51 Comments
User's avatar
⭠ Return to thread
Sioux Fleming's avatar

Thank you Professor Richardson for reminding everyone that JD Vance, a man with very little political experience could be the acting president if Trump is elected. This is a truly frightening thought as he lacks even basic experience to do so.

While Trump has tried to distance himself from Project 2025, everyone needs to remember that Vance also has close ties to it. He wrote the forward to a book written by Heritage Foundation president Kevin D Roberts titled Dawns Early Light, which was supposed to be published in September and has been delayed until after the election as the campaign tries to distance itself from Project 2025 after people started paying attention. I’ve read all of it and the damage it would do is extreme. It’s seems likely to me that Vance will use it as a playbook if Trump continues to deteriorate and somehow finds himself in office. And this leaves out the expectation that it was written as Trump’s playbook all along.

Expand full comment
Gary Anderson's avatar

The consequences of this election cannot be overstated. The good professor continues to do a great American service in the daily presentation of issues in a factual manner with steady tone and rational discussion. Vance is a VERY scary politician. The risks for American democracy with a Trump/Vance election are difficult to come to terms with. I continue to believe that it is the women of America who will save Democracy in this election. I am not a fan of Taylor Swift’s music but I am a huge fan of her philanthropy and her willingness to provide voting guidance to her fan base. Now if she could persuade Travis to join her that would be even more powerful.

Expand full comment
Colette Wismer's avatar

I totally agree, Gary. I wish someone could persuade Dolly Parton to endorse Kamala. She is such a wonderful person and philanthropist, it would be a real coup.

Expand full comment
Lauren Lundgren's avatar

We'll just have to do with Taylor Swift. I believe Parton is too conscientious to break with her publicly apolitical custom. Chump's odiousness may disrupt Dolly's custom, as it did the Cheneys, and if it did, so much the better. I, for one, won't be disappointed if Parton stands strong on her public persona

Expand full comment
Anne-Louise Luccarini's avatar

Even scarier, Vance is not a politician.

Expand full comment
Jen Schaefer's avatar

Vance is a Nazi.

Expand full comment
David Sea's avatar

Scarier yet, if something "happens" to DJT before the election, guess who'd become the GOP candidate for the Presidential election?

Expand full comment
Anne-Louise Luccarini's avatar

They couldn't let it happen. He's only there because of a Trump whim. It wasn't a party decision. Was it?

Expand full comment
Marge Wherley's avatar

Peter Thiel bankrolled Vance’s campaign to the tune of $25 million and allegedly offered substantial donations to trump if he picked Vance for VP. It’s the oligarchs buying our government- and they are no longer shy about it.

Expand full comment
JaneDough56's avatar

I bet it was a Heritage Foundation choice, like the SCOTUS picks are the Federalist Society’s choice.

Expand full comment
Anne-Louise Luccarini's avatar

Of course. 2025. Maybe that's what Bannon meant when he said, "He can't not win". 2025 also emphasises "Day One". No longer than that. I wonder who the Harris think-tank is - there are some very good minds there. The Vance/Walz debate is of the utmost importance.

Expand full comment
Ally House (Oregon)'s avatar

Google tells me, via the Brookings Institute:

"If the Republican candidate dies or is incapacitated after the convention and before Election Day, the Republican National Committee (RNC) will meet to select a presidential candidate and/or vice-presidential candidate under Rule 9 of party rules."

Expand full comment
Anne-Louise Luccarini's avatar

Thanks, Ally. Interesting thought - Party Rules. Are they the same for both parties? So far the RNC appears to be re-writing the rules faster than the eye can see.

Expand full comment
David Sea's avatar

Just let it not be a Trump.

Expand full comment
Carol C's avatar

Good to know. Although isn’t Lara Trump the RNC co-chair? Junior Trump favored Vance, didn’t he? If they need a new candidate or two, we will see who really has the power in the RNC.

