J.d. vance

The heterodox cabinet

As Inauguration Day approaches, the second Trump administration is staffing up. The president-elect’s picks are more or less what everyone expected, outside of a few curveballs. To be honest, the lack of outrage from Trump critics is the big surprise: apparently Trump Derangement Syndrome is a passing fever; even many who’ve argued against him seem to see some logic in the administration of outsiders he’s been signaling he’ll pick for years. In Washington, where almost nothing changes from administration to administration, these cabinet picks might actually be able to effect some meaningful disruption. In almost every role that matters, Trump has opted for a nominee who has been an extreme critic of the very body he or she is set to oversee.

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Chicago at a crossroads

America’s incoming border czar, Tom Homan, is already taking his job more seriously than his predecessor ever did. Unlike Kamala Harris, Homan does not need to be goaded into doing the job assigned to him by the president. Homan, the former director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is already hitting the trail, telling prospective illegal immigrants to turn the caravans around and warning America’s bluest cities that a new sheriff is coming to town. During a swing through Chicago, Homan told the Windy City’s residents that “your mayor sucks and your governor sucks.” Both Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker have suggested that they plan to resist President-elect Donald Trump’s broadly popular immigration plans.

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Democracy on the ballot

Democracy won, apparently. More than 73 million people voted for Donald J. Trump, who won 312 Electoral College votes and the popular vote, making him the 45th and 47th president of the United States. In the end, it wasn’t particularly close, and the exit polls from the night paint a pretty bleak picture for Vice President Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party. By now, you will have read most of the breakdowns — she lost ground with Hispanics, whites, blacks, married people, non-college-educated people, et cetera. In fact, the only demographic group that she gained ground with was college-educated white women — she even somehow managed to lose ground from 2016 and 2020 with black women, a stunning and impressive feat. Tim Walz lost his home district in deep-blue Minnesota.

Democracy

We need to learn to pray again

From our UK edition

In The Spectator’s basement kitchen a few weeks ago, I cornered a young colleague, Angus Colwell, and asked him what he made of Rod Dreher’s new book Living in Wonder. The thrust of it is that we are not in an age of enlightenment so much as ‘endarkenment’ (Dreher’s term) and that, having turned our backs on God, we have become easy pickings for demonic forces. ‘Oh Lord’, said Angus, turning wearily away, ‘I’m so sick of demons.’ This delighted me then and still delights me, both because it’s so surreal and also because it rings so true. If you’d told me ten years ago that young political types in 2024 would be talking knowingly about the ancient devil-gods of the Mesopotamian region – Moloch, Ishtar and Baal – I’d have said your vape was spiked.

The winners and losers of the 2024 election

Every election has winners and losers that extend beyond the politicians themselves, but in this particularly unique situation, the sheer number of outside individuals, movements and institutions who can be categorized as winning or losing based on last night’s sweeping result for Donald Trump and Republicans is astounding.  Winner: the bro army and its defenders. The decision to lean so hard into appealing to the American manosphere, with its testosterone-fueled UFC events and a litany of podcasts hosted by comedians with mass appeal to young men, ran the risk of turning off female voters or seeming to only prioritize the frat vote. But it proved absolutely correct — and not just the Joe Rogan interview, though that was a key step in the journey.

winners and losers election

Can Trump ‘Get Out the Vote’?

From our UK edition

35 min listen

Freddy keeps up Americano tradition by speaking to Daniel McCarthy ahead of the election. On the podcast they discuss how Trump’s get-out-the-vote project is working and the impact low-propensity voters could have on the result, whether this election will be plagued by inefficiencies in the American electoral system and if J.D. Vance is actually the heir apparent to the MAGA title.

