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The Trump-Vance Divide--Kim Strassel
They agree on trade, but the ticket’s No. 2 marks a major shift on economic policy.
On the surface, this GOP convention is the most ebullient and unified in decades. Beneath it, many elected officials are deeply uneasy.
The source of that agitation is Donald Trump’s running mate. At a glance, Mr. Trump’s choice of Sen. J.D. Vance makes sense, as he appears to be a prototype of Mr. Trump. Protectionist. Passionate. America First.
But he isn’t Mr. Trump—not at all—in ways that are hugely consequential for the conservative movement and its future. In choosing Mr. Vance now, Mr. Trump sets him up for 2028, which means a monumental internal fight is coming. We’ll soon find out how much control Mr. Trump really has—and intends to keep—over his party.
To listen to the convention speeches and the on-the-record GOP chatter, Mr. Vance is a perfect running mate for a candidate laser-focused on winning this election with working-class votes. He’s right there with Mr. Trump on tariffs and the border. He talks passionately on inflation. He connects to the workingman, whom he delights by skewering the media and the Biden administration.
That’s where the similarities end. Mr. Vance’s bestselling 2016 memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” was mostly a social and cultural critique. His later political opinions initially sounded distinctly Democratic. He reveled for a time as a Never Trumper, with a 2016 essay in the Atlantic, “Opioid of the Masses,” in which he explained, “Donald Trump feels good, but he can’t fix America’s growing social and cultural crisis.” He now says he was wrong about Mr. Trump, but his record since joining the Senate last year suggests he still rejects much of Mr. Trump’s economic agenda.
Mr. Vance believes government is needed to right the problems in his hometown. He’s OK with raising the minimum wage to $20. (Even Bernie Sanders is asking for only $17.) He bashes banks and thinks Federal Trade Commission head Lina Khan is “doing a pretty good job.” He wants government to direct industrial policy, with tax credits for favored industries. He’s “not philosophically against raising taxes on anybody.” Maybe because he wants more welfare for low-income households.
He and his “national conservative” allies may call this populism, but Mr. Trump’s successful Republican formula couldn’t be more different. The former president has certainly shifted the party, but as Ohio Rep. Jim Jordanput it recently, he has made the GOP into “a populist party rooted in conservative principle.” A businessman at his core, knowledgeable about markets, an invoker of Reagan, Mr. Trump’s first-term success was anchored in the core beliefs of limited government, more freedom, trust in providing opportunity to the American people. His tax cuts, impressive deregulation and handcuffs on the bureaucracy worked magic. One instance of the Grand Canyon between the two men: Mr. Trump’s belief in workers vs. Mr. Vance’s skepticism of right-to-work laws, which empower workers who don’t want to join unions.
The majority of elected Republicans view the still-small Vance crew with deep skepticism, but they won’t say so publicly. They’ve happily embraced Mr. Trump’s transformation of the party: They like its fight, see its electoral appeal and (except for some elements of trade policy) believe it gels well with their deeply rooted principles. But Mr. Vance is a bridge too far.
Don’t expect defense hawks to climb down from their principled belief in supporting the military by rebuilding defense capabilities. Don’t expect free-market conservatives to embrace government control of wages, higher taxes or Ms. Khan and the unbridled administrative state.
It’s unclear how this split would play out in a Trump administration. Mr. Vance is ambitious and may try to use his position to “manage” his boss. His Wednesday night speech suggested as much; it never got crosswise with Trump policy, yet subtly and skillfully injected Mr. Vance’s worldview. Mr. Trump might consider that left-leaning policy shifts risk blow-ups with Republicans in Congress, and could squander a GOP majority in 2026.
Then again, Mr. Vance has shape-shifted before, and possibly could again under Mr. Trump’s tutelage. Unspoken is that most Republicans viewed the Vance pick as a starting gun for a wide-open primary in 2028. No one views him as the heir, and it’s far from clear that Mr. Trump was himself thinking of the future when he made the pick. He was undecided until the final hours, and his other top choices were men vastly different from Mr. Vance in style and substance—Glenn Youngkin, Doug Burgum.
