as Trump’s running mate is the death knell of American conservatism.” I respectfully disagree — I believe that Schorr makes the same mistake I have noted: failing to characterize Vance’s worldview for what it is. Writes Schorr:
He may claim to put America first, but Vance can be better understood as a member of the “Blame America First” crowd that conservatives once rightly deplored. His economic outlook is similarly indistinguishable from the Right’s ancestral opponents.
Indistinguishable? I don’t think so. Again, why did Vance support a stand-alone Israel-aid bill that Democrats opposed? Why did the purportedly Elizabeth Warren–style progressive Vance introduce legislation to repeal federal tax credits for electric vehicles that were created under the Inflation Reduction Act?
These questions demand serious answers. Again, I am not defending Vance. I want his praise of Lina Khan to be challenged, for example. But it must be challenged seriously. Perhaps traditional conservatives would do well to note what William F. Buckley wrote in God and Man at Yale:
The most casual student of history knows that, as a matter of fact, truth does not necessarily vanquish. What is more, truth can never win unless it is promulgated. Truth does not carry within itself an antitoxin to falsehood. The cause of truth must be championed, and it must be championed dynamically.
Opponents of Vance need to embody Buckley’s charge to dynamically champion truth: pay close attention to the arguments of their adversaries and respond with precision and acuteness.
American conservatism is not dead, though it may be slowly dying. Nonetheless, it can be revivified, as can any ideological movement. But that demands taking seriously both what our friends and enemies truly believe so that we can hope to advocate for the truth dynamically, as Buckley intended.