STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
We've been reporting all morning on the Republican Convention, where former President Trump appeared with a bandage on his ear, and he revealed his vice presidential choice, Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio. Jonah Goldberg is watching all this. He's editor and co-founder of The Dispatch. Jonah, good morning.
JONAH GOLDBERG: Hey. It's great to be here, Steve.
INSKEEP: We've traced Vance's course. He's said in past years that he understood Trump voters, but said Trump himself was leading the working class to, quote, "a very dark place" - also called Trump an idiot. Now he says he's a convert. What do you make of him?
GOLDBERG: J.D. Vance, which should not be shocking, given his resume, is a very ambitious guy, and he's playing the system as he finds it in ways that I personally find somewhat distasteful, but you can't gainsay his success at it, and I think some of it, at the very least, is sincere.
INSKEEP: Do you think that he has the kind of political talent that would help the ticket?
GOLDBERG: No. I guess I should expand on that.
(LAUGHTER)
INSKEEP: Yeah, that's - I mean, you got a couple minutes left. Go for it. What have you got?
GOLDBERG: (Laughter) Yeah, like, I think he's a bad pick electorally. I don't think it makes much sense to pick this guy. He's a divisive figure within the Republican Party. He is not a unifier of the party, which is not to say that he doesn't have a big column of support already, but the thing is, the people who love him most are already in love with Trump. He is not additive in any way about the maximum Republican coalition, and the idea, which you're already hearing from a lot of people - including, you know, a lot of liberals - is that, oh, he's going to appeal to, you know, low-propensity voters, working-class voters, blue-collar voters. The blue-collar voters who are inclined to vote for Trump are already voting for Trump. The other theory is that he is more attractive to a different kind of low-propensity voter - not sort of the white, rural, working-class voter, which is sort of where his resume appeals, but to the really checked-out, the sort of WWE, video gaming kind of crowd, and there's some reason to think that's a possibility. I just think it's wildly overblown.
INSKEEP: And when you say a divisive figure in the Republican Party, I think of Mitt Romney saying, I don't know that I can disrespect someone more than J.D. Vance, a remarkable thing to hear from Mitt Romney. I want to ask about another aspect of this candidate, though. He, in the past, has worked for the billionaire Peter Thiel. He's associated with Thiel, who contributed to his Senate campaign. He's associated with other people who want radical change, people who are sometimes referred to as the New Right, who sometimes make dark remarks about democracy and the Constitution and the need for either of them. Do you feel you understand what kind of change Mr. Vance stands for?
GOLDBERG: Well, on one level, one way to think about him is he's a culturally right-wing Bernie Bro. He's very comfortable with the welfare state. He thinks that some of the most progressive people on the economic side of the Biden administration are the most praiseworthy. He likes a lot of Elizabeth Warren-style stuff. He just also likes a lot of hardcore right-wing cultural things, and he has a vision of politics that says everything is about power. The other team has all the power. We should have the power to do what we want and not care about the niceties as much. And it's true.
Look, he's very closely tied - this is one of the reasons why there are some, you know, dark whisperings about how he's really, you know, a Silicon Valley Manchurian candidate, that he's made some sort of weird deal with the tech world and is playing this game in order to rise to power. I think that's overblown. I don't think there's no truth to it, but it is - I don't think it's entirely a coincidence, not to sound like a Marxist, that almost simultaneously with Elon Musk calling Trump to say, you should pick Vance, leaning on him very hard to do it, he picks Vance, and then the Wall Street Journal breaks the news that Musk is going to give $45 million a month to a Trump super PAC. I don't think that's entirely coincidental.
INSKEEP: I'm just going to remember this moment, when Jonah Goldberg, conservative writer, said on our air, quote, "not to sound like a Marxist," and went on with a thought. Jonah, thanks so much.
GOLDBERG: (Laughter) Thank you.
INSKEEP: Jonah Goldberg is editor and co-founder of The Dispatch. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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