Charm Offensive...

JD Vance went to Hungary to campaign for Orban this past week. It was so effective that Orban's low polling numbers went even lower after Vance spoke.

I guess Vicktor hadn't paid enough attention to JD before to realize that he is a charisma black hole.

Now, I'm not saying the man isn't dangerous, I think he is. I think he's worse than Trump in some ways. Because he has no core. He doesn't really believe in anything. Sure, he's going to be out shelling his book on how he converted to Catholicism, but he doesn't really believe in it. He's not out making the world better for widows and orphans, he's out there making more widows and orphans. Not exactly the teachings.

And sure he will say that Trump hung the sun the moon and the stars but he used to go on the TV circuit talking about how terrible Trump was. Until he realized, or Peter Thiel realized, he would be better off wearing shoes that are too big for him and praising the napping old man as being super high energy.

These things make him more dangerous in a lot of ways. He can be bought and sold and his main benefactor has somewhere around $26 billion dollars and firmly believes in things like the antichrist and how great armageddon will be so... yeah. Dangerous.

But in another way he's not at all as dangerous. Trump still holds that 33% hard core MAGA base. They love him. They will follow him anywhere and justify anything he does. Even if it's the opposite of what he just said. They don't care. He's IT. And on top of that 33% he has varying amounts of sway over the rest of the conservosphere. Sometimes they are in his thrall and sometimes they seem just about ready to break free. But they find him to be charming.

And I have to say he must be. It's never worked for me. He always came across as that overly cocky asshole who wanted to call me little lady while being absolutely wrong about whatever it was he was correcting me on. Yeah, it's specific, but that's how he has always struck me. Even when he was just an entertainer and The Apprentice seemed harmless enough.

But people who meet him talk about how he's so much better in private. That he's just got that draw to him. I cannot imagine it to be true. And I will absolutely accept that my feelings about him and about his politics color that.

I think it must be the same way conservatives just couldn't understand when Clinton was described as charming. As having IT as well. People loved him. They were drawn in to his orbit, they talked about how magnetic he was. And you could see it. Or at least as a liberal I could see it. But I imagine that conservatives heard all of that and were like, "He's a womanizing, lying, sleaze! What in the hell are you seeing as charming?"

And well...they weren't totally wrong. Now that I'm older and more stories have come out about him he's lost that shine. But still...I imagine if I met him face to face he'd still have that thing about him. That draw. Because he's always been charming.

And I guess to MAGAts Trump is as well. I don't understand it, but they do.

And that makes him more dangerous than JD and any of the other laddies in waiting. Rubio doesn't have it, and if he did have a spark of it, holding down thirteen cabinet positions in this administration while having to talk about the brilliance of a man who called him Little Marco on national television has snuffed it out. Vance is, as mentioned, a black hole of charisma. He makes Jeb's "please clap" seem a lot less cringeworthy.

I don't know that anyone but Trump holds that sort of grip on that 33% and that loose grasp on the rest of them.

Which is probably why none of them will invoke the 25th or even claw back their own enumerated powers. They are scared of him. Scared of his base. I don't think they'd feel the same about JD.

Vance won't make a move until January* so I guess we will see then. Assuming we all survive until then. I mean Trump is still president and Congress is still willing to let him do whatever he wants so...

*if Trump is removed from office now Vance can fill the rest of this term and serve one more term. If Trump is removed from office after January 20th, 2027 Vance can fill the rest of this term and serve two more. So assuming he wants to maximize his chances at staying in office for the longest stretch Trump is safe on the stairs for another ten months.