Mar.28

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This Week in Schadenfreude: No Tomorrow for J.D. Vance?

There are roughly 56,000 people living in Greenland, and the average household size there is about 3.5 people. That means there are roughly 16,000 households. Today, J.D. Vance and his wife Usha are scheduled to visit the U.S. Space Force Base at Pituffik, which is pretty small, and has a contingent of only about 150 people. It's a 7-hour flight each way, and so the Trump administration might like to get a bit more mileage out of the trip than can be gotten out of a tour of such a small installation. Consequently, the U.S. government's advance team went door-to-door, desperately trying to set up a photo-op for the second couple during their visit. Among those 16,000 households, they could not find a single taker.

Actually, that is not entirely true. Originally, the trip was going to include only the Second Lady. And while that was the case, there were a few Greenlanders willing to put out the welcome mat. She was going to visit a local business, and was going to fire the starter's pistol for a dogsled race. But once her husband announced he was coming along, all of the invitations were yanked. The people of Greenland are clever enough to know that: (1) the whole point of the trip, initially, was to generate some "Greenland wants to be American" propaganda; (2) the itinerary was updated to the space base, as we noted yesterday, to save face when it became clear that Greenlanders don't want to be American, and don't want to be subjects of any propaganda that suggests otherwise; and (3) the would-be photo-op is a cheap attempt to sneak some of that propaganda in, anyhow. So, they were willing to shake hands and pose for an awkward picture or two with Usha Vance, but the moment that J.D. Vance got involved, then it got far too official looking and far too close to Donald Trump himself, and the Greenlanders said "No way." In view of this, at this point, there is some question as to whether or not the Vances will even bother to make the trip.

And that brings us to the real point of this item. At the moment, at least on the surface, it looks like Vance is the frontrunner in the race to inherit the MAGA throne. He's well-known, he's a Trump insider, he's 2-for-2 in campaigns for office, and he'll say or do whatever it takes to lick Trump's boots (or anything else that needs to be licked). However, we are skeptical this can last for 4 full years (or 3, really, since the next presidential cycle will get underway in spring of 2027). Here are three major problems that Vance has, in our view:

• Vance Is Weird: Maybe it's his odd, cherubic visage. Maybe it's the (alleged) eyeliner. Maybe it's the voice. Maybe it's the herky-jerky speaking style. Whatever it is, Vance very clearly sets off many people's "weird" alarms. Some politicians don't, some politicians do, and he definitely does. For example, just two weeks ago, in this very space, we had a rundown of surreal Vance memes. It's Urban Folklore 101 that if so many memes like that, about the same person, reach a wide audience, it is a clear indication that something is rubbing people the wrong way.
  
  We have our doubts that Trump will ever really anoint a successor, either overtly or subtly. Really, he is the type of person who would enjoy watching the bloodsport as various pretenders to the throne try to knife each other. But if he does get behind Dear Leader v2.0, whoever that person might be, we just can't see him summoning up any enthusiasm for Vance. Trump likes the "cool kids" (so he can pretend that he is one of them), and hates to associate himself with losers and nerds. Vance is a geeky technocrat, which is just a fancy way of saying "nerd." It is for this same basic reason that Trump Sr. has never shown the slightest interest in making Trump Jr. the heir to the throne. Dad doesn't respect Junior, and the only child he DOES respect (Ivanka) has no further interest in politics.
  
  
• Vance Is Too Independent: As we note above, Vance is happy to do whatever bootlicking he needs to do, at least in public. In private, as indicated by the Signal chat, he's rather less obeisant. One has to imagine that the chat did not happen to be the one and only time Vance (carelessly) dared to be critical of Trump. And even if it was somehow the only time, Trump is now on notice. As we have noted many times (including yesterday), the President does not forget or forgive slights, no matter how slight they might be. At least one Republican senator, who only spoke on condition of anonymity, is thinking along the same lines as us. Speaking to Jewish Insider, this senator said: "I've gotta wonder if Trump's looking at this and going, 'What have I done?' Trump might come to regret anointing Vance as his heir apparent by tapping him as his running mate last year."
  
  
• Vance Is Un-Fireable: To the extent that Trump has a leadership style, it's rooted in his ability to fire or banish his underlings at a moment's notice. As long as a person is 100% on board the S.S. Trump, and as long as a person doesn't become a liability in some way (legal, P.R., etc.), he's willing to keep them around and to allow them to be "insiders." Mike Flynn, Stephen Miller, Roger Stone, Linda McMahon, etc. know how to play the game, and that is why they have survived, traveling a road that is jammed with the corpses of former Trump loyalists.
  
  The one person in the White House who Trump absolutely cannot fire is Vance. And the President clearly does not enjoy operating without that kind of leverage. Yes, he can exile Vance from the inner circle, and limit him to cutting the ribbon at openings of Piggly Wiggly locations. But Trump prefers underlings he can cast out of paradise entirely, and he can't do that with Vance. By virtue of being VP, Vance will always have a platform in a way that would not be true if, say, Stephen Miller somehow became "former Trump administration insider Stephen Miller."

Indeed, we cannot help but notice that even now, despite his ostensible high profile, the Vance vice presidency is unfolding much like the Mike Pence vice presidency. Remember, for example, when Pence was deployed to an Indianapolis Colts game for some embarrassing political theater centered on kneeling football players? Well, that was in October 2017, about eight months into Trump v1.0. And we all know what eventually happened with Pence, who was neutered well before he refused to participate in the 1/6 coup. We're just 2 months into Trump v2.0, and Vance is already drawing embarrassing assignments, like going to Greenland despite the fact that nobody wants him there. Sure looks to us like history is repeating itself. (Z)