Is J D Vance The Right Choice By Trump?

This is the guy who might be one feeble, McDonald's-fueled heartbeat from the presidency, notes Sree Sreenivasan.

THE 2024 MAGA EDITION OF DEPLORABLES IS NOW SET. Set to take its extremist, white Christian nationalist agenda to the next level. With J D Vance as his VP pick, Donald J Trump has upped his MAGA credentials. So much for 'healing the country' after the disturbing assassination attempt.

As Aaron Blake wrote in the Washington Post (external link) from the Republican Convention last night: 'For the second night running, the GOP's purported effort to turn down the volume ran into the reality that is: Red meat sells... apocalyptic language was more than back, just 72 hours after the Trump rally shooting.'

I've been warning about Vance for years (see my tweets below). Here's a summary of things he has said on the record (see Alex Aronson's detailed compilation (external link). He:

• Believes Trump won in 2020 and has said that if he had been VP then, he would have blocked certification of Joe Biden's victory.
• Believes Trump should 'fire every civil servant' and 'replace them with our people.'
• Doesn't 'really care what happens to Ukraine one way or the other.' (external link)
• Wants a national abortion ban with no exemptions for rape or incest.
• Doesn't believe in same-sex marriage.
• Said the UK may now be 'the first truly Islamist country to get a nuclear weapon... since Labour just took over.'
• Believes presidents can disregard every Supreme Court ruling (not a problem in this 6-3 Trump court).
• Acknowledges he is outside mainstream conservatism and that, in 2025, they will 'go in directions that a lot of conservatives right now are uncomfortable with.'
• Was 'honored to have Marjorie's endorsement. We're going to win this thing and take the country back from the scumbags.' Being a fan of Marjorie Taylor Greene should itself be disqualifying

This is the guy who might be one feeble, McDonald's-fueled heartbeat from the presidency.

For anyone impressed that his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, was a huge bestseller and made into a movie, don't be. In 2017, Sarah Jones mocked Vance as 'the false prophet of Blue America', calling him 'a flawed guide to this world' and wrote that the book says 'all hillbillies need to do is work hard, maybe do a stint in the military, and they can end up at Yale Law School like he did.' Read her review in The New Republic (external link).

In Indian circles, there's much excitement about Vance's wife, Indian American lawyer Usha Chilukuri .But someone who would voluntarily clerk for John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh and stand beaming next to her husband's extremism is an extremist at worst and an opportunist at best.

Meanwhile, look at the Trump base trying to make sense of their VP nominee's wife:

One more note before you see my tweets about Vance over the years: Mr. Centrist, Mr. Free Speech, aka, Elon Musk, has done the most predictably Musk thing ever (no, not postpone his promised robotaxi again, which he did; or claim that he's survived two assassination attempts, which he did; or move his businesses from California to Texas, which he did). He has announced his full-throated embrace and endorsement of Trump.

Sree Sreenivasan is a leading tech expert based in New York City. He is the co-founder of SAJA, the South Asian Journalists Association. You can find him on Twitter at x.com/sree

Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com