After the usual will-they-won’t-they of the vice presidential selection drama, President Trump delivered yet again, picking Ohio Senator and Hillbilly Elegy author J.D. Vance as his running mate.

The Vance pick is symbolic on a number of levels.  As a US Senator, he has focused on improving the lives of the forgotten men and women that President Trump champions.  He has rejected the siren song of the Establishment Uniparty.  He is very clearly the conservative populist in the Senate.

I receive an e-mail newsletter from The New York Times each morning at my work e-mail.  I am not fan of The New York Times, but I likely signed up for it because I needed to access some article for my students.  Regardless, the Tuesday, 16 July edition of The Morning newsletter makes a claim with which I agree:  in picking Vance, Trump was, essentially, picking his successor.

Vance is tied with Richard Nixon as the youngest vice presidential candidate in American history.  Both were thirty-nine when selected to be their candidates’ running mate (Nixon ran as President Eisenhower’s running mate in 1952 and 1956; he was thirty-nine in 1952).  He has years—God Willing!—of life ahead of him, coupled with youthful vigor (I’m thirty-nine myself, so I have to believe there’s youthful vigor left).  At the end of President Trump’s second term, Vance would be a mere forty-three-years old—on par with President Obama, President Kennedy, and President Theodore Roosevelt.  Assuming a triumphal Trumpian Restoration, Vance would be in excellent position to take the reins.

He is also a proven populist in the Trumpian mold.  There are numerous benefits here.  For one, it guarantees that the Republican Party’s leadership is firmly oriented in a populist direction.  Two, it indicates that this time President Trump will surround himself with the right people (seeing Tucker Carlson seated two spots away from President Trump at the Republican National Convention Monday evening is also suggestive that Trump is taken good counsel now)—and might actually “Drain the Swamp.”  Three, it suggests that the Republican Party will embrace the logical metamorphosis into a bread-and-butter, blue-collar, conservative-populist party, which is a strategy for both success and national restoration.

Most VP picks are, ultimately, unimportant.  They often result from the calculus of electoral expediency:  a presidential candidate attempts to expand his base, or shore up some geographical region that is a toss-up.  Sometimes, they are made to reassure party regulars that their faction or interest is represented.  The young, green Obama picked then-Senator Biden as his running mate for the perceived wisdom and experience the latter brought (oh, how the Truth blossoms in the fullness of time).  Reagan picked Bush I to mollify the Republican Establishment of the 1980s.  Trump picked Pence to reassure social conservatives and to beef up his Midwestern appeal.

Vance certainly helps geographically with his dual Midwestern and Appalachian ties, although Appalachia is for Trump 100% already.  But his pick is more consequential for the reasons stated.  He is a logical successor to Trump; he grew up in harsh Appalachian poverty; he cares about the blue-collar workers; he is a proven populist, in spite of his Yale education.

With the Trump-Vance ticket, we may very well have the twenty-first-century iteration of the Gracchi Brothers.  I’m surprised more commentators have not noted this connection (though some have), especially in the wake of the failed attempt on President Trump’s life.  The Gracchi were upper class Roman tribunates who represented the interests of the populares and the plebeians against the excesses of the optimates and the patricians.  The late Roman Republic was in dire straits, particularly with the unequal distribution of land and the increased dependence on slave labor.  Those two factors were squeezing the Roman middle-class out of existence, and fell particularly hard on the working-class plebeians.

Sound familiar?  A small handful of real estate firms have bought up massive amounts of land and property at bargain-basement prices, then jacked up rents.  We import massive amounts of illegal migrant labor that is paid a pittance—and robs working-class Americans of jobs.  The middle-class lifestyle is eaten away by runaway inflation; savings are stripped of their value for the same reason.

Now we have Trump and Vance boldly proposing to fix these problems and others.  What do they get for their troubles?  President Trump nearly died, and that was after years of bogus legal actions brought against him.

What happened to the Gracchi?  Both brothers were assassinated.  The results:  the end of the Roman Republic; long years of civil war; and the emergence of a imperial autocracy.

Let’s pray our Gracchi succeed.