"J. D. Vance's selection as Trump's running mate suggests that Vance's benefactor, Peter Thiel, is running the show, reprising an aborted effort to run the show from 2016.
He seems to have learned from his mistakes.
Thiel's main hook into the first Trump administration was Steve Bannon, and their efforts were largely stymied by Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner and other advisors; Bannon was ultimately forced out and left the administration after the deadly white supremacist "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville in August 2017.
In The Contrarian, a 2021 biography of Thiel, author Max Chafkin describes Vance as an "extension" of Thiel, who was a primary funder of Vance's victorious 2022 race for Senate in Ohio.
If Trump wins, Vance will be a heartbeat away from the presidency " and that should give everyone palpitations of their own.
The biggest concern, however, is that Thiel is coordinating with his old "PayPal Mafia" colleagues including David Sacks, Elon Musk, and Joe Lonsdale.
While Thiel runs Vance, Sacks is bundling contributions and running his own propaganda effort in support of the Republican campaign.
Musk and Lonsdale have recently teamed up to create a "Super PAC" in support of the Trump/Vance ticket, which has been buffeted almost daily by revelations of Vance's earlier denunciations of Trump, and his own bizarre views of women and human sexuality."
