Why JD Vance Is Getting Comparisons To Richard Nixon After The RNC
On "Forbes Newsroom," presidential historian Professor David Greenberg spoke about Sen. JD Vance (R-OH).
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NewsTranscript
00:00Speaking of unusual backgrounds, you parlayed your answer right into my next question, which is we are speaking during the RNC, it's ongoing as we speak, and candidate Trump has nominated or chosen J.D. Vance as his vice president this time around, and J.D. Vance spoke at the convention.
00:21J.D. Vance, of course, is an author and he is a senator in Ohio, but it's a relatively young political career. Can you put into context for us J.D. Vance's vice presidential candidacy? How does he compare to other people who are typically chosen for vice president?
00:40Yes, well, Vance is unusually young. One comparison that's been made is to Richard Nixon, because Nixon, when he was chosen by Dwight Eisenhower in 1952, was also quite young, still in his 30s, had been senator for just two years, had been a congressman for four years before that, so had a little more experience,
01:07but was seen as a new, young, fresh face. This was sort of before he really became known as Tricky Dick in the mind of the public at large. And Eisenhower thought that Nixon could sort of unite the right wing, the wing of like Joe McCarthy and sort of the real, like fiercely anti-communist side with the more moderate wing that Eisenhower represented. And Nixon was kind of seen as able to bridge that.
01:37Vance, in his own way, could be seen as a bridge. You know, he started off certainly as a conservative, if people have read Hillbilly Elegy, there's certainly notes of conservative policy prescription, but kind of a moderate conservative, a fairly appealing voice as the success of his book and the movie that was based on it, Attest, went to Yale Law School, where he was surrounded by a lot of liberal people and seemed able to make his way up.
02:08But in the last few years, he's really turned toward a more Trumpy kind of right wing conservatism, you know, being very dismissive of the importance of Ukraine and protecting Europe, you know, being more protectionist on issues like trade.
02:26And some of these issues where Trump has taken the Republican Party in a more reactionary direction or populist direction, as some people might call it. So it's hard to know where Vance's, you know, true political leanings lie or if, you know, as a relatively young man, he's still in the process of figuring them out.
02:50I see. I was going to ask you what his vice presidency candidacy signals about the direction of the GOP. Can you, is it too soon to say?
03:01Well, I think it certainly does indicate, you know, a further move away from, let's call it Reaganism.
03:10You know, Mike Pence eight years ago was a very different kind of choice, although Pence was and is a very conservative man.
03:19He was sort of tied to that mainstream, what we used to call the conservative movement.
03:25He had been a conservative talk radio host, you know, was quite devout in his Christianity and had ties to the Christian right.
03:35And Trump sort of picked him to assure that wing that, you know, what was then sort of a mainstream conservative wing that, you know, Trump was not going to veer too far in his own policies from what conservatives wanted.
03:51Now, eight years later, you look at, say, who are the Republicans in Congress?
03:56Who are the people that the Republican Party has nominated for governor and senator?
04:02You know, it's a very different profile of person.
04:05And on many issues, they differ.
04:09They still tend to be, you know, a party of tax cutting and anti-government.
04:14But that kind of rhetoric is less prominent and it's much more kind of inward turn, much more an explicit cultivation of the working class vote.
04:28The white working class originally, but now increasingly black and Hispanic as well.
04:34So Vance with this sort of, you know, coming from Appalachia, coming from a working class background, Rust Belt, is really sort of playing to that audience and to the hope that this is the future direction of the Republican Party.
04:51That he could be someone, you know, that Trump could see as an heir apparent, which, you know, with Mike Pence was never really the case.