With his selection of JD Vance as his running mate, Donald Trump has signaled that he doesn’t simply want to defeat Joe Biden. He also wants to crush the last vestiges of the Republican establishment. No other politician can help him carry out a Maga revolution in Washington more ruthlessly and effectively than Vance. Forget the pundits who predicted that Trump would take a more emollient approach. Forget the talk about trying to be a unifier. Forget the speculation about the assassination attempt changing him.
Instead of doing what many conservatives have done in the past — waver, flinch, compromise — Trump is going all-in. There will be no Treaty of Fifth Avenue (the pact that Richard Nixon reached in 1960 with Nelson Rockefeller to water down the GOP program) that so incensed yesteryear’s conservatives. No George H. W. Bush running alongside Ronald Reagan. Say goodbye to all that.
Had Trump selected Doug Burgum, Marco Rubio or Nikki Haley, he would have been catering to the party establishment.
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