The Right Resistance: Predictable GOP establishment attacks on J.D. Vance don’t draw blood

You wouldn’t even need to look for it, but you could see the slime fest coming from a mile away.

I’m speaking of the growing-in-frequency attacks targeting Republican vice president nominee – and Donald J. Trump running mate – J.D. Vance of Ohio. With the Democrats being (somewhat) preoccupied with their own change of leadership struggles involving self-deposing incumbent president senile Joe Biden and his hand-picked DEI sidekick replacement, vice president cackling Kamala Harris, it appears as though the establishment media is still searching for new ways to get in their negative digs about the 2024 GOP ticket.

Conservatives must have recognized that any of the multitude of “short list” names Trump was considering in the lead-up to the Republican National Convention would have brought considerable criticism and rebuke from the chattering class, but the singling out of Vance by some unanticipated sources recently is somewhat surprising. Vance is young by presidential ticket standards and doesn’t have a great deal of tenure in the Washington swamp, but these facts hardly render him unqualified.

No one disputes whether Vance meets the constitutional requirements to serve in the office. No, Vance’s attackers prefer painting him as a hypocrite and an opportunist who isn’t living by statements and positions that he may have held before he’d ever entered politics.

Forget the fact that Trump himself made the ultimate decision to choose Vance, a move that was heralded by most conservatives who hoped the Republican elder statesman and MAGA chief spokesman would inject new life into national politics, just as he’d done eight years before when he ran as an outsider against the political establishments of both parties and ended up defying the odds.

So why the renewed antagonistic focus on Vance himself? In an article titled “Some House Republicans slam Vance as Trump’s VP pick: ‘The worst choice’”, Mychael Schnel reported at The Hill:

“There are, to be sure, plenty of Vance supporters in the House GOP conference, particularly hard-line conservatives — including those in the House Freedom Caucus — who favor the populist, America First perspective that the vice presidential nominee espouses. And the Trump campaign is vigorously defending the pick.

“But Republicans who spoke to The Hill — including veteran lawmakers, moderates and Reagan-styled conservatives who support a muscular foreign policy — said a much larger number of their colleagues harbor doubts about Vance. ’He was the worst choice of all the options. It was so bad I didn’t even think it was possible,’ one House Republican said. ‘Anti-Ukraine, more of a populist. He adds nothing to the Trump ticket. He energizes the same people that love Trump.’

“’I think if you were to ask many people around this building, 9 out of 10 on our side would say he’s the wrong pick,’ a second House Republican said. ‘He’s the only person who can do serious damage.’”

Serious damage? To what? To whom? Don’t overlook the fact that these quotes and views are from anonymous sources, meaning that said persons can say anything they want and not be held accountable for the blather. They’re politicians, of course, and backstabbing comes along with their self-styled job descriptions, but let these timid souls come out and talk to the nominee himself and tell him what they think of his choice for a running mate on the record.

And, what do you think of when the anonymous talkers are described as “veteran lawmakers, moderates and Reagan-styled conservatives who support a muscular foreign policy”? Sounds like a who’s who of ruling class establishment Republicans to me, the kind of “moderates” who clog up the machine whenever conservative legislation is being brought forward. Is Paul Ryan still haunting Congress?

You can’t please everyone, all the time. Trump had the political power and capital to select anyone he liked. Who are these people to criticize when it isn’t their rear-ends that are on the line?

Some of the same establishment Republicans who have gone squishy on Vance’s appointment are also worried about Kamala Harris replacing senile Joe Biden on the Democrat ticket, arguing that Trump’s electability concerns are even more worrisome now that the broken-down Delawarean bucket o’ guts was supplanted by the cackling air brain from California.

Someone should point out to these negative Nellies that it was just a little while ago (really, just a week ago) when worrywarts hooted and hollered over the prospect of even-more-unpopular-than-Biden Kamala Harris possibly not being the Democrats’ replacement. Now that Kamala has taken center stage and been endorsed by every Democrat with a nameplate, the RINO Republicans are choosing to go after Vance as a possible weak link.

For gosh sakes, the man’s only been the VP choice for two weeks and already the GOP bluebloods are ready to push the panic button. What for? Do they have polling evidence that backs up their cloudy assertions? Has Vance, as the vice president choice, actually altered the dynamics in the Trump vs. Harris race so much to justify their anxiety-stirred bellyaching?

