JD Vance arrived at his first Republican National Convention on Wednesday night to do three things: accept his party’s vice presidential nomination, explain his working-class origin story and demand his party abandon many of the conservative ideals that have defined it for decades.
The Ohio senator, only in office since last year, pitched a Republican Party built around a right-wing populist, “America First” ethos, one aligned with Donald Trump’s vision, if not always his record.
Vance’s remarks, which featured an extended account of his own working-class upbringing in Ohio, sought to portray his running mate, Donald Trump, as the presidential election’s true blue-collar champion, ready to take on everyone from Chinese leaders to immigrants living in the country illegally in hopes of making life easier for the average American.