LEFT: Pat Buchanan, in the Oval Office study, watches a television replay of the Space Shuttle “Challenger” explosion with President Ronald Reagan, Don Regan, Al Kingon, and Edward Djerejian, 1/28/1986. (National Archives Identifier 75854573) RIGHT: President Donald J. Trump participates at a roundtable on donating plasma Thursday, July 30, 2020, at the American Red Cross-National Headquarters in Washington, D.C. (Official White House Photo by Tia Dufour)
The GOP ticket will be manned by two populists after Donald Trump selected J.D. Vance as his running mate for 2024. Both owe a heavy debt to Pat Buchanan, who built the foundation for modern GOP populism during his presidential campaigns in 1992, 1996, and 2000. If Pat hadn’t kept populism alive in the GOP, it may have died completely, leaving the party to the neocons and globalists who make up the party’s diminishing establishment wing. Sadly, Pat is mostly retired now, after ending his syndicated column in November of 2021. But the populism Buchanan preserved is still going strong. At The Spectator, Amber Duke calls Vance the “natural successor” to the populist 45th President Trump, writing:
Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for president in 2024, announced Monday on Truth Social that his vice presidential candidate will be Ohio senator J.D. Vance. Vance represents the new populist bent of the Republican Party championed by Trump’s “America First” movement and is thus a natural successor to the 45th president.
“After lengthy deliberation and thought, and considering the tremendous talents of many others, I have decided that the person best suited to assume the position of Vice President of the United States is Senator J.D. Vance of the Great State of Ohio. J.D. honorably served our Country in the Marine Corps, graduated from Ohio State University in two years, Summa Cum Laude, and is a Yale Law School Graduate, where he was Editor of the Yale Law Journal, and President of the Yale Law Veterans Association. J.D.’s book, “Hillbilly Elegy,” became a Major Best Seller and Movie, as it championed the hardworking men and women of our Country. J.D. has had a very successful business career in Technology and Finance, and now, during the Campaign, will be strongly focused on the people he fought so brilliantly for, the American Workers and Farmers in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Minnesota, and far beyond….” Trump wrote.
Vance was elected as Ohio’s junior senator in the 2022 midterm elections and before that was a well-known author with the bestselling book Hillbilly Elegy about his humble upbringing in rural Appalachia. The book was adapted into a Netflix movie. Vance wrote about the desperation of these underserved areas, which have been wracked by job loss and drug addiction.
Vance converted to Catholicism in 2019 and would be only the second Catholic in American history to serve as vice president. His selection as VP is a blow to the establishment, neoconservative wing of the GOP and proof that Trump doesn’t want to hand the party back to them when he’s done.
Read more here.
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