Is the VP Worth a Bucket of Warm Spit?
After Trump assassination attempts, his running mate might be awfully important.
Could the Next Vice President Actually Matter?
On Friday in Flint, Michigan, Vice President Kamala Harris told a friendly crowd, “Remember this number: 32. Today, we’ve got 32 days until the election.”
She then burst into her trade-mark laugh before a long pause and deep breath. Her teleprompter had failed. She had nothing to say.
She began to repeat herself: “So 32 days. 32 days. Okay, we’ve got some business to do. We’ve got some business to do. Alright. 32 days, and we know we will do it. And — and, this is gonna be a very tight race until the very end. This is gonna be a very tight race until the very end.”
Even when Harris’s teleprompter does work, listening to her is like living inside the Edgar Allan Poe short story The Cask of Amontillado as she leads us deeper and deeper into the dank and darkness. We (as Fortunato) ask “What about the details of your program?” and Kamala (as Montresor) answers from the darkness ahead: “They are farther on. Come.” If you follow that voice, you’ll go to your doom.
Perhaps we shouldn’t wonder that Harris seems bound to join the many previous unremembered vice presidents.
John Nance Garner was FDR’s vice president for eight years and is famous only for his description of the vice-presidency: “Not worth a bucket of warm spit.”
In my lifetime three men have passed from the office of vice president to the presidency through election: Richard Nixon, George H. W. Bush, and Joe Biden. Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson was made president by the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and then won the office for himself in 1964.
My favorite historical vice presidents would be Harry Truman, and Theodore Roosevelt. My least favorite is Spiro T. Agnew.
The vice president who suffered the most abuse in my lifetime was Dan Quayle. He had limited capabilities, and was the first politician I ever saw who had to endure daily attacks from packs of rabid-dog reporters. He was basically a decent man, but I doubt if anyone remembers him.
Thomas Riley Marshall, vice president of the United States under Woodrow Wilson is most famous for saying: "What this country needs is a good 5-cent cigar." A sentiment I entirely share.
Which brings us to the two vice-presidential candidates in this election. After their recent debate, I admit to being a bit more sympathetic towards Governor Tim Walz. He self-identified as a knucklehead, and most of those watching agreed. He is clearly out of his league in every area.
The only reason Walz is even in the running is because Kamala had to choose someone dumber than herself as a running mate. Every time he comes bouncing and waving onto a stage I think of the clown who used to do McDonald’s restaurant openings. When Walz actually talks, it is worse. Truthfully, if this man represents the capabilities of high ranking non-commissioned officers in the Minnesota National Guard, then he was absolutely right to resist sending the guard in to control the Minneapolis rioters.
I found it comforting that Walz didn’t seem evil, though that abortion bill he signed is evil, allowing a full-term child who survived an abortion to be set aside on a gurney until it expires. I suppose I should be encouraged that he was ashamed to admit what actually happens as a result of the bill—ancient pagans in Greece left their full-term babies on the hillsides to die, and the Christians tried to rescue them. Here is the stinger: The pagans fiercely resisted the Christian attempts to save the babies they were attempting to kill. We shouldn’t wonder that some things never change.
And JD Vance is right—Walz is a juggler with too many wobbly plates in the air. He carries the burdens of President Joe Biden, Vice President Cackles and Joy, the worst four-year record of any administration in the history of the United States, and vacuous statements from the presidential candidate describing enterprise zones (actually not describing anything—just saying the two words), with every other word out of her mouth equally an abstraction. Win or lose, Walz seems likely to end up standing in a pile of shattered crockery.
Vance is another story altogether. Contemplation of a hypothetical Vance vice-presidency begins with the possibility that he will become president through assassination.
What is the true actuarial data on Donald Trump’s probability of surviving until the election? Until the inauguration? Through four years of office? We have already verified two men who wished to kill him. Really, how many hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands would kill Trump if they had the opportunity? And what would be the reaction?
Four sitting presidents have been killed: Abraham Lincoln in 1865, by John Wilkes Booth; James A. Garfield in 1881, by Charles J. Guiteau; William McKinley in 1901, by Leon Czolgosz; and John F. Kennedy in 1963, by Lee Harvey Oswald.
Abraham Lincoln had to sneak through Baltimore on his way to his first inauguration because Pinkerton told him there was a plot to kill him. We know that had the deed been done, the South would have exploded into an orgy of celebration. If Trump is killed, the public celebration might be muted. But privately tens of millions will drink champagne toasts, and praise and thank the pagan gods that rule their hearts.
So JD Vance for vice president is a much more serious proposition than usual. We have to assume that Donald Trump is a moving target in an international shooting gallery. He is still guarded by a Secret Service that has failed on two occasions. The people who hate Trump and want him dead (and God knows their names) are still roosting wherever they roosted for the first two attempts.
Despite efforts to paint him as weird, Vance certainly appears normal—better than normal—he looks like he came straight from the small-town American hero section of Central Casting. He has been criticized for numerous name changes since his birth, but they were brought on by his father leaving the home early, and his taking the last names of the different men who moved in with his mother. Finally he lived with his grandmother who helped form his character. He served in the Marines, studied at Ohio State, and then Yale Law School. He settled on JD Vance for his diploma from Yale. JD are the initials of his first two names (which I omit because he dislikes them), and Vance was his grandmother’s last name.
JD Vance is very smart in all the categories: Book smart: Small town to Yale. Woman smart: Accomplished wife. Politically smart: Unflappable amid the barrage of questions thrown at him. Has anyone handled the press-jackals better than JD Vance? I listen to him respond to bear-trap question after bear-trap question with complete poise, leaving the yammering questioner stymied.
The universal response to the debate with Walz was that Vance was a man who could legitimately become president, either now or four years from now.
It disturbs us to accept the fact that Donald Trump is being stalked for assassination. But that is reality, and we must adjust. It helps that JD Vance looks ready, willing, and able to pick up the sword and shield in our behalf.
When Henry V and his brother watched Montjoy, ride away after delivering terms of surrender to the English. The brother said: “I hope they will not come upon us now.” Henry replied: “We are in God’s hands, brother, not in theirs.”
We are in God’s hands.
In THIS election, yes. Ten days after Trump is sworn in, they would enact the 24th Amendment and swear in POTUS Vance and THAT, my friends, will be the final nail in this nation’s coffin.