The 2024 Hobson’s choice

After what seems like four straight years of a presidential campaign, we’re finally here. When we say “here,” we are talking of course of the last stage of grief, exhausted acceptance. One half of the population accepted that their nominee could be replaced without a single primary vote. The other half accepted that their 2020 nominee couldn’t be replaced at any cost. Many this year are casting votes with considerable pain as they select from two less than ideal options. Andrew Sullivan details his grudging support for Kamala Harris; while Bridget Phetasy describes the reluctant undecided voters pulling the lever for Trump. We’re sure they’re not the only ones holding their noses. The lesser-of-two-evils election is nothing new.

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letters

Letters from Spectator readers, November 2024

The rise of BlueAnon The adults on both sides have checked out completely and it shows. We are an empire on the decline and there is no denying that now. — Virgil Hilts As a basic foundation for this story you could do no worse than to recall an incident that occurred during LBJ’s campaign for senator in Texas in 1948. He proposed to accuse his opponent of “fornicating with a goat.” When an aide asked if he truly believed it, LBJ reportedly said, “Of course not. I just want to hear him deny it on the radio.” — Richard Lindo The academic legacy of Donald J. Harris It’s astonishing that Kamala will probably win with a true Marxist theoretician in the family — I guess the time is right for the US to get its very own socialist “utopia.

Which campaign has the better ground game?

From our UK edition

Republican strategist, and friend of Americano, Luke Thompson joins Freddy Gray to talk about the ground game of Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. From postal voting, to party registration, to machine politics, whose is better? And what impact did Biden's exit from the race have on the organised parts of the Democratic Party?  With Luke's unique insight working on two current senate races, and as a longtime consultant to Vice-Presidential nominee J.D. Vance, they analyse the state of an election that continues to be unpredictable.  Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

Kamala Harris embraces a Liz-Cheney-sized mistake

Welcome to Thunderdome. Liz Cheney is campaigning with Kamala Harris today in Wisconsin at Ripon, known as the birthplace of the Republican Party at the Little White Schoolhouse. It was there in 1854 at a church meeting that Whig and Free Soil Party members gathered to form a “great irresistible Northern party, organized on the single issue of the non-extension of slavery.” This was even then pretty aggressive language for the Episcopalian who called the meeting, but not for Horace Greeley, who publicized it to the nation. Whatever Liz Cheney says today about how important it is to elect Kamala Harris will no doubt equal the historical significance of that moment, at least according to Rachel Maddow.

GOP falls in love with J.D. Vance

Republicans who were worried about former president Donald Trump’s selection of Ohio senator J.D. Vance as his running mate are eating crow after Vance’s dominant performance in last night’s vice-presidential debate over Minnesota governor Tim Walz. Immediately after the pick, GOP commentators and operatives feared that the narrative that Vance was “weird” and other Democrat-backed opposition research against Vance could hurt the ticket. But Vance proved himself as an effective messenger of the Trump agenda and demonstrated his ability to be a steady and, well, normal politician, a potentially important contrast to Trump’s sometimes off-putting personality for suburban and independent voters. Conservatives who pushed for Vance, including Donald Trump Jr.

A debate night for Vance to remember and for Walz to forget

It’s not always easy to tell who wins a political debate. Sometimes performances need time for people to process them and have key moments emerge that connect with American voters. And sometimes you witness a debate performance so dominant, so one-sided, that one party in the spin room is left arguing more out of hope than belief that debates just don’t matter.  Tonight was one of those nights for Democrats — and this one wasn’t even close. J.D. Vance was smooth, empathetic and emphasized his life experience with hardship and poverty. Tim Walz was nervous and unsteady from the opening question and didn’t seem to find his footing until more than an hour into the debate.

Biden admin upended by chaotic weekend

The Biden administration is struggling to find its footing amid a series of unfortunate events that are testing the oft-vacationing president and his vice president, who is currently auditioning for the top spot in American politics.Hurricane Helene decimated parts of North Carolina, leaving millions of Americans without power, at least thirty dead and many more missing. Entire towns are practically gone, and pictures of video of the storm’s aftermath show flooding enveloping homes and washing out highways. Local officials are begging for assistance and resources; state Representative Neal Collins, for example, tweeted, “I currently have two people on oxygen needing generators & 1 person on dialysis needing one.

