“Vance it is. Reaganites are passing the torch to the Buchananites.” – Erick Erickson

As you know, we here at PolicySphere try to cover as little political news as we can. We must make an exception, however, when it comes to the Republican Party’s new nominee for the office of Vice President of the United States, since J.D. Vance is–regardless of whether you support his views or not–clearly the sharpest policy mind to appear on a Presidential ticket of either party in many decades.

Many have commented on the generational gap between the two candidates and the “passing the torch” aspect of this nomination, as well as on Vance’s attempt, through his perch in the Senate and through his writings, to add intellectual meat to the so-called America First agenda. Given all this, and given the key role Vance would play in a second Trump Administration, we felt it completely appropriate that we should devote today’s edition of the Briefing to detailing some of his views on policy.

(Note that PolicySphere still doesn’t cover foreign policy, so we won’t cover Ukraine here, sorry.)

So let’s dive in…

The most recent full articulation of Vance’s views was his recent longform interview with Ross Douthat of the New York Times. The entire thing is very much worth reading but what we were most struck and impressed by was the economic argument against immigration as a way to drive up wages, and therefore investment, since labor and capital are substitutes.

Here are more links and commentary on JD Vance’s views on several policy issues. Like Vance…

…on economics:

“Vance isn’t a wild departure from Ronald Reagan, who imposed import quotas and tariffs in pursuit of freer, fairer trade, who would have never allowed a geopolitical adversary open access to our markets, and whose administration broke up Ma Bell.” – Rachel Bovard

This has been perhaps one of the most controversial parts of Vance’s tenure, although Vance’s break from free market orthodoxy can be overstated. Vance was a venture capitalist before getting into politics–he is no socialist.

However, Vance believes that, after decades of stagnating wages, some economic rethinking is in order. As Oren Cass pointed out, five years ago Vance was an attendee at the original National Conservatism conference, attending a panel on “Should America Adopt an Industrial Policy” and rose in support.

Vance has expressed support on multiple occasions for breaking up Big Tech companies and has expressed support for the current bête noire of the corporate world, FTC’s Lina Khan. Vance and Senator Whitehouse co-sponsored the Stop Subsidizing Giant Mergers Act, which would end tax-free treatment for corporate mergers and acquisitions.

Even though Vance has made sympathetic noises about unions, he opposes the PRO Act and instead supports American Compass proposals around workers’ councils and sectoral bargaining.

Where Vance most strongly breaks from conservative orthodoxy–and where his policy impact is likely to be most significant as he is aligned with Trump–is on trade. It’s not a coincidence that China stocks tanked on the announcement of his appointment. He is personally close to Bob Lighthizer, who was Trade Representative in the first Trump Administration and is often rumored to be a future Treasury Secretary. Vance strongly believes in increased trade barriers.

It’s also important to know that as a former venture capitalist and protégé of Peter Thiel, Vance believes in the importance of breakthrough innovation and kick-starting growth through encouraging breakthrough innovation. While he believes industrial policy may have a role there, he also understands that in many cases onerous regulation is the problem.

…on family policy: Vance, who is Catholic, comes from a broken home, and has three young children, has made family policy one of his pet issues. Brad Wilcox of the Institute for Family Studies outlines Vance’s proposals: eliminating the marriage penalty, minimizing the costs of having a baby, maximizing choices for childcare (through direct grants to parents rather than outsourced childcare), and expanding the child tax credit.

…on abortion: JD Vance has an A+ rating from SBA Pro-Life America.

…on Demeny voting: Vance has famously mused about the possibility of giving parents extra votes for their children.

…on birth rates: As Tim Carney notes, JD Vance was an early voice to warn about our baby bust. Quote: “Not a single country – not even the US – within the NATO alliance has birthrates at replacement level. We don’t have enough families and children.”

…on immigration: Vance has an A rating from NumbersUSA.

While opposition to immigration has become almost de rigueur in the GOP, Vance’s positions stands out in two ways.

First, because it is rooted in a broader understanding of America as a nation and not just an idea, as he outlined in a speech to the National Conservatism Conference.

Second, as noted above, because he is able to frame his opposition to immigration in economic terms, as when discussing its impact on wages and investment, and also on rents and housing costs.

…on DEI: Vance has been a leading opponent of DEI in Congress, and as Aaron Sibarium notes, he “recently introduced a bill that would eliminate all DEI positions and policies in the federal government, prevent federal contractors from engaging in DEI practices, and bar accrediting agencies from making DEI a requirement for accreditation.”

…on the administrative state: “We need a De-Ba’athification program in the U.S….We should seize the administrative state for our own purposes. We should fire all of the people…every single middle-level bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state. Replace them with our people.” (Via)

…on AI regulation: “There are undoubtedly risks related to AI. One of the biggest: a partisan group of crazy people use AI to infect every part of the information economy with left wing bias. Gemini can’t produce accurate history. ChatGPT promotes genocidal concepts. The solution is open source.” (Via)

…on crypto: “The approach that [the SEC] has taken to regulating blockchain and crypto seems to be the exact opposite of what it should be. … The question the SEC seems to ask when regulating crypto is: is this a token with utility? And if it’s a token with utility they seem to want to ban it, and if it’s a token without utility they don’t seem to care. I almost think we should be the opposite. I worry about financialization, I worry about, frankly, whether a lot of the crypto stuff is fundamentally fake, but if a token actually has utility, that’s the sort of thing that–by all means regulate it, by all means be careful about how consumers interact with it, but you don’t want to just get rid of this stuff.” (Via)

…on nicotine: “My Senate office probably has the highest ratio of smokers of anybody in the U.S. Senate.”

…on Catholicism: Vance is an adult convert to Catholicism, and we would be remiss not to link to this article he wrote for the journal The Lamp on his conversion, as well as this interview with Rod Dreher on the same theme.

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