Would Vance be worse than, or less bad than, Trump?
ChastMastr
Shipmate
in Purgatory
I’ve been wondering—if Trump were no longer in office (whether from eating just one too many cheeseburgers, or by removal via the 25th Amendment, or just vanishing off the face of the Earth), would Vance be equally bad, less bad, or worse? I assumed he’d be less bad, but a friend told me that his background actually might be more aggressively and extreme far-right (including connections to Peter Thiel and some of the Project 2025 people), whereas enough public dissatisfaction might be regarded by Trump as “lower ratings,” and might—might, he emphasized—lead to him pulling back from whatever thing people were upset about.
Thoughts? Corrective information from reliable sources? Answers on a postcard?
Thoughts? Corrective information from reliable sources? Answers on a postcard?
Comments
Vance would be less dangerous because he has nothing like the personal following of Trump and politically he would not carry support and supine compliance of the GOP.
What I'm not sure of is how those two balance out. I suspect part of the answer to that is where we are in the election cycle if and when it happens.
Just my thoughts.
AFZ
However it is quite possible that someone in the movement has the charisma necessary to replace Trump when he is no longer there. Elon Musk (possibly as bad as Trump) certainly has some sort of charisma. So does Steve Bannon (clearly an even worse person than Trump). You may say it is unconstitutional for Musk to be President but constitutional safeguards do not seem as robust as they ought these days.
And a Democratic supermajority in the Senate seems impossibly unlikely; no party has had a 2/3 majority in the Senate since the 89the Congress (1965–67). The political climate and the number of solidly red states don’t make the odds better now than they were then.
And while I relate to the sentiment behind it, I have to say that I find the last sentence of your post, which I did not include in my quote above, very problematic and insensitive.
Yeah, I feel like these guys are front men. Though I wonder if he'd get mad if he realized that's what he was.
Then again, I never had the impression that he was a man who had much of the healthier sort of pride. I really can't tell what motivates him, he feels like an undergraduate who never learned to take responsibility for his half baked thinking.
In this particular case I think Vance may actually be a worse person that Donald Trump (though it is close), but I think he would less effective in advancing their demented agenda than Trump is. A lot of Trump's ability to function in the political realm comes from being the head of a cult of personality and, unlike the presidency, cults of personality don't have well defined lines of succession. My guess is that fewer of Trump's adherents know who JD Vance is, or could pick him out of line-up, than could recognize Elon Musk (for example).
If that's the case, then it may not matter as long as the POTUS has Musk's "blessing." He'll tell the followers who to follow, and they'll adapt. Vance is an empty head who can spin rationalizations, and is already in pretty thick with the technobros and puppet masters.
I'm not sure it'd be that big of a leap for the base.
The one that comes to mind is Russian peasants convinced that if only the Tsar knew what the Boyars and Cossacks were up to he'd put a stop to it immediately. Unfortunately . . .
I clearly need to learn more Russian History. The other bit that comes to mind is China, in which the Emperor lived ensconced in an entire city's worth of eunuchs and advisors, some of whom could carry as much power as the emperor himself in real terms.
It's not a good situation when the person carrying the responsibility isn't the one making the decisions, and when both of these are inured from accountability. It's turning our government into a shell game that Kafka would recognize, looping it back to Russia.
Certainly Æthelred Unræd is an example of the phenomenon, and plenty of ire was directed at Laud before critics realised that no, really, Charles really did believe that stuff and needed no assistance screwing things up.
Can't wait to get them both out of office. The sooner the better.
Another election is not a possibility. The presidency would be filled for the remainder of the term according to the rules of succession, with the vice-presidency being filled by nomination by the president, with confirmation by majority vote in both the Senate and the House.
Puton must be sniggering in the background.
I do wonder what the Trumpista brigade think after watching the disgraceful episode.
The succession line is interesting. Currently, it looks like this:
1 Vice President JD Vance Republican
2 Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson Republican
3 President pro tempore of the Senate Chuck Grassley Republican
4 Secretary of State Marco Rubio Republican
5 Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent Republican
6 Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth Republican
7 Attorney General Pam Bondi Republican
8 Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum Republican
9 Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins Republican
10 Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick Republican
– Secretary of Labor Vince Micone Unknown
11 Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Independent
12 Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Scott Turner Republican
13 Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy Republican
14 Secretary of Energy Chris Wright Republican
– Secretary of Education Denise L. Carter Unknown
15 Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins Republican
16 Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem Republican
Confirmation of a VP can take time, and if both Vance and Trump were impeached and convicted ("conduct unbecoming" should count as a misdemeanour in my view) one after the other the new candidate would not be confirmed in time and the presidency would fall to the speaker. Who could, of course, then themselves be impeached but as impeachment requires a majority in the House they just led it would be even less likely than the rest of the scenario.
