I’ve realized something in watching the coverage of J. D. Vance here and at the New York Times, which has published a piece in which their opinion columnists debate various Trump VP picks. At some point since his election to the Senate, Vance has surpassed Donald Trump as the figure around which the future of Republican politics is debated. If it’s debated at all.
Most people have accepted Trump for who and what he is, for better or worse. Trump cannot be changed, and he is too large a figure — his ego, his persona, his cultural footprint — and his political grasp on the Republican base is too tight to challenge.
One reason of course is that Vance is formerly “one of us” — a writer and commentator on events. His promotion to actually shaping legislation and writing memos to Senate colleagues on Senate stationery leaves people envious. Or just disgusted at the political trade-offs that are part of the Trump era. Or both. Another part of this is that the deepest and most emotional divisions on the right are on foreign policy, and Vance is an active and effective senator in the camp of foreign-policy restraint.
I also think commentators will tend to overrate how distinct the Vance brand is from the Republican Party or conservatism writ large. The vast majority of Republicans accepted Trump in the end because he was their party’s candidate. If Vance is selected to be VP and serves, he’ll still be a Republican, and Democrats will still polarize against the ticket.