Used car salesman

Ioulex for The New York Times

Yours truly saw the veep debate with Walz and Vance, which consisted of an interestingly "polite" exchange of "ideas" along the lines of the infamous Cheney/Lieberman affair where the Dark Lord expressed "interesting" ideas in a dulcet monotone enticing rubes like me to say, that's ok, right? Now comes Vance, a used car or snake oil salesman, take your pick, offering truly horrific ideas of how America should be run with "style" as this guy has no morals but rather a subtle lust for power no matter the cost.  With this being said, Vance, to this writer, lacks the gravitas to pull it off as his oiliness is too obvious for all to see but no doubt, he's the rising star in the GOP, an entity that sold its soul to The Donald back in 2016. With Vance, dangerous ideas are nicely packaged, able to be sold to the gullible Magas with little effort, a most disquieting notion in the land of the brave and home of the free.

Elmer Gantry comes to mine here, does it not?

Over and over again JD Vance successfully distanced himself from his long, well-documented track record of inflammatory statements on everything from reproductive health to immigrants. Those Americans who tuned in to the debate saw an affable, reasonable Vance (no matter how many times he lied). That should terrify anyone who cares about democracy.

In many ways, Vance proved that there will be another Donald Trump, one who is just as sinister but far better produced for middle-of-the road voters. It does not matter if Vance was only pretending to align with Trump’s combative politics and disastrous policy proposals. What matters is that Vance has proved that he will change all of his fundamental beliefs in order to win.

Vance is the perfect solution to Trump’s self-inflicted political frailties. He is just as starved for power but not nearly as desperate for attention. He sells dangerous policy positions better to the kinds of voters who are tired of being embarrassed.

Sounds plausible to me.