The Trump Add Vance = A Despotic Dream Team
It’s the Equivalent of a WWE Tag-Team Double-Down on Dismantling Democracy
Trump has made perhaps his most important choice in this presidential contest. With all eyes on him after the apparent attempt on his life, and in the midst of the Republican National Convention, Trump has named ultra-conservative Ohio Senator JD Vance as his Vice Presidential running mate.
This choice of JD Vance is about the clearest statement Trump could make that he is determined to become America’s first supreme ruler and that he intends to lead the transformation of our country away from our most closely held founding values.
Trump’s choice of JD Vance declares that he intends not just to re-take the Office of the President, but to own it: to expand its powers, to strip the Congress of much of its power, to dismantle federal agencies, to finish politicizing our judiciary; and to strip all of these and more of the authority or power to act without his blessing. And, while he and his allies are deconstructing democracy,
They intend to ban abortion and to force women into childbirth and out of the workforce.
They intend to unleash federal agents and military to round up immigrants and put them in concentration camps while they await deportation.
They intend to countermand the Biden Administration’s investments and work in addressing the crisis of climate change.
They intend to abandon Ukraine to the Russian imperialists and to leave our NATO allies vulnerable to Putin’s messianic delusions.
They intend to “seize” our universities and purge them of whatever they conceive of as undesirables.
They plan to end public education.
They intend to adopt Christianity as the state religion and require universal Christian education.
And this just scratches the surface. For more on the vast scope of their dystopian planning see Project 2025 and Agenda 49, for staters.
With Global Implications
It’s also important to understand that Donald Trump and JD Vance are joining and now leading what is a global war against democracy.
Trump’s and MAGA’s crucial role — on behalf of their international cabal of backers: billionaire industrialists (like Elon Musk) and criminal oligarchs in the US, Russia, Hungary, and elsewhere — is to seize the reigns of power at the heart of world-wide democracies, The United States of America.
This is why there is such passion and militancy in the Trump/Vance/MAGA movement. They and their most powerful allies are committed to this messianic project of destroying democracy; and they are so devoted to it that they have said many times and in many ways that, “whatever it takes,” they intend to win.
Their billionaire sponsors and their militia acolytes are lining-up to deliver on “whatever it takes.” (And it’s a national scandal that they are able and anxious to do this.)
This is a deeply foreboding moment in American politics and history. The legal/constitutional path has already largely been cleared by our horribly reactionary Supreme Court majority — one that has used a lawsuit filed by Trump himself to declare that presidents are above the law when pursuing their duties and can wield almost absolute, unaccountable power over our country.
Trump 2.0 is locked and Loaded
In his first experience in office and in trying desperately, but failing, to cling to power, Trump learned important lessons. A President Trump 2.0 on day one (or a candidate in Trump 2.0 in waiting) will have transitioned from his prior con-man carnival of chaos “shtick” into a more prepared and organized dictator. He’ll be locked and loaded.
With the help of his allies, Trump will unleash a nationwide version of January 6th, where lawlessness, thuggery, and chaos establish the new ”guardrails”of his unprecedented rule.
Many Americans do not yet appear to realize that Trump is add-Vance-ing a right-wing coup against our country. The vast majority of Americans do not endorse or embrace thuggish, brutalist politics or mass disorder and lawlessness. There is little doubt that, if they fully understand the nature of Trump’s Add-Vance on our country’s Constitution and values, they will not vote to install such a leader.
Some commentators are saying that Trump made a mistake in picking Vance. I agree. The choice to add-Vance a MAGA macho man as his running mate signals very clearly the opposite of wanting to unify a broader base of Americans. Instead it signals a doubling down on energizing the most extreme members of his MAGA movement. They are all Trump thinks he needs. It is they who can make sure that he does not lose.
Trump’s “Pickett’s Charge” Add-Vance is our Opportunity
This is a great opening for democracy defenders. Trump might have picked someone like Niki Haley to signal that he has a softer side, can respect women, was somehow changed by the ear miss he experienced, and wants to appeal to Republican and other voters like those who chose Haley and/or other candidates in the Republican primaries. But he did not make this choice. He chose to add-Vance extremism.
Our Opportunity to Defend Democracy
The job of democracy defenders is clear. We have the opportunity to amplify and help clarify the nature of the Trump’ malignant add-Vance on our democracy.
Trump and Vance, and their many MAGA allies, will daily provide all of the far-right fodder we could ask for. We won’t need to call them names or characterize them as evil. We won’t need to recite anything like the list I quickly put together above.
Use Their Words/Use our Principles
We can simply reproduce and share the words and deeds of the Trump add-Vance itself. And with these words and deed, we can ensure that the overwhelming majority of decent Americans can see clearly the imminent hostile government takeover being planned and unfolding right in front of their eyes.
Side-by-side with this, of course, we need to do the ongoing work of identifiying our voters, both actual and potential. We need to do all of the great work we know how to do to get out the vote (GOTV). With our legal and grassroots teams, we need to protect and defend the vote. And in all of this, we need to represent the very best of the American way of standing-up for the fundamental values most Americans share: respect for individual rights, dignity, and justice — and for strong, principled, representative, and responsive leadership.
This struggle that we are in very quickly morphed from what in 2016 looked like a “Black Swan” event to what is now a full-blown crisis for our nation. This is such a fraught, almost surreal moment, such a daunting challenge.
But thoughtful and irrepressible democratic action can meet this crisis and put us back on the path to perfecting our union and our democracy.
Let’s do it.