CHRISTIAN WHITON: The Trump-Vance Ticket Is Bold Politics At Its Finest

Today, former President Donald Trump, who leads polls to reclaim the presidency, chose Ohio Republican Sen. J.D. Vance to be his running mate. The move was bold and brilliant, and reinforces that the New Right that Trump leads is poised for a once-in-generation chance to remake U.S. politics.

Vance once shared the skepticism many of us had for Trump before he became the nominee in 2016. But the two men made amends when they saw each other for what they were: Trump the catalyst to disrupt the losing corporatist Republican Party of old and Vance the appealing young man who made the intellectual and emotional case for Trump’s economic populism in his book, “Hillbilly Elegy.”

Since then, Vance has evolved into a political force for much of what Trump and the New Right seek: economic opportunity for middle America, a controlled border, reduced immigration, tariffs on China and others and a far more reticent foreign policy. More broadly, these steps mean a slap down of the corrupt and inept powers that run government and business.

Trump followed the wise and then-revolutionary move Bill Clinton made ahead of his election victory in 1992. Clinton chose as his running mate then-Tennessee Democratic Sen. Al Gore, who before subsequently going insane was a moderate southern politician like Clinton.

This choice upended conventional wisdom that tickets needed “balance.” Before then, teams like Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson and Franklin Roosevelt and John Nance Garner (FDR’s first of three veeps — a conservative Texan), were the result of the presidential candidate choosing someone from a different geography or wing of the party to try to soothe those who weren’t completely comfortable with the head of the ticket.

Clinton’s move was smarter though since it reflected his own disposition at the time. The ticket would be comprised of the first Baby Boomers with a shot at winning, both from the South, and both representing a break from the faculty lounge, tax-and-spend liberalism that had led the Democrats to successive defeats.