Andrew Yang sent out an email the other day that I partially agree with. The JD Vance pick is a bold signal that Trump thinks he’s already won. He could have picked Doug Bergum, Glenn Youngkin, Nikki Haley, or Marco Rubio and any of them would have brought something to the table that could potentially shore up Trump’s weaknesses in the upcoming election and reassured moderates, corporate donors, and minority groups that Trump had their best interests at heart. But instead he picked a junior senator with no legislative accomplishments, no real connections to business or Washington politicians, and no household name recognition, and only redeeming quality is that he has a law degree from Yale.
I would say it’s almost certain that he got picked because he made a statement that if he were the VP during Trump’s first term, he would not have certified the 2020 election results. Yikes.
I’m not surprised that Trump is packing his cabinet with dyed-in-the-wool loyalists. Part of the reason a lot of his plots failed in his first term is because career politicians refused to break the law at his behest. I don’t really see this backfiring for him since the VP pick is secondary to Trump’s own cult of personality. It’s not a strong VP pick, but it didn’t really matter who he picked. He could have picked Donald Trump Jr. to be his running mate and MAGA would have gone along with it.