Exactly.
But I thought the list relevant as is highlights how the MAGA cult has - for the moment at least - totally captured the US government. Remember, less than 50% of those who voted, voted for this but it's 100% plus of the power.
I say plus because quite clearly Trump intends to go beyond his constitutional powers and Congress shows zero interest in stopping him. The courts are active but with the fools and charlatans on the Supreme Court, it's doubtful that they will stop many of his excesses.
Impeachment of both President and Vice-President at the same time remains a possibility but not before 2027. The Democrats are mostly licking their wounds. They are not ready to lead on this and are waiting for the popular mood to swing. It could happen but it's a weak-ass strategy.
I expect nothing to happen for a while, followed by rapid changes in the situation. A bit like Syria. The question is how long? 2 years? 5? 10? And how much damage is done to the USA and the world in that time?
To me, five years in our window of slight hope. That's how long it will take Russia to rearm and be ready for the next fight. The West needs to be ready. I suspect the USA will join that party but a little late. As Churchill put it America always does the right thing. After doing the wrong thing.
AFZ
I concur.
Depressingly Lindsey Graham - who while very right-wing was previously very pro-Ukraine - said that Zelenskyy should resign and that he had "never been more proud" of Trump...
No, Graham chooses to be that way. Don't let him off the hook by implying he can't help it. He knows exactly what Trump is.
That still leaves the problem that from now on the risk of a sudden American pivot has to be priced into every decision and every alliance, in a way it didn’t have to be perviously (at least in the Western world)
I noticed some MAGA-oid comments on a YouTube video of the exchange with Starmer in which they called him a 'liar' for defending the UK's record on free speech. They hadn't noticed that their own guy had repeatedly lied about how much aid the US has given Ukraine and about how tariffs operate.
The interview with Zelenskyy was a stitch-up. Trump revealed that with his claim that he'd allowed it to run on so the American people could see what they were up against and how difficult Zelenskyy was being.
The diplomacy should take place behind closed doors, not played out on the telly. I thought Trump and Vance showed their true and hideous colours but the Trumpoids and Vanceniks will lap it up.
'Hey, we were right to vote for these tough guys.'
The difficulty is that the GOP senators are even less likely to vote to convict if it means putting a Democrat in the White House. Maybe if a deal could be done after impeachment whereby a compromise Republican house member is made speaker purely to take the reins, or an agreed GOP VP lined up.
The big fear, of course, is interference with the mid-terms, whether that be making excuses to have troops "supervise", or executive orders to put Musk in charge of elections to root out "fraud", or simply using unrest to declare martial law and prevent polling from taking place anywhere it looks like Democrats might win. Most of that would be unconstitutional, but we're still at the stage where we don't know how SCOTUS is going to play this. Is it "mask off" time and 5+ justices make clear their love of pseudo-theocratic authoritarianism outweighs their respect for the rule of law?
As far as SCOTUS goes—and I readily acknowledge that while I’m not just going by my own gut, the possibility of misplaced optimism on my part is certainly there— I think it’s safe to say that at least 5 votes are there to rule for a basic understanding of a unitary executive theory—that the president is ultimately in charge of the executive branch and can, for example, hire or fire. Whether there are are 5 votes to go for particular applications of the unitary executive theory, such as the idea that the president can abolish a department created by Congress and assume the responsibilities of that department himself, is not a given, I don’t think.
If faced with a choice between the unitary executive theory and the authority of the judiciary, I think the Court will choose the judiciary over the president. I’m not sure what that means if the choice involves separation of powers between the executive and Congress, but again, I don’t think it’s a given that the president would win, at least in cases where Congress’s congressional authority is clear, such as in budgeting and appropriations.
But we shall see.
Hardcore MAGA will think it's great that their heroes were publically berating a woke eurotrash globalist whatever who parasites off the American teat.
What non-MAGA GOP voters(iow the majority) will think, I don't know. Probably depends on how the aftermath evolves.
That is EXACTLY how they are framing it today.
They all hate Zelensky because he refused to help Trump on that "perfect call" by agreeing to investigate Hunter Biden, and as you heard yesterday, that is still chewing away at Trump's brain pan.
la vie en rouge, Purgatory host
That certainly fits. He seems to be a kind of extreme political hack who is almost a savant for a very particular kind of political communication. I might have had vague hopes he'd sprout a spine of his own, but I don't think there's any real base to grow from there. He's a professional tool.
Has anybody pointed out to Trump that if the "Perfect Call" actually went through, it would create a terrible, terrible precedent that would imperil his own sons after he leaves the White House?
I'm sure someone has tried; someone currently looking for a new job, most likely. Trump doesn't like it when people tell him true things.
Would he be worse than Trump? Probably.