Felon Seeks Vice

Trump’s VP Search and the Politics of Impotence

Usually, vice-presidential candidates are selected for virtues.  They are expected to bring new voters in November, to complement the presidential candidate, and to be qualified to be president in case of emergency. 

Donald Trump is searching, quite literally, for vice. 

Trump is not so much trying to win an election as he is trying to gain power, so he needs someone who agrees with his Big Lie that he won the election last time, and who will stand with him during his second coup attempt.  He does not contemplate ceding power at any later point, so the question of the qualifications of a vice-presidential candidate is not so relevant.

The vice-presidential candidate cannot be seen to complement Donald Trump, since as a Leader he cannot be seen to have any shortcomings or flaws.  His is a specific kind of fascism, though, without any plan beyond retribution.  Trump's backers at home and abroad understand that the rage will provide cover to dismantle the operations of the American government -- so that oligarchs need not pay taxes, for example, or so that Russians can commit atrocities in Ukraine.

And so those who wish to join the Republican ticket as the vice-presidential nominee must prove not their worth but their worthlessness.  They must demonstrate that they do not challenge Trump in any way, and that they would not, should they become president, provide any resistance to those who would like to see American government fail.  They must engage, in other words, in a politics of impotence, a determined effort to show that they lack determination. 

Vice signaling is tricky, of course, both for them and for Trump.  They have to be bad, without being too good at being bad.  Appearing to be the frontrunner is dangerous, since it can be seen as ambition and talent, which Trump will not like.

According to Michael C. Bender's reporting in the New York Times, the frontrunners are Doug Burgum, Marco Rubio, and J.D. Vance.  Trump has also brought Tim Scott to the attention of donors.  I am not claiming to have any inside information or special insight as to whom Trump will pick.  In different ways, each of these men demonstrates the contortions of the politics of impotence.  As will any other possible candidate.

In media appearances, Tim Scott is craven in his defense of Trump's Big Lie and coup politics.  But the submissiveness is so palpable that it would make the choice of an African-American unsurprising.  Marco Rubio has obvious political ability, and eight years ago was seen (and clearly saw himself) as a plausible alternative to Donald Trump.  He has since caved completely, after being humiliated by Trump in that campaign.  He does though have a long list of historical zingers about Trump ("friends do not let friends vote for con artists"), which the internet will not forget.  And Rubio has not pushed too openly for the vice-presidential slot.  That whisper of a shadow of dignity might be too much for Trump to handle.

Doug Burgum has the problem that he is a successful businessman, the thing that Trump pretends to be -- the basis of his con, as the Marco Rubio of 2016 might have put it.  Trump's reputation as an entrepreneur rests on his performance in The Apprentice, in which he played the role of a tycoon who could hire and fire.  In fact, his wealth is inherited, and the businesses and initiatives he has attempted to found (or endorsed) have been flops: anyone remember Trump Vodka, Trump Fragrances, or Trump Mattress?  Trump's cash position depends upon an inviting deception: I am already wealthy, so give me your money so that you can feel like you are a part of my success.  The presence of Burgum on the ticket will make this con harder, because the press will then focus on Burgum's actual success in founding a software company and his actual wealth.  (If I am wrong and Trump is thinking about gathering votes, Burgum has another problem: Trump is going to win North Dakota anyway, and Burgum's profile as a supporter of a total abortion ban will hurt Trump in states he needs to win.)

Of these four, J.D. Vance is the one who has most consciously worked out a politics of impotence. 

Vance is a man of considerable intelligence and the author of an appealing memoir.  Hillbilly Elegy leads the reader gently to a political conclusion: because Vance believes that his relatives were not helped by government assistance, we should all agree that government should do nothing to help people.  The political nihilism presented as family history is a powerful Republican brew ("libertarianism"), and it has served Vance well. 

Government inaction is of course a nonsensical prescription for the people of Middletown, Ohio, where Vance was raised, or for Appalachia, which is the focus of the memoir.  Like everything about Vance, what the memoir does is suppress any idea of positive policy in the service of a politics of impotence.  A politician is someone who explains why nothing can be done.

After his graduation from Yale Law School, where the memoir ends, Vance became a venture capitalist and a client of Peter Thiel, the Silicon Valley billionaire.  Thiel adds a very specific and interesting philosophical layer to the politics of impotence.  He is a follower and interpreter of the brilliant French literary critic René Girard, best known for his theory of scapegoating.  (I should say that I once gave Girard Lectures in Paris and Stanford funded by an initiative of Thiel and that I teach Girard). 

Girard challenges the typical view that societies begin from a reasonable consensus that we should all cease to be violent and instead accept a legal order.  He claims instead that such a moment of social integration requires a scapegoat, someone who can be blamed for prior chaos and be subject to immediate symbolic violence now to integrate everyone else.  In his commercial and personal ventures, Thiel practices what might be called positive Girardism, seeking after structures that allow people to flourish as individuals without the temptation to be conformist and scapegoat.  In his politics, however, Thiel practices what might be called negative Girardism, supporting political candidates (such as Vance) who can be trusted to practice scapegoating and cultivate culture war.  This keeps government dysfunctional and allows Silicon Valley billionaires to continue to shape society as unchecked oligarchs (this is also called "libertarianism"). 

As a senator, Vance has modeled a politics of impotence extremely well.  In both domestic and foreign policy, his line is that American government is helpless.  In international relations, he repeats Russian propaganda claims about Ukraine, in the service of the doomer view that no one can resist Russia and that we should all give up.  But it is a booming sort of dooming: Vance likes to get in front of microphones, puff out his chest, and present impotence as masculinity.  There is guile in this performance: the manly pose substitutes for manly action.  A tough guy à la Vance returns to the safe space of provoking cultural anxiety by choosing enemies within his own country.

There is enormous political potential in Vance's approach.  In the short run, he has proven with his wits that he can always transform the need for action into a rhetoric of aggressive hopelessness, something that will please a certain kind of right-wing donor.  In the long run, he can attract the support of leaders of countries who like to see America weak, just as Trump has done.  It is not at all hard to see a future with Vance posing alongside Orbán, Putin, and Xi as makers of an unfree world. 

And the possibility of such a grand trajectory, of course, is a problem for Vance right now.  He is young. He has much more potential than Trump himself, and Trump will at some point figure this out.

Like some of the others, Vance was also once a Never Trumper ("when we apologize for this man, Lord help us").  Vance's reversal, however, can be seen -- uniquely -- as part of a larger understanding of politics.  One gives up in the face of a challenge, and does so performatively, aggressively.  In this way, one transforms politics into an impotence display, training voters to think that government is just a kind of stage, on which our best leaders vent our feelings, rather than actually do anything. 

Trump was a pioneer of this, but Vance is younger, smarter, and better.  He clearly knows what he is doing: just before each outburst, you can detect a quick moment of calculating pleasure around his eyes.  As he gathers himself, he looks, just for a split second, like someone who is about to tell a joke that he very much enjoys. 

Such are the contradictions of the politics of impotence.  A Tim Scott might be too soft to make any sort of impression.  A Marco Rubio might have too much of a residue of dignity.  A Doug Burgum cannot efface his own successes.  And a J.D. Vance, precisely because his politics of impotence is so thoughtful and practiced, reveals a level of intelligence and skill that will make him a better Trumpist than Trump himself.  As a performer, Vance is only getting better, while Trump is only getting worse. Is that something Trump will be able to tolerate?