Vance Goes ‘Compassionate Conservative,’ But Trump is Still Trump

J.D. Vance was channeling his inner Bush persona during the vice presidential debate with Gov. Tim Walz. The articulate Vance worked hard to sand the rough edges of Donald Trump’s often bombastic statements and sometimes pitiless policies.

Vance sounded more like a presidential candidate looking to 2028 than this year’s second chair. Recognizing the unfavorable view many voters have of him, Vance took a page from President George W. Bush’s “compassionate conservatism” playbook with a few of President George H.W. Bush’s “thousand points of light” to illuminate a newfound empathy with voters. In a 2018 interview, the younger Bush explained “compassionate conservatism,” saying, “it’s conservative to cut taxes; it’s compassionate to let families have more money to spend or give families more of their own money to spend. I felt compelled to phrase it this way because people hear ‘conservative’ and they think heartless.” Vance made Bush’s insight his debate mantra.

Of course, channeling the Bush presidents required Vance to reinvent himself, Donald Trump and the past. Trump repeatedly promises to deport millions of immigrants residing in the U.S.,  even acknowledging that “getting them out will be a bloody story," as he told his supporters a few weeks ago. Don’t worry, says Vance, when asked if such a mass deportation would separate parents and children or cause economic upheaval. The second Trump administration will only deport a million or so convicted criminals, making communities safer, housing cheaper and jobs more available to real Americans, according to Vance. Compassionate.

Health care reform? Well, it seems Trump’s “concept of a plan” already is in place, put there by the first Trump presidency. Without Trump, said Vance, Obamacare would have collapsed, Americans with pre-existing conditions would be out in the cold and health care would be inaccessible and unaffordable for many. Apparently even 1,000 points of light aren’t enough to light up the dark corners of reality; Vance ignored the truth that Trump and Republicans tried through legislation, executive orders and in the courts to destroy Obamacare.

And so it went throughout the debate. A second Trump Administration will create more, lower-cost housing, affordable child care and new family leave policies. America will be a kinder and gentler nation during four years of Trump Two, according to Vance.

Vance’s soft-pedaling of Trump’s agenda probably helped the Ohio senator more than it will  influence the outcome of the 2024 presidential race. Most polls and analysts gave Vance the win in the debate with Walz. Both vice presidential candidates improved their appeal, although a plurality of debate viewers still have a negative view of Vance while Walz’s favorability rating jumped from a plus 14% to a plus 37%.

But maybe Vance seems to recognize a reality that has little concern for Trump. America

needs a substantive conservative agenda that is forward-looking, realistic and focused on the issues that most affect everyday Americans. That’s true for the success of Republican politics and for the country. Trump may win the election on the strength of his loyal voters, but his increasingly erratic campaign reminds Republicans why and how they failed to meet electoral expectations in 2018, 2020 and 2022 with Trump defining the GOP.

Vance’s promises of Trump solutions to the challenges facing stressed families would be more credible if they were backed by real policy proposals. Instead, when Trump isn’t talking about Hannibal Lector or the merits of being killed by sharks or electrocution, he is offering a tax-break-a-day. Workers earning overtime, tipped employees, Social Security beneficiaries are just the latest to join the growing crowd of taxpayers favored by Trump’s largesse, all without any plans to pay for the lost revenue. The nonpartisan Penn Wharton Budget Model estimates that Trump’s proposals would add $5.8 trillion to the federal deficit over the next decade, nearly five times the drain created by Harris’s plans.

Instead of a consistent, coherent conservative platform of meaningful and innovative solutions,  Trump offers voters his thoughts of the moment. Those thoughts rarely include ways to create affordable housing or health care, improve our schools, promote economic security for those living paycheck to paycheck or protect the environment.

Perhaps the greatest weakness in today’s politics is that it is all about winning, with little thought given to governance. Good policymaking most often is achieved through the give-and-take of competing ideas, and the best ideas are tested and forged in the heat of campaigns.

The vapid 2016 campaign is a case in point. Trump won, but had no agenda for action. There was no conservative alternative to Obamacare, no plan to reduce the federal deficit (in fact, the cumulative deficit grew more in Trump’s first three, pre-pandemic years than in the last four years of the Obama Administration) and no plan to reinvent an economy undergoing fundamental changes. Nothing is more telling than Trump’s celebratory “Infrastructure Weeks” that built nothing but mockery.

To be sure, Harris also has been vague in her proposals. Conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat accurately attributes Harris’s political surge to what he calls her minimalist philosophy that “sparked a sincere and unfeigned relief among many Democrats — not just because it gave them a real chance at electoral victory, but because it was genuinely exciting not to feel imprisoned by progressive dogma, to make a temporary escape from shibboleths that never sparked that much real enthusiasm outside the party’s activist-academic core.”

There is truth to that backhanded compliment, but it also sells Harris short. In the same way many Democrats overlooked Trump’s connection to disgruntled voters in 2016, Republicans are missing Harris’s pull on the emotions of voters this year. She is offering enough solutions to unify her party, expand her base of voters and enthuse them with hope and optimism. Some of her proposals are real and possible, some are aspirational and unlikely to ever see the light of day if she is elected. Most importantly, Harris is addressing the issues on the minds of voters while steering clear of a progressive ideology that equates equal opportunity with equal outcomes.

That mix of content and tone is what many Republicans are eager to embrace: an agenda that makes sense to Joe and Jane Average, one that frees them from Trump’s politics of chaos and divisiveness. Vance did an admirable job during the debate of selling the emotional sizzle of Trump’s proposals, but without the substantive steak, there is little nutrition.

In 2024 politics are volatile. Voters are angry, scared and worried, and that makes for unpredictable outcomes. Trump could win, Republicans could control both houses of Congress or voters could write the opposite script, giving control to Harris and Democrats.

But whatever the outcome, this is certain: America will remain without a coherent and effective conservative agenda as long as Trump defines Republican politics and policies. It’s well past time for conservatives to put governance on equal footing with winning, promote the long term-future and not just short-term gains and to stop enabling the worst traits of Donald Trump.

It’s not enough for Trump to be Trump; it’s time for Trump to either be a conservative or for Republicans to step up with something more than the bromides offered by Vance.