Transcript:

JD Vance is a somewhat enigmatic figure in American politics currently. While he seems to occupy much of the public imagination of the current administration, from viral images lampooning him to a highly acclaimed book and film adaptation, he also does not seem to have much of his own voice outside of Trump’s agenda. Where other vice presidents seem to have signature issues meant to distinguish themselves from the administration at large, from Environmentalism to border security to even COVID-19, JD Vance seems to have none. So what has JD Vance done with his time as vice president, and what could that mean for his future in politics as well as for the future of the vice presidency.

JD Vance first became a national phenomenon with the release of his memoir hillbilly elegy in 2016, which documented his and his family’s life and struggles to survive in the American rust belt. While himself a Republican, it seems Vance has not always been kind to Trump, in 2016 he described himself as a “never Trump guy” while promoting his memoir. In October of 2016 in a now deleted tweet he called Trump an “idiot” and possibly most damning was his April 2016 Op-ed in the New York Times entitled “Why Trump’s Antiwar Message Resonates with White America” in which he reflects on his experience in the marines and in which he claims that “Mr. Trump is unfit for our nation’s highest office.”

Vance’s book was then adapted to film in 2020 by director Ron Howard, starring Glenn Close, Amy Adams, and Gabriel Basso as the future vice president. The film went on to become an Academy Award nominee and allowed Vance to use his newfound fame to successfully run for the United States Senate in his home state of Ohio in 2022. While he was certainly attacked for his previous criticism of Trump during the Republican primary, by this time Vance had seemingly distanced himself from said comments, having already deleted many social media posts related to his criticism of Trump.

Vance was announced as Donald Trump’s running mate on July 15, 2024 after only about a year and half in office, likely in part due to his ability to effectively campaign in the midwest as well as the fact that at the time he was not even forty years old. This makes Vance the third youngest vice president at the time of inauguration, in contrast to Trump who will likely be the oldest president ever upon leaving office.

The role of the vice presidency is hard to pin down. There is simultaneously a great deal of importance contained within the office while at the same time very little written in the constitution in terms of the actual day to day duties of the vice president. The person who is one heartbeat away from the most powerful and important position in the American government, and perhaps the world, is bound by the constitution only to be the president of the Senate, and to break ties in the Senate when necessary.

Vice presidents frequently go beyond this explicit role however, and often focus on specific important issues that are not being focused on by other parts of the administration. During her time as vice president, Kamala Harris was named “border czar” and focused heavily on issues related to immigration. Mike Pence was tasked with heading the government’s response to COVID-19. Dick Cheney was a famously influential and powerful vice president, most notably playing a key role in the decision to invade Iraq in 2003.

Since taking office then, one would expect the young vice president to be a featured player in white house policy, yet it seems that even he does not seem to promote his own political achievements very often. This goes along with another expectation of vice presidents, particularly those who are younger than the presidents they serve under. Of the last fifteen people to serve as vice president, only three did not eventually run for president, Spiro Agnew, who had to resign as vice president during his second term due to his decision not to contest a tax evasion charge, as well as Nelson Rockefeller and Dick Cheney who both chose to retire. Of the twelve who did run for president, only two failed to secure their party’s nomination for president, Mike Pence who had the unique misfortune of running against a former president, and Dan Quayle. Of the remaining 10 however, only three went on to win the election: Joe Biden, George H.W. Bush, and Richard Nixon, who himself lost his first post vice presidency campaign to JFK in 1960.

With the expectation then that Vance will run for president, likely in 2028, and go on to secure the Republican nomination, why then has he not been preemptively sold to the American public as the future of the party and the country. While it certainly is early in his term as vice president, other national political figures have aggressively signaled their intention to run in 2028. Figures like Gavin Newsom and Kamala Harris have signaled their willingness to run for president. Even Donald Trump has flirted with the idea of running again, despite the fact that the twenty-second amendment forbids him from doing so.

One reason is the idea that people within the administration and/or the Republican Party do not want to see Vance as the future presidential nominee. Notably, Vance has remarkable similarities with former vice president Dan Quayle, both being young midwestern veterans chosen by older more established presidents to be their running mates who eventually became widely parodied in public discourse, Quayle for his notorious and frequent gaffes and Vance who is frequently the subject of comedic edited and AI generated images as well as being the subject of a false rumor involving the at the time VP candidate and his couch. It is entirely possible that influential people in the Republican party do not want a repeat of the numerous failed presidential runs of past vice presidents and would rather nominate other candidates who have signalled presidential ambitions in the past such as Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, or Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy junior.

Another reason could be that Vance himself may believe that his chances at becoming president are actually better if he simply pegs his public perception to Trump’s. Plenty of vice presidents have tried and failed to run for the nation's highest office by attempting to differentiate themselves from their would-be predecessors including Al Gore, Mike Pence, and Kamala Harris. If this is his strategy it may actually be working, his average net approval rating is higher than that of other Republicans such as House Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, and even Trump himself.

If this sort of strategy does work for him, it could signal shifts in the position of the vice presidency itself. The role of the vice president has grown to be much more important than perhaps the framers of the constitution imagined it would be, a trend which has seen the majority of recent vice presidents push the boundaries of the office in order to carve out their own personal legacy from that of their administrations at large. This could in theory cause rifts between president and vice president, contributing to an adversarial relationship as one attempts to take credit for more and more achievements of the administration. If then we see the optimal strategy of the vice president is to simply tout the achievements of the president and wait for their turn, we could see a reversal of this growth in importance. The role of the vice presidency could return to one resembling only what is outlined in the constitution.

It's difficult to judge Vance’s presidential strategy and ambitions so early, it is likely we will have to wait until at least after the midterm elections next year in order to get the full picture of his presidential strategy or lack thereof. It is possible that he is waiting to see the results of said midterm elections to see if Trump’s Republican party can remain in power without the man himself on the ballot in order to decide how much he can rely on simply being Trump’s number two in 2028 and beyond. It is also entirely possible that the reason Vance is not preemptively campaigning is that he does not intend to run for president. Vance had never held political office less than three years ago and he may have realized that the presidency is not one of his ambitions and will choose to step aside. What we do know is that JD Vance will be someone to keep your eyes on in the near future, as he will likely be one of the key people shaping the near future of the Republican party and possibly the future of American politics. But until then thank you very much for listening to this episode of Magnolia on Mic.