The epistemic closure candidate
By 
Among his many other defects, JD Vance has the same problem as Ron DeSantis when trying to reach beyond Trump superfans, namely that you have to spend hours a day watching lunatics yell on Peter Thiel-funded YouTube knockoffs to have any idea what the hell he’s talking about half the time:
I mean, you know you’re bad at this when you can spur Maureen Dowd (!) to open both barrels on a Republican Daddy.
Some of you will always be aware of this, but the story of putting Vance on the ticket is something. Trump — whose superpower in taking over the party was instinctually understanding things about Republican voters that many Republican elites didn’t or didn’t want to — correctly believed that he needed to pick some bland nonentity who would do the ticket no harm. But he was talked out of it by his idiot sons, whose brains are as pickled by Elon Musk-approved media sources as Vance’s himself:
With the clock ticking to the Republican National Convention last week, Donald Trump met privately to discuss his running mate search with two of his closest advisers: his sons.
The conversation quickly turned tense when the former president indicated that he was leaning toward Doug Burgum, until recently the largely unknown governor of North Dakota — but someone whose low-maintenance, no-drama personality would never threaten to outshine Trump.
That’s when Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump chimed in.
“Don Jr. and Eric went bats— crazy: ‘Why would you do something so stupid? He offers us nothing,’” a longtime Republican operative familiar with the discussion told NBC News.
“They were basically all like ‘JD, JD, JD,’” the operative said.
Trump ratified his sons’ recommendation here Monday, selecting Sen. JD Vance of Ohio as his vice presidential candidate. Trump called Vance with the news 20 minutes before announcing it on social media, a source familiar with the call said.
If things go well in November — still very, very far from assured, although certainly much more likely than 8 days ago — Amy Chua and the Trump failsons may stand as the secret and inadvertent saviors of the republic.
….EXCLUSIVE FOOTAGE of the brilliant proposal to put Vance on the Republican ticket:
It’s always fun when you happen to tune into Die Hard just in time for the Donald Trump Jr scene. pic.twitter.com/zZWeHzdqzb— Frank Conniff (@FrankConniff) July 28, 2024