JD Vance Just Gave Us a Preview of Trumpism Without Trump

However, we may be giving Trump too much credit. The radicalization of young Republicans predates his political rise in 2015. The racist, pro-Nazi far-right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017 that left a young woman dead was filled with young Republican leaders, many of whom had taken official positions before Trump’s presidential campaign began. Like my former colleague Alex Pareene wrote in an extremely insightful article shortly after the Charlottesville rally, “Racial resentment has been a driving force behind college Republican recruiting for years, but at this point, that’s really all they have to offer.” » Trump was a catalyst for the transformation of the Republican Party, but his rise to power was also a symptom of its radicalization and turn toward resentment, in other words. But the Nazi turn of young Republicans began well before his fateful passage on the escalator of Trump Tower in June 2015.

Where Trump was different — and one of the reasons he is so particularly beloved on the right — is that he provided a permission structure for Republicans to be publicly cruel and hateful. His rise was largely due to the fact that he refused to be intimidated or, for that matter, apologize. By 2016, he was openly misogynistic toward Megyn Kelly (now a staunch supporter), racist toward blacks and Latinos, and contemptuous of anyone who opposed him (including war hero and former Republican presidential candidate John McCain). The controversy this generated was a virtuous cycle for Trump. He said something inflammatory, pundits and politicians criticized him, and he not only refused to back down but also mocked them – a media circus that sucked all the oxygen from his rivals and competitors.

Vance – and most pretenders to the throne – surely understand, to some extent, that he lacks the strange charisma that is at the heart of the Trump brand. Much about Trump is fake – his wealth, his expertise, his skills, his golf handicap, his skin color and hair, for starters – but his contempt for his opponents is organic. But Vance recognizes that he can emulate the president in his refusal to throw any supporter under the bus — and that he will face no consequences from his MAGA-drunk party for it. So he makes up false defenses for 31-year-olds who make Hitler jokes and utter racist slurs, rather than calling on them to apologize, because that risks admitting that Republicans have a problem with racism (not to mention sexism, Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia, etc.). It also risks alienating the allies Vance knows he will need when he launches his own presidential campaign in two years and the staffers he will surely want to employ if successful.