Jason Willick: Jim and E.J., what did you think of the speech?
Jim Geraghty: First, Vance is a gifted, polished, personable speaker. Every Mamaw story killed. He seemed to improvise lines. He joked about not celebrating his home state of Ohio too much because Republicans have to win Michigan in November. And Vance finds ways to make policies and views that are pretty darn controversial — populism, protectionism, quasi-isolationism, for example — sound like common sense.
What’s that saying by New York Gov. Mario Cuomo? “You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.” We were served a lot of poetry tonight.
Jason: Yes, plenty to say about style and personality. But what about substance? The backdrop to the speech was the division in the GOP on foreign policy and economics. I thought, for the most part, Vance struck a conciliatory note on this. He tried to frame the GOP’s divisions as a source of its strength — an implicit contrast to groupthink in the Democratic Party epitomized by its crisis over President Biden’s age.
E.J. Dionne Jr.: I was struck by three aspects: First, the repudiation of past Republican policies on trade and foreign policy. Second, the hard-edge class language more likely to come from the left — attacks on “the ruling class,” “Wall Street,” “the few.” Third, and this was troubling the more I thought about it, a defense of a nationalism rooted more in the land and in identity than in a commitment to, say, the principles of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. It was a different kind of conservatism, national conservatism.
Jason: I agree, E.J., that the repudiation of “creedal nationalism” — or the idea that America is an idea — was maybe the speech’s most significant substantive point.
E.J.: Yes, Jason, the repeated rejection of America as an idea really jumped out, as did his coming back again and again to “homeland” and “home” and mentioning the “seven generations” of his family buried in that Kentucky cemetery.
Jim: I think you’re going to hear a lot of discussion of what Vance means by “homeland.” I wonder how many Americans hear that word and think of the Department of Homeland Security. Which is, you know, not exactly all that popular these days.
E.J.: One thing that seemed very real and authentic: His ambition to be a good father after growing up in a chaotic family situation. And his celebration of his mom for being “clean and sober” for almost 10 years I am sure touched a lot of people.
Jason: Yes, you could argue that this speech fused “Hillbilly Elegy” Vance with the modern MAGA Vance we’ve come to know in the past two years. The speech introduced us to characters from the book, in the context of selling a fairly firm “America First” agenda.
Jim: Oh, I want Mamaw running our national drug policy. Or Mamaw can run the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
E.J.: It was funny that he put his political role in this campaign right out there, mentioning Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania again and again and again. (And he threw in Ohio, of course.)
Jason: The divisions in the GOP on core issues — did he handle them well enough to at least suppress them through the election? We’ve heard a lot of stories in the past few days about how nervous the party’s hawks and business class are about this veep pick. From a political perspective, did he counterproductively double down on Trump’s most loyal voters?
E.J: Good question. I think he did nothing to soothe the internationalists in the party, the supporters of Ukraine or the business wing. He was pretty much who he has been.
Jim: Foreign policy got only a few lines here and there. But Vance has an Obama-esque ability to take a controversial idea and make it sound common sense and anodyne.
Let me put it this way: If you tuned in hearing that he was this extreme MAGA hard-liner, you probably wondered where that guy was and why you were getting a sitcom dad or a Jeff Foxworthy-esque “You might be a hillbilly” routine: “If there’s a handgun in your grandma’s silverware drawer, you might be a hillbilly!”
Jason: Agreed, Jim, on controversial policy — high level of generality helps. For example, we will send troops to war only when we “must.” When that threshold is crossed, different parts of the party will disagree. And Trump will be the decider.
Essentially, he articulated objectives the party can agree on: American strength, strong industry and families, and so on. But the means to get there will be a source of fierce disagreement. As in: free-market policy vs. industrial policy, free trade vs. tariffs, etc.
E.J.: I kept trying to figure out how much political work this speech was doing. All the blue-collar, anti-ruling-class stuff might help with some working-class voters in the key states. But it did nothing to pull in suburban moderates who will find Vance’s social-issue positions — on abortion, for example — unacceptable.
Jason: Notably, no mention of abortion in this speech.
E.J.: On his being a MAGA hard-liner: It was all there. That phrase about immigrants — “We allow them in on our terms” — was very hard-line. Mixing the hard line with a well-told personal story about his wife might have taken the edges off the tough message a bit, but the message was still there.
Jim: I wonder how many Americans will see Usha Chilukuri Vance and conclude he can’t be too hard-line on immigration.
E.J.: Shout out to Usha, who was a great witness for him. She was very believable in what she said.
E.J.: I confess that when I heard him extol Trump, I kept thinking of all his criticism of Trump as “America’s Hitler” and “cultural heroin.” I imagine we’ll see a lot of split-screening of Vance past and Vance present. He might have had a few sentences inoculating himself somewhat by talking about why he changed his mind.
Jim: Eh, Kamala Harris gutted Biden in the first debate, and when he picked her as veep, it was all under the bridge. I’m not sure “Vance hated Trump in 2016” moves many votes in 2024.
E.J.: The difference, I think, is that what Vance said about Trump in 2016 goes to the heart of what Democrats will be arguing this year.
Jim: Yeah, I’m sure we’ll see attack ads: “Even Trump’s own running mate said he was a jerk,” etc. But I’m skeptical they’d move anyone.
E.J.: Curious if anyone else noticed that he looked sometimes as if he couldn’t believe he was there, unusually long breaks for smiling at the crowd, leading cheers, just standing there enjoying it.
Jim: Probably. His ascent in politics makes Barack Obama look like Lyndon B. Johnson.
E.J.: Given the relatively low ratings this convention is getting, the speech was mostly to sympathizers. Measuring that way, I think he left them liking him.
Jason: Unless Trump-Vance loses in November!
And speaking of Obama, the speech comes 20 years after Obama as a junior senator spoke at his party’s convention and became a national figure, appealing to a brighter future. Any final impressions?
E.J.: I don’t think the speech we just watched reached that level! But VP speeches rarely do. An exception: Hubert Humphrey’s epic “Happy Warrior” attack on Barry Goldwater in 1964.
Jim: Vance passed the test, easily. He’ll be formidable in a debate. And he’ll steer the GOP in the most populist, nationalist, protectionist and perhaps isolationist direction possible.
Jason: I agree. And boy, how far we are from when a politician could tell the nation with a straight face there are no red states or blue states. This is a polarized time, and polarization has helped propel Vance to the pinnacle of politics.
Brain dump
- The most striking part of Vance’s speech for The Post’s Karen Tumulty is what he didn’t mention. Read more.
- George F. Will is no fan of Vance. See his searing evaluation of the candidate.
- Jennifer Rubin argues that picking Vance makes it more difficult for Republicans to defend themselves on abortion. See more.
- Matt Bai writes about the “vacuum in our national psyche” that has made polarization so damaging in recent decades. Take a look.
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