What J. D. Vance Once Knew | Hacker News Reader

What J. D. Vance Once Knew

theatlantic.com

14 pointsandsoitis9 comments

Many of my friends really fear a JD Vance presidency more than a Trump presidency due to his more approachable demeanor and supposed quiet implementation of the horrendous policies of MAGA.

Trump’s chaos is often his undoing while JD would supposedly implement every awful thing with efficiency and tact.

But, I don’t necessarily agree. I think he would be unpredictable in a much different way: as a pure opportunist, we don’t actually know what his convictions are if any exist until he achieves the ultimate goal of the top position in government. We already see that with his book persona being completely different than his VP MAGA persona.

He took a VP job nobody wanted and performed it with a perfect level of loyalty to skip a lifetime of political ladder climbing. Last I checked he’s far in the lead in Republican 2028 election polling compared to other candidates.

I don’t really think he’s MAGA, but he’s still his own brand of despicable policies regardless of how his new presidential persona would take shape.

I still think he will share ineffectiveness with Trump if he ever becomes president. He just has zero charisma and the body language of foreign leaders with him is very telling.

People like Bush Jr. and Obama could globetrot and make friends. JD will never learn that skill. He would also lack the congressional familiarity and connections of someone like Joe Biden.

> He took a VP job nobody wanted

According to who?

According to the gallows that were constructed for Mike Pence.

I think the burden of proof is more the other way around, as in, someone needs to prove that there was a line of people chomping at the bit to get the VP spot. I don’t even think right-leaning media made those kinds of claims at the time.

I didn’t really see the Jon Husteds and Ron DeSantises of the world making appeals to become VP, even though being a VP for the oldest president-elect of all time in their second term gives you a solid coin flip of becoming president in 4 years or less.

"Nobody wanted to be United States' vice president" is an extraordinary claim to me. So I'd expect extraordinary proof.

Rubio recently grew in popularity a lot, so JD isn't the only option.

True, and he got there by being one of the rare established politicos willing to suffer as a direct employee of Trump. He’s definitely paying his dues.

No one likes JD Vance though.

Everyone's looking at Israel speed running reputation destruction, which, TBF, is the bigger deal than what the tech industry is doing to itself, but we're not exactly covering ourselves in glory with techno fascism, social media rage farming, and the data center over build. JD Vance is blind to the extent that people hate the techno fascists. It's easy to miss because there's plenty of other things to dislike.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com