Expand full comment
Lauren Lundgren's avatar

I have absolutely no fear that the awkward weirdo would or could defeat Kamala, if the GOP were idiotic enough to nominate him. If not Vance, then who? Mike Johnson? Chris Sununu? Larry Hogan? I'd be more worried about any of them than JD.

Expand full comment
Jim Young Freeport, ME's avatar

His writing the forward to "Dawns Early Light" seems to show he's not the politician he thought he was. I wonder if it will ever be published now that it seems it was to have been part of the plan, now seemingly too bad too bad to release before the election.

I suspect if they get their clocks cleaned in the election it will reveal so much more that the public will reject for long after, perhaps enough to have them bury it deep in the political junk pile (which Vance may want done if he wants any future at all in politics).

Expand full comment
Carol O's avatar

Thank you for this ‘plan’ …

Expand full comment
Jonathan K. Skean (WV-CA-NE)'s avatar

This alarming book was originally titled Dawn's Early Light: Burning Down Washington to Save America.

Expand full comment
J L Graham's avatar

And here I thought it was Burning Down Washington to Serve Plutocrats.

Expand full comment
Kathy Hughes's avatar

That surely would have been a more accurate title, don’t you think?

Expand full comment
Jim Young Freeport, ME's avatar

I wonder if the contents would provided some material that could lead to criminal prosecutions.

Expand full comment
Colette Wismer's avatar

I have been saying we should be fearing that Vance could step into that role for awhile. I hope people start noticing how horrible that would be!

Expand full comment
Kathy Hughes's avatar

I know. Ryan (his opponent) ran a less than stellar campaign, and Peter Thiel bought himself a senator. I can’t stand Vance, and I’m concerned about losing Sherrod Brown, because he really is a good and effective senator. I don’t care for car dealer Bernie Moreno.

What did make me laugh is that our Secretary of State, Frank LaRose, is trying to find a new job as he’s term limited out of office this year. He tried running for senator in Ohio’s Federal primary race and came in third. Trump endorsed the primary winner Bernie Moreno. LaRose is busily writing a dishonest ballot summary for our initiative to take redistricting away from the Republicans in the General Assembly. LaRose tried and failed to wreck our ability to pass initiatives as we always had, and was soundly defeated in Issue 1 in 2022. He wrote a dishonest ballot summary for that also and people saw through it.

Expand full comment
Diedra's avatar

Hoping, like you, Sherrod Brown can win. (He might carry Springfield??)

Expand full comment
Kathleen Fernandez's avatar

Springfield is pretty red.

Expand full comment
Kathleen Fernandez's avatar

Ryan didn't win in '22 because the Democratic Party didn't spend a dime to support his race. They wrote off Ohio completely. And now we have Vance (ugh).

Expand full comment
Frank Loomer's avatar

According to 538 Sherrod Brown is consistently ahead of Moreno, albeit often within the margin of error.

Expand full comment
Lauren Lundgren's avatar

I worry about Sherrod, too, Kathy. He's a really good guy, which usually shines through all the opposition's bs. He's got name recognition and his storied man of the people/ on the side of workers rep. I hope that's enough to keep him in the senate. He's only 2 points up over Bernie, but maybe (hopefully) Chump's atrocious performance Tues. will deflate the value of his support for Moreno.

Expand full comment
Carol O's avatar

Sounds (reads!) like there are active voters in your state !

Expand full comment
Lauren Lundgren's avatar

Putting him a heartbeat away from the oval if Chump should win is my nightmare, Colette. I'm not terribly concerned about the party nominating him for the top slot if the felon withdraws, which he won't. They may be crazy, but they're not stupid.

Expand full comment
J. Nol's avatar

I wonder if those on the "other" side, when Biden was the candidate, feared if something happened to Biden while in office then Harris would become president. So now their fears may come to pass, largely due to their candidate showing his addled colors.

Expand full comment
J L Graham's avatar

Trump talks out of both sides of his mouth on Project 2025.

Expand full comment
Kathy Hughes's avatar

He does that on everything. I had an Australian man on another social media site claim that Trump had distanced himself from Project 2025. I had to remind him that Trump is a liar, admitted to loathing Trump, and you can’t trust his lies.

