Pre-Donald Trump, it was considered unseemly: The president should stay above the mud and the muck. No need to get his own hands dirty.
Such conduct was beneath his dignity.
So instead, it was the job of the vice president to be the president’s pitbull and/or political enforcer — to bang heads, brutalize enemies, and banish bad actors from the president’s inner sanctum. Presidential running mates were explicitly selected to be aggressive, fearsome attack dogs.
Time Magazine wrote a retrospective on the phenomenon in 2024 — “How Vice-Presidential Nominees Became ‘Attack Dogs’” — but failed to dedicate enough ink to the most successful (and most aggressive) VP attack dog of our age: Joe Biden.
Time noted that:
Liz Sidoti of the Associated Press described the untested Obama’s choice of the seasoned Biden as sending the message: “Never fear, the vice-presidential attack dog is here – and he’s itching for a fight.”
[…]
By 2012, the division of labor between presidential and vice presidential candidates had become such conventional wisdom that the Dallas Morning News had “Be the attack dog” at the top of its list of don’ts for Republican Mitt Romney ahead of his first debate with Obama. That was running mate Paul Ryan’s job. John Dickerson, then writing for Slate, observed that Ryan’s policy chops had seemingly vanished as he was busy “filling the role of the vice presidential attack dog.” Biden, meanwhile, remained “comfortable with the attack-dog role,” the Associated Press noted, ahead of his debate with Ryan. [emphasis added]
But that was a horrendous understatement. Biden wasn’t just “comfortable with the attack-dog role”; he relished the opportunity.
And, as ABC News observed in 2008 (“Analysis: VP Nominee Leads the Attack”), it was that way from the very beginning:
Barack Obama portrays himself as a new kind of presidential candidate, but Joe Biden is likely to spend this campaign as the most traditional of vice presidential nominees: leading the attack against the opposition.
[…]
Biden told of his middle-class roots [at the DNC convention], praised Obama’s judgment and blasted McCain as being inextricably linked to President Bush’s policies. That sort of attack is something critics say Obama has been slow to press.
“Part of his portfolio is to be the attack dog,” says Ron Walters, a political scientist at the University of Maryland…
No, it wasn’t just “part” of his portfolio — it was the overwhelming majority of it. And it didn’t end in 2008 either. Who could forget this gem from 2012, when Biden blithely warned a mostly black audience that the GOP was going “to put y’all back in chains”?
And this brings us to 2026, one day after the Ides of March, and Vice President JD Vance: Other than attacking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office, our current VP hasn’t been much of a political pitbull. Sure, he’ll take occasional shots at Trump’s enemies on the left, but what about the troublemakers on the right?
He’s mostly been a conscientious objector.
Which is probably why President Trump has been his own political enforcer. With the MAGA media war raging — Fox News, Ben Shapiro, and Mark Levin on one side, Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Nick Fuentes, and Candace Owens on the other — it’s fallen on Trump’s shoulders to police the troops, stamp out MAGA dissention, and exile the bad actors.
At this point, it’s a clear and obvious trend:
- When Marjorie Taylor Greene attacked Trump, Vance didn’t rush to his boss’s side and deliver a strong, uncompromising defense of Trump’s “America First” credentials. Instead, he stayed silent — and Trump defended himself.
- When Carlson attacked Trump’s Iran War as “absolutely disgusting and evil,” Vance still didn’t defend the president. Instead, he stayed silent — and Trump defended himself.
- When Kelly attacked Trump ally Mark Levin in a bizarre diatribe about the size of his genitalia, Vance didn’t defend the president’s ally either. Instead, he stayed silent — and Trump defended Levin himself.
Levin expressed his gratitude to President Trump on Monday morning, while Kelly accused him of “crying to Daddy”:
Mr. President:
I am beyond humbled by your words and graciousness in writing such a beautiful note and sharing it on Truth Social. I am honored that you took the time to write it.
