Trump’s choice will reverberate in the party for years.

Follow this authorMegan McArdle's opinions

Jason: As much as we project ideological significance onto the pick, it’s important to remember that Vance has been ideologically flexible in the past.

Ramesh: I think Vance’s evolution is both sincere and motivated. That is, he had obvious political incentives to become a Trump fan, but that shift corresponded with some preexisting views and traits of his. And, over time, people have a way of persuading themselves that what they’re saying is right — and indeed that they should go further.

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Megan: A number of my Never Trump friends insist that Vance is much worse than Donald Trump — that he is Trump but competent, marrying the neoliberal chops of a Yale Law grad with the populist persona of a working-class kid from Middletown, Ohio. The counterargument is that the persona is a put-on — that the real Vance is the guy who wanted the establishment to just be 15 percent less out of touch, and that if Trump exits the scene, that guy is the one who will actually govern. What do you guys think: Does Vance portend a future for the party that is less radical or more radical than under Trump?

Jason: It depends what you mean by radical. The peak of Vance’s politically “radical” rhetoric was during the 2022 Ohio Senate primary. He’s suggested, for example, that Trump should defy the courts in a second term. That kind of rhetoric has faded since he joined the Senate. My impression is that he was trying to go overboard to prove his MAGA bona fides after being so publicly Never Trump in 2016. Where his heart is, only he knows.

Megan: What do we think his likely role in the party and the White House will be for the next four years? (Presuming that Trump remains hale and healthy until the end of his second term?)

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Jason: Vice presidents have historically played a relatively significant foreign policy role compared to domestic policy — and Vance has made his anti-Ukraine aid stance a significant feature of his time in the Senate. I think his noninterventionist views, influenced by his time in the military, are sincerely held. I suspect he will play a role pushing Trump’s foreign policy in a restrained direction.

Ramesh: I suspect that if Trump-Vance is elected, Vance will be very mindful that Trump does not want to be upstaged. He will be Trump’s ambassador to MAGAville, certainly, but I also think he will seek and have a voice in many aspects of policy. He certainly will not be pushing back on Trump’s instincts on trade and foreign policy.

Jason: Of course, Trump likes competition among his subordinates. So whether a Vance pick heralds a generally populist and restrained Trump team — or whether Trump will try to balance him with Mike Pompeos and Tom Cottons — remains to be seen. I think the latter is probably more likely.

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Megan: The fact that Trump is not very interested in policy detail will presumably give him more scope than most vice presidents get.

Jason: Yes, I would expect Vance to have a significant policy shop in the White House. Can we talk, though, about whether a Vance pick makes a second Trump White House more or less likely?

Megan: Sure, what are your thoughts? A MAGA White male is not exactly a ticket-balancer. But does it matter?

Jason: I think this choice was a political mistake. Just about everything has broken Trump’s way in the last few weeks from a political and polling perspective, but the election is not locked up. I think Vance will be an easy target for opposition ad-makers, and he will spook some Republican donors. Some of the other people floated could have yielded a political and fundraising dividend that Vance won’t.

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Ramesh: I think the selection indicates how confident Trump is of victory, and how much he is looking for loyalty in his next administration. Veeps make a difference only if they are catastrophic mistakes, and Vance seems unlikely to be one.

Jason: For all the conventional wisdom that VP picks don’t matter politically, in this election there will, at the very least, be disproportionate attention on Kamala Harris (because of President Biden’s frailty and the still-extant possibility that she could replace him). That alone elevates the importance of the second........

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