The truth is, those who don’t like Vance aren’t the least bit concerned about the Ohioan’s basic background or allegiance to the populist direction of the MAGA movement. No, they’re honked off that the last vestiges of Bush-ian neoconservatism might die with more of a realistic, America First emphasis preferred by Trump himself.

Besides, who’s crafting these quotes, anyway? Did Mitch McConnell draw up a number of statements and send them over to House Republicans seeking someone impertinent enough to feed them to a publication like The Hill anonymously?

There absolutely are a number of RINO Republicans in Congress (both House and Senate) who favor waging the proxy war with Russia in Ukraine and it doesn’t matter to these folks how much American treasure is expended to prolong a conflict half a world away that couldn’t possibly result in a total Ukrainian victory?

Is there anyone in Washington today – perhaps other than Joe Biden and Mitch McConnell – who thinks that Vladimir Putin will suddenly pick up his drones and missiles and bullets and guns and just remark (in Russian) “Sorry ‘bout all those dead guys and destroyed territory. Beg your pardon. We’re headin’ out at our first convenience. And we’re not the least bit sore about wasting all the effort to take this territory.”

That’s about as likely to happen as seeing a Democrat advocating for banning abortion or fixing spending caps on welfare programs. Or sealing the southern border. Talk about naivete.

Besides, what are the boobirds hoping to gain by opting to publicly re-litigate Trump’s choice for a running mate? Was it really that long ago when Republicans were solidly united behind the Trump ticket even if they’d harbored private reservations regarding the combo? Did anyone stand up during the RNC to question the wisdom of the unanimous Republican nominee’s ultimate selection?

Why here, why now?

Or is this just an establishment media reporter poring over a list of wishy-washy establishment Republicans to contact to try and drum up controversy where there is none? You know, “fake news” fanned by people with their own agendas?

These Republicans are the kind who say one thing in public and on the campaign trail but something completely opposite in a different setting. If Trump surmised that he’d cleaned out the remaining anti-Trump feeling in Congress, he apparently was mistaken. Maybe there’s a Liz Cheney or two still lingering there to make trouble.

In fairness, Schnel’s article did include the views of a few Republicans who were thrilled with the Vance pick (such as Texas’s stalwart conservative, Rep. Chip Roy), demonstrating that the emotion and “love” that party members expressed a couple weeks ago at the RNC wasn’t all an illusion.

In addition, some of those who shared concerns to The Hill writer said they’d had hoped Trump would select a woman or minority to balance the ticket, suggesting the optics of bringing in another populist-favoring white guy wouldn’t broaden the GOP’s tent any. Did they forget that nearly every American voter weighs the top of the ticket as the main factor in their individual voting deliberations? What right thinking citizen determines their vote in an election like this year’s based on who would be vice president?

Kamala Harris, even if she is a minority and a woman, is still an off-putting embarrassment of a politician who laughs at inopportune moments and has demonstrable policy failures for Trump, Vance and surrogates to highlight on the campaign trail. Is there anyone out there who thinks that Kamala Harris is going to expand the Democrats’ tent? What about Kamala’s upcoming choice for her own running mate? Will he or she (or it or they or whatever she chooses to call them) make the J.D. Vance pick look less wise?

In the end, aren’t the anonymous House Republicans who won’t speak with attribution about Vance making much ado about nothing? There’s an election to win in a few months’ time and Trump has demonstrated, time and again, that his political instincts are first rate and he knows the right things to do and say when the moment comes to get the job done.

Democrats may provide the illusion of being united and engaged in a singular purpose, but there’s a long way to go and Americans will rediscover in short order that Kamala Harris is no Barack Obama. She’s not even a Hillary Clinton. Harris is the DEI recipient of Democrat identity politics and Americans aren’t stupid.

The fact is, establishment Republicans likely see J.D. Vance as an easy target for criticism since they wouldn’t dare try going after Trump now. It’s certainly not that they admire Kamala Harris, it’s just that they worry, needlessly, that something might go wrong between now and Election Day. Here’s thinking such fears are unfounded and they’ll fade as time and events prove otherwise.

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