Today’s New York Times has a front-page story about Senator Vance’s ideas about power. (An aside: Whether you think it’s a good thing or a bad thing, Vance has interesting ideas. Matt Flegenheimer would not have written about Doug Burgum’s intellectual journey if he had been picked.) I write here to expand on a quote from me that appears at the end of the article.
Ramesh Ponnuru, the editor of National Review and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who has known Mr. Vance for years, cautioned that little about the policy outcomes inside any Trump White House could be predicted with certainty, given the man in charge.
But he was confident that Mr. Vance was “not going to be the guy to say, ‘Whoa, whoa, I’m not sure that we really have the power to do that.’”
Mr. Ponnuru invoked a figure from early in Mr. Trump’s tenure — another culture-warring, boundary-busting self-described populist who has worked to give an intellectual shape to Mr. Trump’s impulses.
“In a way,” he said, “it’s like Trump chose Steve Bannon to be his running mate.”
There are of course obvious differences between the two: Bannon has never been elected to anything; Vance has never been charged with defrauding supporters of a border wall to enrich himself, and he probably wears one shirt at a time.
If I recall correctly, my point in making the comparison was — or, if I don’t recall correctly, my point about it now is — twofold.
First, the faction of the party both men represent has grown in numbers and influence since the start of Trump’s first term. Bannon was its highest-ranking official during that term, and he didn’t make it to the fall of Trump’s first year.
Second, the fact that Trump picked a representative of that faction for a top job doesn’t mean he intends to govern based on its views or that he would follow through on any such intention. (As I wrote here, we know less about what a second Trump term would look like than a lot of people want to believe.) Vance would have a seat at the table as vice president. He wouldn’t be in charge, and of course he makes no claim otherwise.