From Alexander Muse:
Vance is the heir apparent not because of proximity to power, though that matters, but because of ideological coherence. He did not arrive at the America First agenda because a president asked him to implement it. He arrived there on his own. His 2022 Senate campaign in Ohio was built on the same economic nationalism, immigration hawkishness, and skepticism of elite consensus that defines the MAGA coalition. His 2016 conversion story, the man who wrote about Appalachian working-class disintegration and then found in Trump a political vehicle for addressing it, is authentic in a way that cannot be manufactured. When Vance argues that illegal immigration drives up housing demand, depresses wages for working Americans, and strains public services, he is not reading from a briefing book. He is articulating a worldview he has held and defended for years. That is an enormous political asset. Voters, especially the working-class voters who form the backbone of the MAGA coalition, have finely tuned instincts for distinguishing a true believer from an executor. Vance is the former.
His voting record confirms it. On April 23, 2024, Vance voted against the supplemental spending vehicle that contained Ukraine aid, placing himself firmly in the domestic-first, skeptical-of-foreign-entanglement wing of the party at a moment when that vote carried real political cost. He did not hedge. He did not triangulate. He voted the way a man who genuinely believes the US should put its own border before someone else’s would vote. That kind of documented consistency is worth more than any speech.
Now, the most common criticism of Vance right now is that he is invisible. Voters who follow politics closely see Marco Rubio on every front page, at every summit, managing every diplomatic crisis, and they ask a reasonable question: what is JD Vance doing? The answer, though it requires some civic patience to appreciate, is that he is doing his job. The vice presidency is constitutionally modest by design. The VP casts tie-breaking Senate votes, represents the administration at ceremonial functions, provides counsel in private, and, most importantly, prepares to assume the presidency if called upon. Vance has executed that role with discipline and loyalty. He has not upstaged the president. He has not freelanced on policy. He has not leaked to reporters or positioned himself as a rival power center inside the administration. For a man who is widely regarded as the leading candidate to succeed Trump, this restraint is a feature, not a bug. The problem is that restraint is hard to photograph. (Read more.)
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