Trump chooses Senator JD Vance as his vice presidential candidate

When James David Vance became known in 2016 after the publication of his book ‘Hillbilly Elegy’, he defined himself as “anti-Trump” and said in an interview with the American journalist Charlie Rose that he found this great man “candidate” for the Republican Party terrible: “I never liked it.” Eight years later, Donald Trump has chosen him as his vice-presidential candidate after having become one of the most influential figures within the MAGA movement, the acronym ‘Make America Great Again’ under which Trump’s most fanatical followers gather.

Vance, 39, was born in Middleton (Ohio) and is a newcomer to politics who entered the Senate last year, but who has been growing under the Trumpist wing for years. During the Senate race in 2022, he managed to gain Trump’s support by fully embracing his political vision. Thus, he shares with his leader a populist approach on immigration and his foreign policy based on “America first”, which has resonated in Congress, especially with the blockade of aid to Ukraine. Regarding the right to abortion, as a senator from Ohio, he has opposed legalizing the termination of pregnancy in cases of rape or incest. Likewise, it has also shown its rejection of policies on gender care for minors.

Trump’s new deputy claims to be a defender of the working class who stands up to the liberals who “populate the upper echelons of government” and proudly embraces this label Redhead. exactly in his book Hillbilly Elegy He appealed to that popular past to tell the story of what it was like to grow up in poverty in the Rust Belt middle West American) surrounded by violence and addiction. His story was later made into a film by Hollywood director Ron Howard. The view of the elite of the Trump tandem largely coincides with the inaugural speech he gave in 2017 in which he assured that he became president of the country to end a political elite that, according to him, had been forgotten by the popular classes.

Hours after the attack, Vance assured that the attack was not an “isolated case” and blamed the Democrats and Joe Biden for what happened. “The central premise of the Biden campaign is that former President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at any cost. This rhetoric directly led to an attempt to assassinate President Trump,” he wrote on the social network X.

The selection of Vance sends a dual message. On the one hand, Trump is trying to contribute young blood to the Republican candidacy against a weak Joe Biden, who at 81 is his biggest weakness. On the other hand, the selection of such a radical man in Trump’s principles shows what Trump plans to implement in his second term after becoming president.

In an interview with the magazine Time He had already announced that he would implement his plan to wage his war against Washington’s “deep state”. He had already tried it in his first term, but he did not have a convincing enough structure to execute it effectively. And many of Trump’s plans failed during his first term for this very reason. Now, it seems that the former president has learned from his “mistakes” and has chosen people of the same ideology who are willing to go with him to the end.

Throughout the 2024 election cycle, Vance has been an active surrogate for the former president, attending campaign events and helping to raise money for his re-election campaign, most recently attending fundraisers in Ohio and California. In addition, he has also been seen at the door of a Manhattan courtroom to show his support for the former president during the Stormy Daniels case hearings.

During the Iraq War, Vance served as a marine from 2003 to 2007. When he returned, he studied political science and philosophy at Ohio University and Yale. He then went to work at a large law firm and became a director of magnate Peter Thiel’s investment fund in San Francisco. Without a doubt, Vance’s biography contains everything that Trump followers admire: a self-made man, proud of his popular origins and a former Marine.