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I don't really think J. D. Vance is weird.
I think Trump is pretty weird. I'm concerned that he has accelerating dementia. His press conference the other day was jammed packed with gibberish. A rational GOP, which doesn't exist, would at this point show him the door. Rather than a rational GOP, however, we have the Populist masses and a collection of forces with agendas, such as the National Conservatives, Christian Nationalist, etc. Some adore his meandering gibberish as they are unthinking or actually quit thinking about what's going on years ago. Some tolerate it as they know that when he's in office they can basically shove him aside and run the bus. Some, I strongly suspect, figure that if elected, which they were planning on, age and the 25th Amendment or a pine box will take him out the back door of the White House and put them in the leather upholstered executive chair.
I think J. D. Vance was in that last category. By supporting Donald Trump, I suspect, he and people in his obit, were figuring that that Trump would play the same role that the Ghost plays in Hamlet. . . departed and out of power.
If that's what Vance was figuring, that's not weird. It's probably correct in terms of the expiration of Trump's mortal coil or his cerebrum. The latter would be, of course, slightly more problematic than the former, but in a pinch, would likely work just as well, save for some disruptions from the Maga Militia crowd.Anyhow, Trump is getting weird, but neither Harris or Vance are weird. What they are is poles apart in existential views, and they both really have one.
Harris is a politician of the political left, which has gone increasingly leftward since the mid 20th Century. Indeed, it's final descent into the far left is what sparked, in part, the populist counter reaction. It's adopted lifestyle politics with lifestyle's that were regarded as "weird" until fairly recently, and frankly many still are.
At the same time, the full bore assault on culture that commenced in the 1960s was hugely successful, normalizing behaviors regarded as immoral at the time, but which now are not. That's why, in no small part, people are proclaiming J. D. Vance as "weird". As I noted here earlier, Vance isn't of the populist line of thought, he's an actual conservative, but a National Conservative of the Rusty Reno, Patrick Dineen, Kevin Roberts, type. Vance expresses cultural views that have in varying degrees been under attack since the 1960s, but which have remained all along in some sectors of the culture and are attempting to stage a comeback, or even more, gain entry and acceptance for the first time.
That race, if it were on the surface, would be a really interesting existential one.
Chances are high that the country isn't really comfortable with it. Certainly the unwashed populists who see nothing inconsistent about proclaiming themselves Christian while admiring the Hailey Welch or Sydney Sweeny wouldn't really be all that comfortable with the views of Roberts and Vance. But for that matter, a lot of suburban moms or the now lauded/condemned "cat ladies" are probably not all that comfortable with the views of Sanders and Harris.
That contrast would serve a purpose in and of itself.
The race, however, we actually have is a national embarrassment due to the figure leading the GOP.
