In an alternate universe, Donald Trump’s choice for running mate would be obvious enough. Like Joe Biden and Barack Obama before him, the former president could theoretically complete his ticket and unify the party in one easy step by selecting his most formidable primary challenger, who also happens to fill a crucial demographic deficit currently reflected in Trump’s subpar polling among women and college-educated voters.
Just as Biden served as a seasoned counterpart to Obama’s youth and Kamala Harris’s youth and background provided cover for Biden’s age and relative lack of “diversity” in the 2020 identity politics primary, Nikki Haley for vice president would shore up a small but significant amount of women and college graduates who could otherwise cost Trump his third shot at the presidency.
But 2024 is a universe removed from 2020, let alone from 2008. When asked last week about probable running mates, Trump mentioned some former primary contenders — Vivek Ramaswamy, Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) — but one name stood out in particular: Tulsi Gabbard, who is not only not an actual Republican, but she was also a Democrat as recently as four years ago when she was running in the party’s presidential primary.
Gabbard is young, preternaturally telegenic, generally forward-thinking, and undeniably charismatic. She has served more than a decade in the Army and eight years in the United States Congress. Long comfortable with heterodoxy, Gabbard worked across the aisle to try and bar biological men from women’s sports in schools overseen by Title IX, and as a devout Hindu, Gabbard has defied Democrats as they have historically attempted to infringe on religious liberty.
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But Gabbard is not a conservative by any definition, much less the vision Trump has manifested in practice. Gabbard supports socializing one-fifth of the economy with a single-payer healthcare system and has called on Congress to ban “military-style assault weapons.” Gabbard has promulgated Syrian President Bashar Assad’s false denial of using chemical warfare against the Syrian people, and she called Trump’s successful strike that killed Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps boss Qassem Soleimani unconstitutional. All in all, Gabbard voted against Trump a staggering 80% of the time throughout his entire presidency.
And yet, Gabbard is considered a front-runner and Haley persona non grata in the Republican veepstakes. In the case of Gabbard, it doesn’t even come down to sycophancy — it’s a sheer matter of vibes.
Gabbard hits the right beats as she rails against “globalization,” the “Democrat” Party, the “warmongering elite,” Bud Light, and NATO. So what if she doesn’t endorse any of the right policies pursued by the GOP? She has all the right enemies.
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Nowhere has the vibes veepstakes been on greater display than at CPAC, where Elise Stefanik was welcomed with cheers and prayers that she become Trump’s pick. No matter that Stefanik voted against the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, wants to penalize working-class voters in red states by eliminating the SALT deduction (passed by Trump), and is much more moderate on social centrists such as marriage equality and abortion. Stefanik, a highly competent and intelligent Harvard graduate, has learned the language of MAGA with fluency and now emits all the right vibes. Sure, the New York congresswoman voted with Trump less than Liz Cheney did throughout his presidency, but Stefanik has nailed the stylistic flourish of MAGA, dumping on “the arrogant editorial boards” and “the cocktail party chattering class.”
Meanwhile, Haley, an actual former official of the Trump administration who considers embryos in a Petri dish a protected form of human life, is a RINO. And why? Because of all the wrong vibes.