At a Thursday speech in Weatherford, Texas, Vice President JD Vance seemed to relish the opportunity to snipe at Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico."Now James Talarico has also said that he really has to grapple with his masculinity in addition to his whiteness," Vance said."And you know, James, the good news is, there ain't a whole lot to grapple with," he finished to cheers from the crowd.Vance gave the speech the same afternoon that President Trump spoke in Rock Hill, South Carolina, as part of his pre-midterm blitz of rallies.
And while Vance's delivery was different from the president's – less borscht-belt comedian, more practiced politician – it contained plenty of MAGA DNA, from insulting a candidate's masculinity to promising a return of American greatness.It all gives a sense of what a Vance presidential pitch might look like once 2028 campaigns begin in earnest next year.Vance paints a rosy picture of the America of his youth, in his speeches – in North Carolina this week, he invoked the "sense of pride and unity and fellowship" Americans had after September 11, 2001.He added to that message in multiple speeches remembering his childhood football teams being sponsored by local small businesses."I distinctly remember looking in my old jerseys and seeing the names of the businesses that had sponsored those teams and realizing that most of the teams I played for, those businesses no longer existed," he said in Howell, Michigan.
"They were casualties of politicians in a faraway place who didn't give a damn what happened to Michigan or Ohio, and it was us that paid the consequences."It's a story about a Norman Rockwell vision of America corrupted by Washington elites.The story Vance tells is that his brand of populist politics can bring that back.But it's not just about economics; Vance leans hard into the culture wars fought during the Trump years.
In his stories about peewee football, Vance talks about racial harmony well before the advent of...