GOP blasts Kamala for ’too little, too late’ border visit

Kamala Harris is aiming to project strength on border security, but her critics aren’t buying it.For the first time in over three years, Harris is visiting the border, following an onslaught of ads from former president Donald Trump’s campaign that have savaged her record as America’s border czar. Her trip also comes after a bombshell report from Texas congressman Tony Gonzales about how tens of thousands of illegal immigrants with murder and sexual assault convictions are freely roaming America.

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Ukraine becomes another battlefront in the American election

They were the odd couple, one lumbering in his trademark oversized Brioni suit, the other ripped in his olive green military attire. The two had been engaged in a kind of mano-a-mano verbal combat before their official meeting in Manhattan at Trump Tower. It was getting ugly. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky suggested that J.D. Vance’s plan, such as it was, for ending the war between Ukraine and Russia was “too radical.” Add in Zelensky’s visit to an armaments factory together with Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro, and Trump and his flunkeys went nuts. House Speaker Mike Johnson wrote a sniveling letter demanding the ouster of Ukrainian ambassador Oksana Marakarova.

GOP demands investigation into Zelensky visit

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky just stopped by an ammunition factory in Scranton, Pennsylvania — which CNN points out is President Joe Biden’s hometown.Now, a group of House Republicans is demanding answers about what taxpayer dollars and US resources were used in what they allege was essentially a campaign event for Democrats.The Hill reports that this past Sunday, Zelensky “was flown to Pennsylvania in an Air Force C-17 plane.” He was also protected by the US Secret Service.

Tim Walz faces a Yale Law reckoning

The Harris-Walz team has a plan to coax Trump into another debate. According to NBC News, the Democratic National Committee will accuse Trump of being a chicken in the hopes of getting under his skin: “The chicken billboards, which will first appear at Trump’s rally Monday in Indiana, Pennsylvania, include a digitally altered image of Trump in a chicken suit alongside the words ‘There’s no debate: Donald Trump’s a chicken.’” The tactics here aren’t subtle, but considering Trump’s penchant for taking the bait, it just might work. But if Operation Chicken lays an egg, then the last big televised event of this campaign season is next week’s vice presidential debate, when Ohio senator J.D.

An election stuck in the trenches

Welcome to Thunderdome. In the space of four weeks, the incumbent president was dethroned from his nomination and replaced by his running mate in a behind-the-scenes coup led by the most powerful person in the party (who still insists on the absurd claim it was an “open primary”). Within that time, the nation witnessed the first of not one but two assassination attempts targeting his opponent, the former president who has faced a thermonuclear level of lawfare in an attempt to seize everything he owns and put him behind bars.

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A vindication for our polling obsession

One of the entertainments that every election season brings revolves around polling. Every season seems to bring more and more and more frequent polls. The measure registered voters and (for all I know) unregistered ones. They register people who are designated “likely voters” and they claim to filter for gender(s), age, race, ethnic back, party affiliation or non-affiliation, ZIP code, income, and favorite pastimes, and what seems like a thousand other things.    Like everyone else who is interested in politics, I pay fretful attention to the results of these surveys and questionnaires beginning about a year out from the election itself.

Trump and Kamala are competing over who’s more online

The messaging in the 2024 election has devolved into a contest to determine which campaign is more online, to their detriment. In 2019 (she never made it to 2020), the first Kamala Harris presidential campaign infamously imploded because, among other reasons, her staff and communications strategy were "way too online" — obsessed with the constant progressive social media flashpoints above and beyond the issues fundamental to the primary electorate. Instead of talking to voters about their priorities, Harris’s campaign was too focused on trending topics, memes and crafting the best clips of their candidate for the online audience.

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