"I was wrong about Donald Trump"

How to Repair Our Fractured Republic

While prepping for my upcoming interview with Yuval Levin, I decided to read The Fractured Republic: Renewing America's Social Contract in the Age of Individualism. It was released in 2016 before I became an avid reader or had even heard of Levin. The book didn’t disappoint, and it was fitting that I finished it on the day of the Vice Presidential debate.

In the book, Levin says, “Our frustration is driven in part by a failure of diagnosis—a failure of self-knowledge.” He discusses how nostalgia has blinded us, how centralized power and individualism have pulled us apart, and how a road to renewal requires changing behaviors and building new and better habits. He challenges a generation to use America’s “multiplicity to our advantage” and overcome our binary nature. He offers a bottom-up approach that diffuses and decentralizes power. Levin’s diagnosis is correct, and his optimistic vision empowers Americans to invest in their families and communities to unite our fractured Republic.

After reading the book, I was sitting in my office reading through the celebrity praise in the opening pages, and one of them caught my eye. J.D. Vance wrote in the Wall Street Journal, “Mr. Levin is among the Republican Party’s great intellectual leaders and has proposed a new direction for conservatism. We’ll soon learn whether the party’s political leaders follow his wise advice.”

The story of J.D. Vance, from Middletown, Ohio, to US Senator to Vice Presidential nominee, is the type of story that inspires. His book Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis which became a Hollywood hit in 2020, recounts the challenges he faced in Middletown and how he overcame them to graduate from Ohio State University and earn his Juris Doctor degree from Yale Law School.

However, it’s now 2024, and J.D. Vance is the Republican nominee for Vice President, making him a party leader with a very loud microphone. From then until now, it certainly appears that Vance is part of the conservative movement that has taken a new direction, but it appears he has ignored the wise advice of Mr. Levin. Instead of supporting Levin’s path of a bottom-up approach that diffuses and decentralizes power, Vance has followed Trump’s top-down plan of continued consolidation.

Last night at the Vice Presidential debate, Vance was asked about his shifting policies to align with Trump and challenged to explain why Americans should trust him to “give Donald Trump the advice he needs to hear and not just the advice he wants to hear.” Vance replied that he had been open, saying, “I was wrong about Donald Trump.” He then praised Trump for getting things right. He said that when you say something wrong, you “outta be honest with the American people about it.” He believes it’s important to explain where he “comes down on the issues and what changed.”

Vance then points the finger at Republicans and Democrats in Congress for not governing effectively, saying they were too obsessed with impeaching Donald Trump. I don’t agree with Vance’s implication that Trump’s impeachments were a central part of Congressional ineffectiveness. I do, however, agree that the obsession, both good and bad, with Donald Trump by both parties exacerbates congressional dysfunction. It’s great that Vance pointed the finger at Congress, but he only did so in a way that continues the obsession with Donald Trump.

I wonder if Vance is still paying attention to Levin after choosing his new direction. In his latest book, American Covenant, Levin points out that many of our political problems result from an ineffective and dysfunctional Congress. Vance is correct in pointing the finger at Congress; however, he had nothing of substance to say about the issue.

I’m not sure what change led Vance to follow Trump's version of conservatism over Levin’s, but last night at the debate, Vance proved he is a gifted communicator of conservative values. Also, it doesn’t appear that Vance has abandoned all of his old views. Now that he is a leader in the Republican party, he can amplify Levin’s wise advice of diffusion and decentralization. He has the skill, but does he have the courage?

America needs leaders with the courage to have difficult conversations to end our cycle of dysfunction and repair our fractured republic. Vance has an opportunity with the mini bully pulpit to jumpstart a debate about congressional reform and have a serious conversation with Americans about the issues of representation, incentives, and balance of power that leave Americans from Middletown, Ohio, and beyond powerless. It’s time to turn the page from dysfunction to reform. America is ready. Can J.D. Vance deliver?