Your courage, strength, and moral clarity are truly unparalleled. And your leadership has made… pic.twitter.com/aYjG5S2Tyx
— Mark R. Levin (@marklevinshow) March 16, 2026
Micro penis @marklevinshow is such a SMALL MAN he had to go beg the president for a pat on the head (in the middle of a war!) to make himself feel better about … well, you know.
This, after one mean tweet about him – following his 111 (!) nasty, non-stop, personal,…— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) March 16, 2026
What explains Vance’s silence? I offer you three theories:
- President Trump is an atypical president who does things differently. He doesn’t need his veep to be his attack dog, because he’d rather smash heads and break thumbs himself. Therefore, Vance’s silence doesn’t mean anything because this is simply how the Trump White House functions.
- Vance agrees with President’s critics — Carlson, Kelly, Fuentes, and Owens — about Israel, Iran, and more, and can’t in good faith say anything critical about them.
- Vance’s “discretion” is a Machiavellian political calculation: He’s the most likely GOP nominee in 2028 and hopes to inherit an intact MAGA movement — where there’s ample room for Joe Rogan, Shapiro, Carlson, Nicki Minaj, and all the rest.
The last time Vance was confronted with this dilemma was in December of 2025 at Turning Point USA, where he said:
…I’m going to fight alongside you. I mean all of you, each and everyone. President Trump did not build the greatest coalition in politics by running his supporters through endless, self-defeating purity tests. He says “Make America Great Again” because every American is invited.
[…]
I didn’t bring a list of conservatives to denounce or to deplatform, and I don’t really care if some people out there, I’m sure we’ll have the fake news media denounce me after the speech.
In other words, he declined to take sides.
Regardless of Vance’s motive, it’s become Trump’s responsibility to fire back at Carlson, Greene, and the rest. Apparently, if he doesn’t do it, nobody else in his White House will.
It’s counterintuitive, because Trump is famous for demanding loyalty — yet when critics from within MAGA’s tent are causing trouble during times of war(!), the silence of his subordinates is deafening. They’re as quiet as a church mouse.
Vance’s silence is the loudest of them all.
There are two famous Rorschachs in American culture: The Rorschach inkblot test (where subjects describe what they “see” in abstract images), and the Rorschach superhero, who was based on Steve Ditko’s Ayn Rand-inspired comic book character, Mr. A.
Right now, Vance is the Republican version of the Rorschach test: All sides think he might be one of them.
That’s the PR upside of not taking a stand.
But the downside? There’s a scene in the Watchmen movie where the Rorschach character is framed for a crime and ends up in jail — surrounded by dangerous, bitter criminals who want him dead. The bad guys figure they’ve got Rorschach where they want him.
Only… it doesn’t quite work out that way:
Rorschach: I’m not locked in here with you. You’re locked in here with me!
As long as Trump is willing to be his own attack dog, Vance can continue to be a conscientious objector. But it’s not a sustainable trajectory.
Vance won’t be like Trump was in 2024 — a Republican nominee so ridiculously ahead of the pack, he can skip all the debates, all the arguments, and still cruise to the nomination. Trump earned that status after eight long years in the spotlight; it wasn’t just given to him.
If Vance wants to be our next president, he’ll have to fight for it. This means that, eventually, he’ll have to choose sides, draw a line in the sand, and differentiate himself from everyone else. You can’t be all things to all sides forever.
Eventually, he’ll have to show his cards.
(And somewhere, Zelensky is giggling.)
After all, the GOP bench is deep. Nobody — not even the vice president — has a lock on the 2028 nomination yet. Just as Vice President George H. W. Bush had to fight tooth and nail for it in 1988, Vance will have to fight just as hard in 2028. Maybe even harder.
Because we’re not locked into him — he’s locked in with us.
And the longer he stays silent, the more questions we’ll have.
One Last Thing: 2026 is a critical year for America First: It began with Mayor Mamdani declaring war on “rugged individualism” and will reach a crescendo with the midterm elections. Nothing less than the fate of the America First movement teeters in the balance.
Never before have the political battlelines been so clearly defined. Win or lose, 2026 will transform our country.
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