J.D. Vance Illustrates the Gradual Rebirth of the Republican Party as a Party of the Working Class

In the past election cycle, the dichotomy of America's two-party system has been rather simple and consistent in the eyes of casual observers. The Democrats stand for the downtrodden little guys, fighting to survive in a harsh, competitive world. Its policies advocated redistribution, ensuring that big businesses transfer some of the massive financial resources available so that the average Joe and Jane can have what they need to feed, clothe, and house themselves while staying healthy and aspiring to self-improvement through education. The Republicans, in this narrative, would be making lives easier for business owners.

Yet, the nomination of J.D. Vance as the vice presidential nominee of the Republicans shows that the pro-worker vs pro-business contrast of the two parties is rapidly coming to an end. Like his presumptive boss, Vance is a firm believer in creating an environment in which entrepreneurs can productively turn their brilliant ideas into profits. That means low corporate taxes, reduced regulation, and other bills designed to encourage investment and business formation. But Vance's profile ensures that his economic platform is much more than just the traditional pro-business one Republicans of generational past espoused.

A quick skim of his best-selling memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, reveals his worldview to be shaped by an environment far away from the business one that underpins mainstream Republican support. Instead of taxes and red tape, he saw a world in which the fundamental rules of culture worked against those who had fallen behind. What they lacked, unlike what the Democrats would have you believe, is not just some money and the structure for self-improvement. Instead, the need to survive through hopelessness creates a condition that no mere quantitative wealth gap can completely explain.

It is perhaps that personal experience that sees him using a brand-new language for the "little guys." At the heart of it is a direct reference to the unfairness that results in the hopelessness of his childhood. Whether it be the domination of Big Tech that squeezes out small businesses, the invasion of migrants that squeezes out native-born workers, or the Democrat focus on social issues of coastal elites that district from the difficult questions of survival in rural America, his message is targeting the left-behind working class in ways that the Democrats are increasingly unable to. 

And the Democrats will struggle to respond. While Trump and Vance countenance the idea of massive tariff hikes and reduced foreign involvements so that limited state resources can be focused on industrial development at home, it is almost as if the Democrats have become the party of conservatives. The Democrats' messaging is that the benefits of what America does today, from funding Ukraine to continuing a relatively lax immigration regime while racking up more and more trade deficits, no longer strike a chord with workers of all colors beyond the highly educated white-collar professionals.

If the Republicans succeed in their transformation to a pro-worker party, it could be a new, different era of entrepreneurship in America. Rather than rich people acting upon the inconveniences they face in their daily lives, entrepreneurship can be driven more by the average Joe and Jane in small-town and rural America acting upon their very need for survival, motivated by the hope that they can actually change the societal rules and legal regimes that have been seen as a source of hopelessness, working against them in decades past. New ventures may become more dispersed, in geography and industry.

Of course, this is by no means an enthusiastic endorsement of the Republican platform on my part. Politics is much more than just economic policy. The social policies of the Trump-Vance ticket have not deviated nearly as much from the traditional Republican platform as their economic policies have been. As a self-professed progressive, I do not see eye-to-eye on their continued support for guns, restrictions on abortion, and what I see as blind support for Israel. For many liberal members of the working class, these social issues would weigh heavier in their decision to vote Democrat.

But without or not a pro-worker stance of Vance can help really move the needle on popular support for the Trumpian platform, his very presence can be considered ideologically innovative for the Republican Party. It is a breath of fresh air to see that American politics, where the two-party system seems to have created a more or less rigid polarity, can still be made fluid by bringing in new blood that breaks with traditional stances. Whether you like Vance as a person or an ideologue, his ability to introduce something new to the American political discourse, in itself, should be applauded.