JD Vance’s audition to lead the GOP is working

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What you saw Tuesday in the vice presidential debate was an audition for the leader of the post-Trump Republican Party.

Over and over again Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, successfully distanced himself from his long, well-documented track record of inflammatory statements on everything from reproductive health to immigrants. Those Americans who tuned in to the debate saw an affable, reasonable Vance (no matter how many times he lied). That should terrify anyone who cares about democracy.

In many ways, Vance proved that there will be another Donald Trump, one who is just as sinister but far better produced for middle-of-the road voters. It does not matter if Vance was only pretending to align with Trump’s combative politics and disastrous policy proposals. What matters is that Vance has proved that he will change all of his fundamental beliefs in order to win.

I don’t mean the dreaded “flip-flopping” that is too often applied to a politician who dares to change her mind. I mean a deliberate strategy of supporting any position in the name of procuring power. That was Trump’s best political innovation.

Trump has lied, cheated, misdirected and inflamed not out of ideology but for the bald pursuit of power. Only two things have blunted his worst impulses: the legal system and his own boorish behavior. His ongoing legal troubles show his weakness. He is gluttonous — for attention, for money, for privilege. His boorish behavior has turned off a lot of voters who would otherwise vote for him.

Vance is the perfect solution to Trump’s self-inflicted political frailties. He is just as starved for power but not nearly as desperate for attention. He sells dangerous policy positions better to the kinds of voters who are tired of being embarrassed.

His debate answers were full of racist, sexist and classist dog whistles. He pronounced “illegal alien” with the cultured disdain of an elitist who knows exactly what the term conjures but pretends he does not. He relished ascribing America’s addiction to gun violence to mental health and urban criminality. His every elocution hid a trope as dangerous as that Willie Horton ad, but his affable delivery sowed doubt that he means any harm.

Vance does mean harm. He means everything that Trump means. He absolutely does want to abolish abortion, in practice if not in ordinance. He absolutely does want to delegitimize the federal government, pillage protected lands and blame every social ill on people who cannot defend themselves.

But Vance proved that he can deliver that harm without paying the reputational cost that has made Trump an effective but toxic politician. If Vance demonstrated what an Ivy League education does for your rhetorical sleight of hand, then Tim Walz demonstrated what happens when you refuse to play the game as it is being played. Vance worked the rules and the refs. Walz let him, instead relying on meandering stories about individuals’ lives that lacked moral and emotional impact.

With just over a month until the election, that should worry the Democrats and anyone else who cares about fair, free elections.

Tressie McMillan Cottom became a New York Times Opinion columnist in 2022. She is a sociologist, professor and cultural critic known for her incisive essays on social problems.