Everyone Makes Mistakes

 

Me oh my!  Looking back at my November 30, 2025 post on which would be a worse President, Trump or Vance, I gave the advantage to Vance in most categories, but not all.*

The main categories that I saw as advantage Trump were weaponization of government (Trump has been too personal and petty; Vance would be more competent), immigration (Trump might be willing to carve out exceptions; Vance will not), and foreign policy.  Obviously, I was wrong about foreign policy.

My assumption was that Trump's foreign policy was based mostly on impulse rather than any ideological principles.  If his foreign policy has the practical effect of favoring authoritarianism over democracy, it is not because Trump has any principled preference for authoritarians, but just because they bribe and flatter him better.  Vance, by contrast, seemed to have a firmly principled opposition to liberal democracy and a principled preference for rightwing dictatorships.

My focus was on Europe in general and Ukraine in particular.  Given the choice between Vance, who appeared to have the goal of placing Europe under Russian control, either by puppet governments or outright military conquest, and Trump who seemed to be working for a similar outcome more by accident than by design, I preferred Trump, who might accidentally oppose Putin over Vance who was firmly committed against such a thing.  While I generally wanted to see Trump have an incapacitating stroke or wig out so badly that even his Cabinet saw no choice but to invoke the 25th Amendment, I sort of hoped that could wait until things got better for Ukraine.

And things did.  In fact, I am beginning to wonder whether Trump actually did Ukraine a favor in cutting off US aid.  His actions had the result of (1) pressuring Europe to step forward sufficiently that our actions matter much less; (2) forcing the Ukrainians to innovate, and (3) removing whatever restrictions we placed on the Ukrainians.  All of this seems to have rebounded to their favor.  Withdrawing support erratically and inconsistently proved useful because it gave both Ukraine and Europe time to adapt.  So, we just may have reached the point where we can safely turn over European policy to Vance.**

In the meantime, Trump has made a massive blunder starting the war with Iran.  While he has agreed to an indefinite ceasefire and clearly wants out, he also appears to be doing everything he can to make meaningful negotiations impossible.  Vance, in the meantime, had the sense to oppose the war and would be a basically normal negotiating partner who would at least not blow things up with erratic behavior that left no one knowing what his actual negotiating position is.  

So, on foreign policy advantage Vance.  And that alone is reason to say advantage Vance overall.

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*To say nothing of the numerous categories where it was really hard to say. 

**Or we may not. If Vance is really determined to see the Russians win, he has a few cards left to play.  He can cut off intelligence sharing with the Ukrainians.  I have no idea whether the Europeans would be able to fill the gap.  It is also my understanding that the clear turning point in Ukraine's favor was Elon Musk denying the Russians access to Starlink, while allowing it to Ukrainians.  Vance's strongest card is probably to pressure Musk to reverse course.