Mr. Trump may or may not have been thinking of his legacy, but he’ll need to do so now. A policy shift toward the Vance worldview risks destroying the former president’s chance to repeat his first term’s economic prosperity. And it risks leaving its next chapter in the hands of those who claim a Trump agenda but distort it for their own ends. Only Mr. Trump can decide if his unique version of the party—a party that, let’s note, is currently united and determined in a manner not witnessed in ages—endures.
J.D. Vance's Incoherent Argument for Higher Minimum Wages-- Eric Boehm
Jun 14, 2024 | 7:40 AM
In an interview published this week by The New York Times, Sen. J.D. Vance (R–Ohio) calls for a more muscular federal government to intervene even more aggressively in the economy than it already does, to create what Vance calls "incentives" for American workers. In doing so, Vance inadvertently reveals one of the major flaws in this line of analysis.
Vance's opinions about these things carry significant weight, in no small part because he's on the shortlist to be Donald Trump's running mate. With an eye towards that possibility, the Times' Ross Douthat asked Vance to explain his "populist economic agenda." Here is part of the senator's response (emphasis mine):
The populist vision, at least as it exists in my head, is an inversion of [the postwar American order of globalization]: applying as much upward pressure on wages and as much downward pressure on the services that the people use as possible. We've had far too little innovation over the last 40 years, and far too much labor substitution. This is why I think the economics profession is fundamentally wrong about both immigration and about tariffs. Yes, tariffs can apply upward pricing pressure on various things—though I think it's massively overstated—but when you are forced to do more with your domestic labor force, you have all of these positive dynamic effects.
It's a classic formulation: You raise the minimum wage to $20 an hour, and you will sometimes hear libertarians say this is a bad thing. "Well, isn't McDonald's just going to replace some of the workers with kiosks?" That's a good thing, because then the workers who are still there are going to make higher wages; the kiosks will perform a useful function; and that's the kind of rising tide that actually lifts all boats. What is not good is you replace the McDonald's worker from Middletown, Ohio, who makes $17 an hour with an immigrant who makes $15 an hour. And that is, I think, the main thrust of elite liberalism, whether people acknowledge it or not.
The basic fallacy here is one that President Joe Biden, former President Donald Trump, and plenty of other politicians make regularly: They talk as though America is made up of one group of people who are "workers" and another group who are "consumers."
If this was so, you could focus on policies that raise wages for one group—the workers—at the expense of the other. But since most people are sometimes a worker and other times a consumer, policies that artificially apply "upward pressure on wages" also apply upward pressure on the prices consumers pay (because those wages have to come from somewhere). If you want to see how this plays out in reality, just look at California's experience with a $20 minimum wage. Prices have skyrocketed and jobs are being lost.
Pitting the two fictional camps of workers and consumers against one another might be a clever electoral strategy, but it's not the basis for sound economic policy.
There is another, deeper problem with Vance's argument here. In the second section I highlighted above, he argues that there's nothing wrong if a job is automated away after the government mandates a higher minimum wage, because the workers who get to keep their jobs will earn more. But if your job is lost due to market forces—because someone else is willing to do the same work for less—that's a problem he implies the government has a role in solving.
Taken together, those two premises effectively absolve the state from being blamed for the inevitable negative side effects of its interventions in the economy. Think about the two scenarios Vance lays out. In both, a worker has lost a job. If a centrally planned wage mandate is the cause, Vance says that's actually good because it means the remaining workers will earn more and be more productive.
Kudos to him for recognizing that automation isn't something to be feared or banned—not every populist gets that. Even so, the fact that automation can help make some McDonald's workers worth $20 per hour is likely to be little comfort to the worker who would have been willing to earn $17 per hour but is now out of a job because of a government mandate. For that matter, even though automation is a natural market response to artificially higher wages, it's not clear that the trade-off is an economically beneficial one. If it were, why shouldn't Vance want a $100 per hour minimum wage?
Meanwhile, Vance is worried about that same guy being replaced by a different worker who is willing to do the same job for $15 per hour. (That scenario, you'll note, is tinged with xenophobia. Why can't the wage competition come from another native-born American worker willing to do the job for $15 an hour?)
