Publisher’s note:This analysis was initially published in the CNN bulletin in America. Read the past problems and subscribe here.
JD Vance is another type of vice-president.
It is not the Machiavellian master of Washington who works in the shadows – like Dick Cheney. Nor is there the safe pair of foreign policy – like a Bush George HW or Joe Biden.
The young Vance seems rather to have made the personification of the most extreme publications of the social media of his boss Donald Trump. Her Provocation of the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky In the Oval Office last week, a diplomatic crisis sparked. He enjoyed going to Munich to insult the European allies of America. And Vance was a news on the front page in Great Britain after having said that Ukraine needed better security guarantees than those offered by “a random country that has not fought war for 30 or 40 years”. Vance later said that it was “absurdly dishonest” to say that he was talking about Britain and France – but they are the only allies to volunteer for a Ukrainian peace force.
Vance knows in which direction the wind blows in the republican party. This is why he abandoned his contempt for the president – after wondered in 2016 apparently If Trump could be a American Hitler. Now, in a party who loves his leader, the vice-president is one of the president’s most eminent public admirers.
But Vance is a fascinating character. He went from a hard education of the scrabble in the Appalachians at Ivy League. It is extremely intelligent – one of the reasons why its political positioning is often considered as proof of a harmful calculation. Vance, who briefly served as a senator of Ohio, despises traditional media and the Washington elites, so it is a natural adjustment with Trump’s populism. He is also an American veteran – he should therefore know better about the contribution of the American allies to the war against terrorism. And he became rich in Silicon Valley and had an entrance with the Big Tech Barons who suddenly moved to the right and kissed Trump in his second mandate.
The vice-president made a name for himself with “Hillbilly Elegy” a thesis on his childhood in the private areas of Ohio and Kentucky. The 2016 book explained how deindustrialisation has favored poverty and drug addiction and a possible political reaction against globalized free trade policies. It has become a kind of manual to understand Trump supporters during his first mandate.
Given this context, it is not surprising that Vance produced the most eloquent arguments of the campaign for an economic policy of the first America. At 40, he is a potential heir for Trump – although the president has amused the anointed in a recent interview with Fox News, not wanting to think about giving in his throne so early.
Vance is the embodiment of what many Europeans disdain America. Isolationist, he sees no vital national interest in Ukraine. Its brutality and its sufficiency index are irrine many foreigners, as well as its support for the far right of Europe – including the extremist AFD of Germany. One day before facing Zelensky in the oval office, he reprimanded Keir Starmer about freedom of expression in the United Kingdom – although the British PM closed it.
Since Vance is young, ambitious, ideological and has an apparent chip on his shoulder on the intellectuals of the establishment, there is a vice -president that he reminds us – Richard Nixon.
When Nixon joined the Dwight Eisenhower ticket in 1952, he spent about enough time in the Senate to take a cup of coffee – just like Vance. And like his 21st century successor, he was a new race of GOP ideologist-while the current vice-president UP breaks the “awakened” liberals, Nixon abolished the supposed communists living in the United States. And like Vance, Nixon had an eye on higher things. His ambitions and penchant for the dark side of politics have sometimes caused tensions with his more experienced boss – a possible omen for the relationship between Trump and Vance.
Nixon used his eight -year vice -presidency as an intensive course in global affairs which was the key to his success as a state man after having finally won great work in 1968. Vance seems unlikely to imitate the long world odysses of Nixon – he has political interests at home.
But do not underestimate Vance. It rose high and fast. But will pride lead him to fly too close to the sun?
The Liberal Party will eliminate a successor from his unpopular leader Justin Trudeau on Sunday and this person will quickly replace him as Prime Minister. The favorite is Mark Carney – the former governor of banks in Canada and England. Former finance minister Chrystia Freeland, whose resignation contributed to the fall of Trudeau, hopes to beat him in the first job.
Suddenly, liberal leadership is worth. Trump’s commercial blitzkrieg and requests for Canada to become the 51st state has transformed politics north of the border. Trudeau’s party once seemed to be condemned to defeat by the Conservative Party of Pierre Hairy during an election due in the fall. But the Trumpy of Hairy themes left him exposed and the liberal deficit in the polls was evaporated.
The big question is now what is following? Carney does not currently have a seat in Parliament, it will therefore be necessary to look for one in the first opportunity during a by -election if it becomes PM.
But could he take a bet and try to exploit an explosion of patriotism and antipathy towards Trump by calling a general election in instruction? If he lost, he became a political punchline. But Fortune promotes the courageous – and that can be the only chance of the liberals of a shock rebound.