Expand full comment
Anne-Louise Luccarini's avatar

Sounds to me as though your correspondent hasn't spotted that all the Australian news sources are pro Trump. Right up to and including the present.

Expand full comment
Frank Loomer's avatar

Some of the headlines of late don't quite seem that way, but you are certainly right that according to the Aussie media as of a few months ago Trump was the most favoured Republican candidate since forever. Seems Trump doesn't just have Foxy American voters under his sway. Things aren't quite so Trumpy in the UK or New Zealand, or Canada for that matter.

Expand full comment
JDinTX's avatar

…and everything else

Expand full comment
Ally House (Oregon)'s avatar

Some of it is muffled by Depends.

Expand full comment
Frank Loomer's avatar

likewise female reproductive rights

Expand full comment
Kathy's avatar

Vance is making our job easier in Florida.GOTV !!!

In the 2018 general election, turnout among voters with Haitian ancestry was 73%, 9 percentage points higher than the state’s overall turnout rate, according to two researchers at the University of Florida in 2020. A similarly high turnout was observed in 2016 as well.

“These numbers allow you to understand that Haitians vote at higher levels, that there is a large Haitian population in Florida, that there are a number of Haitians who have ran for office and won office, and that as a political group, they really have arrived,” one of the researchers told The Haitian Times.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/9/11/2269235/-JD-Vance-s-anti-Haitian-bigotry-could-cost-Republicans-the-Senate

📲💲🏃🏻‍♀️✍️👕🛒

Expand full comment
JDinTX's avatar

No worries, Vance will have plenty of folks ready to “advise.” He may even have a gold-plated copy of Project 2025, to replace our Constitution and Bill of Rights…

Expand full comment
Carol O's avatar

There’s still time to get active on phone banks and enlighten your voters!

Expand full comment
JDinTX's avatar

Got post cards, can do that

Expand full comment
Mischele's avatar

As I said here a couple of days ago, this is the plan; through foul means, get the Trump-Vance ticket into the White House, then Trump does a Putin-esque defenestration and poof! the hero of Project 2025 is now the commander-in-chief.

I suspect that, like Trump, Vance is not a mental giant. But he is smart enough to have written a book. Once in charge, I don't believe we will be shaking our heads at the genuinely buffoonish things Trump said and did (bleach and ivermectin, anyone?). No, Vance will goose-step his way straight to the brown shirts, "Sieg Heil" salutes, and gulags.

In Vance, the Heritage Foundation will have their Christian zealot: someone who embodies the very best of demagoguery in order to end democracy.

Expand full comment
JaneDough56's avatar

Yes, because while Trump is a loose cannon, Vance will take his marching orders from HF.

Expand full comment
Carol O's avatar

…As Trump Contunues to Deteriorate…

A vote for TRUMP is a VOTE for J.D. VANCE. Who is wide Awake & ready to move w Heritage & Project 25.

Expand full comment
Penny Scribner's avatar

Very thoughtful response for what is going on. I con't give a rat's ass if you like TV or had or have a TV. This is about the future of our nation. Let's focus on what's at stake here.Do any of you know folks in swing states? If so, write them. Call them. I'm writing, calling, and donating to Wisconsin. How about Michigan? As Gary A. says, "...the consequences of this election cannot be overstated."

Expand full comment
Anne-Louise Luccarini's avatar

Yes, we all noticed.

Expand full comment
Happy Valley No More's avatar

Vance is indeed a scary option. He is young enough to do a lot of damage for a very long time. Let’s hope there are enough sane people to say NO F-ing way on 5 Nov.

Expand full comment
Carol C's avatar

The remarks by JD Vance at the RNC convention are very interesting. The “real Americans” are the Southern Bourbons who have been around and influential for 200 years. Of course, the Northern Yankees have also been around at least as long. The “hillbillies” Vance refers to, using a term of disrespect, apparently are the low-information voters in the other parts of the country.

Expand full comment