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I don’t vote.  Fed up with it. 

That's the spirit.

That’s one way of looking at it, but of course I think that’s one-sided.

You have a person who arose from nothing join the military got multiple degrees started and ran a business and now is in politics.  He grew up around addiction, which plays well to the many moms around the country who have lost or fear losing their children to the fentanyl that’s coming across the border.  I think he plays well to the younger crowd who doesn’t necessarily relate to Donald Trump. 

I don't know that much about JD Vance other than his book was popular a couple years ago. I wasn't all the interested in reading it, but a lot of people that I knew were talking about it fairly glowingly. That it highlighted a sort of forgotten group of Americans that were left behind in the modern world. And unlike Trump, I think he actually wrote his own book lol.

But I think some of the rhetoric comes across not much different than the Harrison Butker commencement speech. Most notably the insinuation that Kamala is a childless cat lady who is deeply unhappy with her life because she never had kids. The thing that I pointed out "pissed off the Swifties" because they all love their childless cat lady icon lol. It's like he thinks than women should merely be doting wives and brood mares for their husbands. 

These are the things that play well to the red-meat old-school religious conservatives, and turn the rest of the populace away. Especially when "the rest of the populace" are some of the key demographics that Trump needs to win. 

If the moms around the country are worried about border security and fentanyl, I'm pretty sure Trump has that position locked up too. I don't think Vance really helps swing that. 

Lastly,we’re talking about policies here and personalities, but the data shows that the vice president selection has very little impact on the election.  If you just look at how intelligent and articulate JD Vance is compared to our current vice president the difference is very stark. Harris has been viewed by the media and even the Democrats as a political lightweight with very little ability to articulate a vision. 

Agreed that VP usually doesn't mean much. The goal of a VP is to pick someone who can possibly help you, but has little chance of hurting you. For Trump, picking an ideological Trump clone who also has a big mouth is picking someone who has little chance to help you, but can absolutely hurt you. 

Hell, Trump is trying to distance himself from Project 2025, while JD Vance wrote the foreward to the Heritage Foundation President's new book--the Heritage Foundation being the ones who put forth Project 2025. Trump claims (and nobody believes) not to know what Project 2025 is or who put it forward, but picks as his VP the guy who wrote the foreward for the book of the guy whose foundation architected Project 2025? 

If more people in swing states would vote 3rd party then we might finally get somewhere.

But Identity Politics have many of those people so scared of the imaginary evils of one guy or the other, that they tend to fall back to the party line.

Well the issue is always simple. The 3rd party candidate often is closer to one side than the other. Which means voting for the 3rd party candidate is [usually] more likely to siphon votes away from the candidate you hate less, making it more likely the candidate you hate more wins. 

Ideologically, you would hope that would drive long term change in the party that you wish would move your direction. Pragmatically, what it does is make it easier for the side you dislike more to enact their agenda in the short term. 

But it's largely a moot point. Our voting/representation system makes it structurally impossible for more than 2 parties to exist in any sort of stable configuration, so both parties end up being coalitions of groups that hold their noses to be around each other, but vote together to maintain power. 

I think it is hilarious that Trump clearly hasn't read Hillbilly Elegy, which is about Vance's observations that poor whites are poor because they are shiftless and lazy.

Well it's a book, you see......the hilarious part is that he didn't bother to watch the movie.  

I think it is hilarious that Trump clearly hasn't read Hillbilly Elegy, which is about Vance's observations that poor whites are poor because they are shiftless and lazy.

What a strange perspective.   I watched the movie and that’s not what I took away.  

But you can’t help yourself with the “ white” stuff. 
 
I am guessing you are fairly miserable with yourself.    That’s sad.  

Oh, I suppose Vance was talking about the Chinese in his book about hillbillies in Ohio and Kentucky.

Yes.  I am sure he singled out white people.   He is divisive like that.  Can’t believe he married an Indian woman.  

Yes.  I am sure he singled out white people.  He is divisive like that.  Can’t believe he married an Indian woman. 

It's a book about how he has to move to his grandmother's because his parents were alcoholic losers, and everyone around him didn't want to work, and it wasn't until he joined the Marines that he saw people who valued work and taking care of themselves. That is literally the gist of the book.