That seems pretty incoherent, but I think Vance is trying to play a clever game here. He's arguing that job losses (or other negative economic consequences) due to well-intentioned governmental interventions should be ignored, and the focus should be on how workers benefit from those interventions.
If you're someone who favors greater governmental intervention in the economy, as Vance does, this is exactly the framework you'd like to work within. Sure, a higher minimum wage means some workers lose their jobs and consumers pay more, but other workers earn fatter checks. Sure, cutting off immigration would probably make inflation worse, but it would protect some workers from wage competition. Sure, dumping tons of tax money on politically favored businesses and industries means higher taxes or borrowing costs foisted on everyone, but look at the shiny new semiconductor factory and the jobs created.
There's nothing new about this line of thinking. Vance is simply adding a more conservative-coded twist to the same tired arguments that progressives and other advocates for big government have used for years. In either case, the argument rests on the premise that government officials know exactly what levers to pull and what "incentives" to offer. Is a $20 per hour wage enough or should it be higher? How many factories does this town or state need? Which jobs are important enough to protect? Conservatives used to have enough humility to recognize that government officials won't have the answers to all those questions.
In place of that humility, Vance and other right-wing populists are substituting a different idea: that when the government inevitably makes mistakes while picking winners and losers, we should simply ignore the costs and focus only on the benefits.
All you need to know about Vance, he's Thiel's protege. And if you don't know why that's bad, I can't help you.
All hail the coming technocracy!!
What the fuck are you talking about? You can look at his fucking voting record right now. I'll save you the suspense, it won't be good. Only politician who ever voted for the people in our lifetime, Ron Paul. And it's not "someone's", it's fucking DOD Peter Thiel. LifeLog.. err Facebook Peter Thiel. Palantir Peter Thiel. You want some creepy shit, look at Palantir, the name origin, and their biggest clients.
Next you'll go on about the lesser of two evils...
Ooohhh Peter Thiel, Palantir! Palantir! You sound like a leftoid complaining that they assisted ICE which really can use all the assistance it needs. What about jd vance's voting record? Patriot act? Against! Check. Why don't you come up.with a concrete example of voting failures instead of name mysticism and vague hints. This is how nothing ever gets done and the left will install their next commie puppet, because Tulsi was in the WEF and Peter backs Palantir!
Voted against giving funds to border protection, check
And there it is.
On the voting record:
* Voted to continue using US Army to build a pier that wasted millions in Gaza, check
* Voted against giving funds to border protection, check
* CO-SPONSORED bill to give a trillion dollars to Israel, and send US military to Middle East, check
Which one are you talking a out? The "bipartisan pork belly" bill in which funds for the border were tied to many more billions wasted in the Ukraine? I don't see any votes against border funding, and the one above certainly was not a border funding bill.
This seems like weak sauce, but ok. Nobody's perfect, if you don't like Israel and its ties to the US, maybe there's a point for you not to like him. Still miles better than anyone else. Certainly not an establishment guy just because he's pro Israel. Some people identify more strongly with their Judeo-Christian roots than others
They've tracked every phone call, every text and every Google search you've ever made which is included in this database that is now being used by a private company and billionaire Peter Theil.
— The Last American Vagabond (@TLAVagabond) July 22, 2024
Full Interview Here: https://t.co/xNi13eJlT3 pic.twitter.com/nqzzKBgSqH
80% of longtime Republican Congressional Staffers and Aides, and professional Lobbyists dislike Vance.
He must be an excellent choice.
As to the last, Israel the state is a Zionist terrorist organization. Has shit to do with religion. But if you'd bothered to read any of the many, many links I've posted on this subject, you'd know that...
This is unmitigated bs. The Israelis love their country like most citizens of others countries do and they have all similar ambitions for their people.
mell says
This is unmitigated bs. The Israelis love their country like most citizens of others countries do and they have all similar ambitions for their people.
They're far easier to find than Palestinian videos of the same.
mell says
This is unmitigated bs. The Israelis love their country like most citizens of others countries do and they have all similar ambitions for their people.
Explain all the videos I've posted of Jews protesting the Zionist state. They're far easier to find than Palestinian videos of the same. Also see the videos of Zionist state police beating Israeli's(I've posted more than one).
