For a would-be president, JD Vance has an unfortunate habit of getting into fights he cannot win. Three losing battles in the past week – with Iranian negotiators, Hungarian voters and Pope Leo – brought censure, humiliation and mockery raining down on his head. None were of Vance’s choosing. All were fought vicariously on Donald Trump’s behalf.

The vice-president is paying a high price for sycophantic loyalty to his boss. His poll ratings are plunging. His Maga succession hopes falter. He suffers by association – although his own inflammatory statements and misjudgments often make matters worse. Yet amid growing doubts about Trump’s mental health and fitness to govern, Vance remains the White House’s next-in-line.

Given he’s expected to seek the presidency in 2028, the question arises: will Vance continue to meekly act as Trump fall guy for another bruising two-and-a-half years and hope to survive, as Claudius survived Caligula? Or, faced by career-ending disaster as the “mad king” drags everyone down, will the worm turn, as Brutus turned against Caesar?

Vance’s loyalty is not reciprocated. Remember the fate of Trump’s first vice-president, Mike Pence, who refused to block the 2020 election result. Trump reportedly backed Capitol Hill rioters who wanted Pence hanged for treason. If the mood takes him, Trump will happily throw faithful followers under the bus, no matter how they bow and scrape. Ask Pam Bondi. Yet Vance’s loyalties and beliefs are flexible, too. Until he jumped on the Maga bandwagon, he was a fierce critic of Trump, warning he could become “America’s Hitler”. He reinvented himself as an immigration hawk, defending Trump’s infamous 2024 campaign lie that Haitian migrants stole and ate people’s pets.

Vance once passionately........

© The Guardian