What would JD Vance do if he were President (quite a likely possibility, I’d say, given Trump’s age and recent dementia)? No one knows, because no one knows what he thinks or believes. He is a total chameleon, who says whatever he thinks Trump wants him to say. He has no ideological core — neither liberal nor conservative. There is no ‘there’ there.
One thing you can say about him: he ain’t dumb. He graduated summa cum laude from Ohio State University (I give that more credit than his gentleman’s Cs at Yale). That’s a lot more than you can say about senile Don Trump.
As President, he might just weigh every decision without an ideological bias and try to judge the most rational and practical solution. He might support Ukraine but not Israel, or maybe vice versa. He has made no real campaign promises that he might be held to keep. He could be like Kamala Harris and simply claim that his positions ‘evolve’ and may change from day to day, depending on changing circumstances.
On the other hand, his blind ambition and total lack of integrity means that he would do anything to stay in power. This is especially dangerous in light of the New Royal Presidency, that is, the fact that the President is now immune from prosecution and can do anything he wants, as long as he labels it ‘official’. The Emoluments clause of the Constitution says that he couldn’t use the office of the President to enrich himself, the way the Trump family has. But so what? He could order the Treasury to give him billions of dollars, or steal money any way he wants; he can’t be prosecuted.
Another thing that worries me: the culture wars, or rather, class warfare. To the extent that we can believe his poor-boy, rags-to-riches background, he has risen into the ranks of the elite, so that he might defend the interests of the nouveaux-riches. Tax cuts for the rich. More fossil fuels. De-regulation of banking and finance. Cuts to welfare programs.
He probably feels, “If I could rise through the ranks to become rich, why can’t all those lazy slobs on welfare?” A ‘let-them-eat-cake’ attitude. His rise to wealth may force him into a pro-wealth ideology.
Compare him to Mike Pence. All through Trump’s Presidency, Pence was the most obsequious, fawning jerk imaginable, but once Trump was out of office, Pence became more or less his own man. I could see that happening with Vance. Still, Vance’s version of ‘being his own man’ is worlds apart from Pence’s version. There’s no telling what he might do.