JD Vance wants to lead the Maga movement

Donald Trump’s running mate seems prepared to put his desire for power ahead of American democracy.

As the US election enters its final days, the candidates are making their closing pitches to voters, and calling in the big guns to help them. Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have Michelle and Barack Obama, Bruce Springsteen, Taylor Swift and the closest thing America has to a queen (Beyoncé). Their argument: a Harris presidency would mean ensuring American freedoms, including the protection of abortion rights, and would serve as a bulwark against Trumpian authoritarianism and a democracy-eroding Republican Party.

Donald Trump and JD Vance, on the other hand, invited a smattering of friends, family members, lackeys, has-beens (Hulk Hogan, the US TV personality “Dr Phil” McGraw) and who’s-thats (such as comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage”) to New York City’s Madison Square Garden for a pre-election rally. The Trump political adviser Stephen Miller intoned that “America is for Americans and Americans only”, as Trump’s immigrant wife, Melania, and his immigrant billionaire benefactor Elon Musk looked on. One speaker said that Harris had “pimp handlers”, as if she were a sex worker; ex-Fox News host Tucker Carlson called her “low-IQ”. It was a circus show for Trump: we hold all the same bigotries, and we hate all the same people as you.

The Trump strategy is risky: insulting the people whose votes you’re trying to secure is not often seen on campaigns for obvious reasons (millions of American citizens with Puerto Rican heritage are eligible to vote, including almost half a million in Pennsylvania, three quarters of whom are able to vote). But these displays are also useful for voters to see. This is who Trump is. It’s who Vance has become. It’s what the Republican Party has embraced. And it’s America’s future if we don’t stop it now.

Trump’s supporters often argue that he’s not the dangerous authoritarian Democrats make him out to be, because if he were, he would have done more “Hitler stuff” when he was in office the first time around. But Trump and his supporters also complain that during his first term he was hemmed in by the so-called deep state and disloyal staffers – and promise he’ll carry out more of his agenda if given the chance.

They’re right about that. Trump’s first term was disastrous, but he was curbed by many of those around him who ignored his demands. It could have been much worse.

One of those people was former vice-president Mike Pence, who certified the results of the 2020 election even though Trump told him not to. Pence is far from an admirable figure. But in that moment, he put US democracy over the whims of his boss.

The former president notoriously sat idly by while pro-Trump rioters chanted “hang Mike Pence” as they prepared to storm the Capitol building. This time, Pence isn’t Trump’s running mate. Instead, Trump picked someone he believes will do as he demands. And Vance has promised the public as much. Vance has refused to say whether he believes Trump lost the 2020 election, even when asked directly. He has said he would have refused to certify that election. He has publicly endorsed Trump’s false election-stealing claims.

Vance is an intelligent person. He’s a lawyer and a senator. He understands how US democratic processes, including policymaking and executive power, work. This is something that sets him apart from Trump, who has exhibited little knowledge about the actual functioning of American government. This makes for a dangerous duo: where Pence and others of the old Trump administration may have avoided helping the president implement his worst ideas, Vance and those who now surround Trump are ready to help him carry out his darkest desires.

What makes this all the more terrifying is that one suspects Vance knows this is wrong in a way Trump doesn’t. Trump sincerely doesn’t seem to understand why, as president, he is not also a dictator-king. He’s not just frustrated with limitations on executive power; he believes such limitations are illegitimate. He is keen to get rid of them, as he genuinely has no attachment to the American democratic tradition – it does not serve him, and he serves no one but himself.

That may not be the case for Vance, who is ostensibly someone who appreciates the durability of the US democratic project. He also seems to be someone who puts his desire for power ahead of that project. Vance has positioned himself to take over the Maga movement after Trump’s demise. After all, if Trump wins he will be the oldest person ever elected to the presidency. Vance, however, will be one of the country’s youngest-ever vice-presidents. He no doubt sees a long political runway ahead of him. Given how much he has shape-shifted (he compared Trump to Hitler a few years ago and is now running alongside him), Vance seems primed to deform himself into whomever he believes GOP voters need him to be in order to stay on his political path.

If voters elect Trump, the message to Vance will be that Trumpian displays of misogyny, racism and general boorishness coupled with the crushing of one’s enemies and the bulldozing of safeguards is the most effective way to win power. American conservatives have already thrown their support behind one con-man-turned-authoritarian; Vance is in line to learn, take over and exercise his own iron fist.

This election won’t just decide who takes the White House. It will decide if this mutant Republican Party stays in the gutter, or if it cleans itself up and re-enters public life as a disinfected (if still conservative, reactionary, and likely cruel) version of itself.

[See also: The spectre of American fascism]