You have no sources outside your opinion, I've posted MANY. Lies are harder to support than the truth. Shill for your real country somewhere else, Massie and myself aren't interested.
NuttBoxer says
mell says
This is unmitigated bs. The Israelis love their country like most citizens of others countries do and they have all similar ambitions for their people.
They're far easier to find than Palestinian videos of the same.
You’re expecting people to sign their own death warrant?
they will eventually level what you call Palestine
Yep. Also every democratic country has people protesting their own wars, nothing special. It's called freedom of speech/expression.
This conflict is far too old and complex for simplistic leftoid antifa tropes.
Fuck the leftists who advocated violence a few years ago, fuck you who advocates violence today. You're all the same, suck on that dick, and swallow the jizz you've earned with your Israeli government fellatio.
You didn't fall for the Scamdemic or Ukraine, but Israel's propaganda is balls deep in your rectum.
fdhfoiehfeoi says
Fuck the leftists who advocated violence a few years ago, fuck you who advocates violence today. You're all the same, suck on that dick, and swallow the jizz you've earned with your Israeli government fellatio.
Right, it was Israel that broke a Ceasefire without cause to send men on paragliders and pickup trucks into Khan Yunis to murder people in a small village and a Rave on a holiday morning, and took 100s of Palestinians hostages.
mell says
Yep. Also every democratic country has people protesting their own wars, nothing special. It's called freedom of speech/expression.
Gotcha. More Holocaust supporters. Kill the babies, as long as their Palestinian, anything to save the STATE of Israel!! I don't know how you guys can live with yourselves, you fucking disgust me.
I don't know how you guys can live with yourselves, you fucking disgust me.
PatNet is cool in that it is a microcosm of what's going on in TRW. In a way, it's like a refinery. Heat up the pot, and the lit gaseous libtards evaporate first. Next it's the mainstream liberals chanting the Rodney King mantra. Now it's the fake "I was conservative before it was cool" crowd boiling off. Eventually we'll be left with the bitumen - the "based."
The most important job of a leader is to set up a strong succession plan. Trump is the indefatigable disrupter who has rammed open the gates for operators to drain the swamp and right the ship. At exactly half Trump’s age, JD is the greatest possible successor and assassination insurance. He is the second middle finger to the establishment. Like Trump, the game was rigged against him being anywhere near institutional power. Uniparty policies would have kept JD in poverty at a minimum, or dead from forever wars and CCP/cartel/Sackler opioids at a maximum. Judge a man by his enemies and who he follows on Twitter. JD has all the right ones. Neocon warmongers, woke leftists, and corporate media are all melting down about him which are ringing endorsements. I interviewed two of his notorious anon Twitter follows: Raw Egg and Lomez. Vance Derangement Syndrome is the new Trump Derangement Syndrome.
JD is already head and shoulders above every VP of the new millennium: Warmonger Dick Cheney, Swamp Creature Joe Biden, Neocon Judas Mike Pence, and DEI Commissar Kamala Harris. JD and Kamala are the ultimate contrast between American meritocracy and Marxist DIE. She was born into privilege with two professor parents, slept with a man twice her age to advance her career, and rose up to the apex of the DIE commissar ranks when Biden selected her for VP solely because her race and gender. DIE means that she is oppressed, while Vance is privileged. The entire DIE system is set up to prevent boys like JD from ever getting into Yale, while girls like Kamala receive sinecures and promotions through affirmative action and DIE hiring. For every 10 Kamalas on a Demorallized DIEvy League campus, there is one JD.
We were robbed of an epic debate:
Last Updated on July 28, 2024
Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance doubled down on his totally accurate comments about how America should not be ruled by childless cat ladies who wish to inflict suffering on others to compensate for their own emotional emptiness.
“We are effectively run in this country via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made, so they want to make of the country miserable too,” Vance said in a 2021 Tucker Carlson interview.
Vance pinpointed a big problem in society that most young people and certainly all service workers have faced: the hostility of angry self-righteous liberal women who look and sound like Rachel Maddow. Notably, the “Karen” phenomenon has become a big part of American culture, referring to women who complain all the time and try to call the cops and get people in trouble for no reason. There is obviously a lot of overlap between Karens and cat ladies.
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