Veep Stakes

Will Vance be Sacrificed?

In a normal presidential campaign, such as the one Vice-President Kamala Harris is running, “veepstakes” is a harmless play on the word “sweepstakes,” invoking a friendly competition to become a vice-presidential nominee.  One can enjoy thinking about matches between the presidential and vice-presidential candidates and wonder how it will all turn out.

But “stakes” can be harder, or sharper.  One can be burned at a stake, sacrificed on a stake, or killed by a stake through the heart.  For Donald Trump and J.D. Vance, this election has morbid overtones.

Trump’s candidacy is a mortality play.  He wants to die in the White House.  Whatever else he might say, or whatever else his followers might believe, this is the essential reality.   Old-guy dictatorship involves funeral planning.  When Trump says that he admires a Putin or a Xi, what he means is “that man will die in office and not in jail.”

Since Trump is thinking about death, Vance must as well.  In considering a place on the ticket, Vance was reasoning from different premises than (for example) Andy Beshear.  If Kamala Harris asks Beshear to join her on the ticket, he can imagine running for president in 2032.  Vance, by contrast, knows that Trump, so long as he lives, will never voluntarily get out of the way.

A Vance who wishes to be president needs Trump to win in November, stay alive long enough to take office in January, and then perish.  One does not have to be an actuary to understand why Vance might think that this is a good bet. 

Vance was the choice of the tech broligarchs – Elon Musk, David Sacks, Peter Thiel.  Vance was also the preferred option of the Kremlin, whose propaganda line Musk and Sacks tend to follow. Had Trump chosen anyone but Vance, he could have been sure of that person’s loyalty to him.  But Vance is a tech brotegé, not a Trump client.

In the heady atmosphere of Milwaukee, the selection of Vance could seem like a win for everyone.  Trump gets the money he needs from the broligarchs (e.g. a promise of $45 million a month from Musk), who happily contemplate installing their guy as his successor.  Trump believed that he was running against Joe Biden and that he was going to win easily.  Vance could make his private calculations about Trump’s longevity, and go along with the show. Vance was endorsed by the Russian foreign ministry for his pro-surrender foreign policy.

A week later, with Kamala Harris as the presumptive Democratic nominee, everything looks different.  The Harris candidacy is bad for Putin and the broligarchs, but not fatal.  Putin wants Trump to win, because that is his only hope of winning in Ukraine.  But should Trump lose the election, Putin will figure out some other way of saving himself.  Russian propagandists are already turning against Vance. The broligarchs would like to run the American government.  Should they fail, though, nothing bad will happen to them.  Now Musk denies promising the monthly $45 million to Trump’s campaign.

The billionaires are entirely safe. Trump and Vance are the ones who are exposed.  Now that Trump recognizes that the election will be competitive, Vance’s weaknesses matter to him. 

Vance’s skillset is limited.  He was more articulate when he opposed Trump than in his present support. Vance saying that Trump is an “idiot” who could be “America’s Hitler” is hard to forget. On the campaign trail, Vance channels broligarch grievance and mocks everyone else.  This is backroom back-slapping delight when only the billionaires’ voices matter, as in Milwaukee. 

But in an election, other voices count. 

Vance’s policy approach is not very resonant. He specializes in weak-man politics.  His claim is that government is always impotent.  This does not work together with Trump’s strong-man fantasy.  Trump’s followers want to believe that the system can be trashed and they can still get what they want from it -- a bit of magical thinking that Trump’s charisma enables. 

Vance can’t pull that off.  When he explains that government is pointless, it is a bit too clear that what he means is that broligarchs should run wild at home while dictators should push Americans around abroad.  That is not actually what voters want to hear, including Republican voters.  Sacks found that out when he read aloud Putin’s talking points from the stage in Milwaukee.

Trump must now run an uphill campaign, pulling Vance along behind him. 

Vance is from Ohio.  Having a Buckeye on the ticket will not help Trump in neighboring Michigan or Pennsylvania, states he must win.  And if Ohio is in play, the Trump campaign has deep problems.  When Vance held a rally in his hometown, a local ally threatened “civil war” after a lost election. This does not express confidence.

Vance could even hurt in Ohio itself.  

Reproductive rights were always going to be central to this campaign; Kamala Harris is certain to raise it more clearly than Biden would have.  Vance is infamous for his (vulgar and public) support for a national abortion ban.  Last November, Ohio voters codified reproduction rights in the state constitution by referendum – by a vote of 57% in favor.  This was a personal defeat for Vance, who characterized the pro-choice Ohio majority as “sociopaths” who “murder their own children.”

Trump has been played by unreliable people, which could be uncomfortable for Vance.  And Vance must understand that the Harris candidacy alters his own situation. 

Instead of coasting to victory with Trump and waiting for him to die, Vance now must contemplate what it would mean to lose alongside Trump in November -- in an election angry Republicans have been trained to believe would be a landslide.  Trump cannot blame the broligarchs or Putin, since he cannot admit that he needed the money and support of others.  That leaves Vance as the scapegoat. 

Vance must now imagine a world, about three months from now, in which Trump instructs his followers that Vance is to blame.  Trump has driven Republicans out of the party by stochastic violence.  He was ready to sacrifice the life of his last vice-president.  If Vance leaves now, he will feel the heat for a moment, but can go back to his prior life.  The longer Vance waits to leave the Trump ticket, the greater the risk of a scenario involving a stake.

The necropolitics is no one’s fault but that of the people concerned.  Republicans did not have to nominate an aged coup-plotting felon. The broligarchs did not have to install their candidate to succeed a deceased Trump. And Vance did not have to join Trump’s ticket. 

On the Democratic side, the picture is much brighter. Kamala Harris seeks her vice-presidential nominee, following the familiar rules of the gentle version of veepstakes.  It is fun to follow.  Maybe Kelly? Shapiro?  Or Buttigieg?  Or Whitmer? Who knows? It is refreshing to imagine two candidates wishing each other well, having complementary policies, working towards a better future, towards life.