Vance is ‘starved for power’ and ‘just as sinister’ as Trump: columnist

Tuesday night’s debate performance from Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) should “terrify” anyone who cares about democracy, according to a New York Times columnist who argued that Donald Trump’s vice presidential running mate “is just as sinister” as Trump — but far better produced for middle-of-the-road voters.

In a new op-ed published Wednesday, opinion columnist Tressie McMillan Cottom suggested that Vance’s audition to lead the Republican party after Trump is working.

“What you saw on Tuesday in the vice-presidential debate was an audition for the leader of the post-Trump Republican Party,” Cottom wrote, adding that the “affable, reasonable” persona Vance projected to voters “no matter how many times he lied” should terrify anyone who cares about democracy.

“In many ways, Vance proved that there will be another Donald Trump, one who is just as sinister but far better produced for middle-of-the-road voters. It does not matter if Vance was only pretending to align with Trump’s combative politics and disastrous policy proposals. What matters is that Vance has proved that he will change all of his fundamental beliefs in order to win,” the opinion piece says.

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Contending that Vance is the “perfect solution to Trump’s self-inflicted political frailties” – including his ongoing legal troubles – Cottom, a sociologist and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill professor, argued that while the first-term Republican senator is just as starved for power as Trump, he’s “not nearly as desperate for attention.”

“Vance does mean harm,” Cottom says in her op-ed. “He means everything that Trump means. He absolutely does want to abolish abortion, in practice if not in ordinance. He absolutely does want to delegitimize the federal government, pillage protected lands and blame every social ill on people who cannot defend themselves.”

Cottom concluded by painting Vance as a threat to fair and free elections and as someone who can deliver the same harm as Trump “without paying the reputational cost” that has made the former president “an effective but toxic politician.”