I have twice shared a stage with J.D. Vance, which at the time of writing puts me one ahead of Donald Trump. On both occasions, Vance’s book ‘Hillbilly Elegy’(I managed to get a signed copy, for my mother-in-law) was seen as offering people a glimpse as to why working class America was switching their traditional allegiance from the Democrats, towards what they perceived to be ‘system-smashing’ politicians like Donald Trump. Indeed, to my own reading, a large section of Irish-America has recently made this political journey.

I thoroughly enjoyed Vance’s book, had widely recommended it, and would continue to do so. He has had a fascinating life, which I am sure will get ever more interesting. Somewhat ironically given the Trump political program, Vance’s success in life is testament to the role of institutions (US Marines and education (not unlike Barack Obama)) and in my view is an argument for greater government spending on education and more open access to elite education in the US.

When I spoke (at two separate conferences) with him, my unkind thought was that he expressed himself better – more thoughtfully – in writing than in the spoken word. That seems to be changing, and Vance has clearly crafted an ability to provoke. Much has been made of his intellectual journey to the extreme right of American politics, something that has become the norm as the Republican party has become shattered by Trump (a contemporary of mine – an elite soldier and former governor – has also veered off to the extreme right). As a result, the press is full of speculation on Vance’s views on the dollar and Ukraine.

Vance is in many respects the opposite of Trump in terms of his life story – he started poor, became a soldier, ‘pulled himself up’ through education and has now converted to Catholicism (thanks in part to the Dominicans). Trump had a privileged upbringing, disdains learning and the military (‘losers’), and could not possibly be more irreligious.

Curiously, the Catholic Church in America, which is much more conservative than that outside the US, appears to be attaching itself to the coattails of the Trump movement, a tactic that helps to explain why it is the largest, oldest institution the world has known.

Vance may now reflect on the role of vice-president, and what this will mean for him. In general, it is a political graveyard, populated by token political players. That Kamala Harris has not carved out a serious role in American public life is testament to this. There are, however, two examples of very effective vice presidents – George W Bush, who was more like a prime minister to Ronald Reagan, and Joe Biden, whose experience and vast range of political relationships meant that Barack Obama was tethered to the political establishment.

In this context, Vance, the critic of elites, is at an interesting point.  Since ‘Hillbilly’ was released, he has been mixing more with the American elite, in the technology, policy and venture capital worlds. If he enters the White House with Trump, he will come up against the full complexity of the American power machine.

Here I recommend Robert Reich’s excellent book ‘Locked in the Cabinet’. Reich, a professor of labour economics, was appointed Labor Secretary by Bill Clinton, and the book recounts how his optimism and idealism left him outmanoeuvred by those who ‘really ran the world’ (Robert Rubin).

Another book that I know Vance has, is Chris Wipple’s ‘The GateKeepers’ which is. fascinating study of seventeen chiefs of staff to American presidents. Trump notoriously went through several chiefs of staff, but in many cases the chief of staff can be the most important player in an administration (Jimmy Baker is the most often cited example).

So, for all the clamour around Vance, he might well – like Robert Reich – find himself sidelined by the team around Trump. With the European press over-obsessing about Vance, this is where the real risk lies. The first Trump presidency was chaotic. The second will come armed with a mission to transform America, potentially along the lines of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025’. I will devote more time to this, but in short it is an aggressive plan to re-make American government (politicised), society and the foreign policy. As a recent article in Foreign Affairs put it, this will be an ‘Imperial Presidency’, shorn of the constraints that have shaped American public life for the past two hundred years.

To Europe, the US under Trump will look more like China – driven by a single, imperial leader, obsessed with the viability of domestic industry, slow to help allies and much more transactional in foreign policy, and will use financial policy in a more selfish way. Consistent with the end of globalization, there will no longer be an effort to transmit American values, a la George W Bush and Bill Clinton.

In short, it will be an America that few of us will recognise.

Have a great week ahead,

Mike