By the AFP Staff
Two days after facing a failed assassination attempt, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump took to the stage at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisc., on July 15 to name Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) as his vice president should he take the White House in the upcoming November election. Considered to be one of the best conservative populists in the Congress today, Vance signals that the pro-working-class, America-first wing of the Republican Party has won the war over who controls the agenda of the GOP today.
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In a new article, published on July 16, the rabidly pro-free-trade, Libertarian magazine Reason reluctantly acknowledged this dramatic shift, reporting, “Trump has remade the party in his own image, and that the party of free markets is no longer.”
When Reason refers to “free markets,” they are talking about job-destroying, industry-gutting policies like the North American Free Trade Agreement that establishment Republicans have been peddling for decades.
“It’s Vance’s party now,” lamented Reason, adding that the pro-Trump wing of the Republican Party actually had the audacity to invite Sean O’Brien, the general president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, on stage at the Republican National Convention to rebuke big business and call for labor law reforms that benefit middle-class American workers.
In past speeches, Vance has advocated raising the minimum wage and using the federal government to prevent American-born workers from being undercut by the cheap foreign labor.
In a competing news piece, left-wing reporter Lee Fang was much more reasonable in his profile of Vance than was Reason.
“Since [Vance’s] election in 2022, the junior senator from Ohio has blazed an unorthodox path as a Republican on fundamental economic and foreign policy issues,” wrote Fang on July 16. “His record shows a relatively high degree of cooperation with Senate Democrats, particularly on populist issues for enhancing oversight over corporations.”
According to Fang, these initiatives include cosponsoring legislation to cap out-of-pocket expenses for insulin at $35; cosponsoring legislation to repeal the authorization of the use of military force in Iraq; and sponsoring legislation to prevent the licensing of government-funded advanced technology to foreign corporations, especially in China.
Vance has also called for direct peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia.
In many ways, Vance is the most pro-worker, anti-war running mate of any Republican in the modern era.
On the religious news website “First Things,” writer Matthew Schmitz concludes that Vance represents a new kind of leader in the United States.
“Something important has changed in the way religious Americans approach politics,” wrote Schmitz. “Free trade and open borders are out; economic moderation and immigration restriction are in.
No other elected official in Washington represents this new shift better than Vance.
“He is perhaps the most eloquent champion of a new Christian approach to politics—one that is less conventionally conservative and more populist,” wrote Schmitz.
Multiple media outlets reported what we can only hope rings true for the future: Vance’s selection signals that the days where Wall Street financiers and Beltway elites would be filling top cabinet spots in the next Trump administration are officially over.
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