So that you’re Donald Trump, you’re the presumptive Republican presidential nominee and also you’re salivating to return to the White Home.
There’s an enormous difficulty it is advisable to tackle quickly — you understand, apart from the indictments, the $83.5 million you owe in a defamation lawsuit, your floundering Reality Social community and the truth that you didn’t win the favored vote in your earlier two elections.
In addition to all that? It’s essential to discover the proper vice presidential candidate.
You want somebody who has a big ego however might be obsequious. Somebody who’ll attraction to your base but can cross over and seize different voters. Whose reservoir of resentment in opposition to liberalism is as huge and deep as yours. A parrot with talons like an eagle and the exhausting head of a cassowary.
Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene? Too wacky. U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas? Smarter and better-looking than you, in order that gained’t work. NFL quarterback and arch-pandejo Aaron Rodgers? Robert F. Kennedy Jr. already requested. Your daughter Ivanka? If solely!
No, the particular person it’s best to select is on nobody’s radar besides mine. It’s such an ideal selection that I’m loath to even write out my ideas lest they manifest like a political model of Beetlejuice. So if it occurs, mild readers, don’t blame me — however right here it goes:
Donald Trump ought to decide Huntington Seashore Mayor Gracey Van Der Mark as his #2.
By no means heard of her, mild readers? Yeah, you may have. Within the yr and a half since she was elected to the Metropolis Council, Van Der Mark and three different Republican council members — together with metropolis legal professional and fellow traveler Michael Gates — have made nationwide headlines by reworking laid-back Surf Metropolis right into a grievance-filled swamp standing athwart blue California.
Final yr, they supplied no actual rationalization for stripping the kumbaya-leaning Huntington Seashore Interfaith Committee of its decades-long privilege to choose who would give an invocation earlier than conferences. They demanded that metropolis librarians reclassify kids’s and younger grownup books mentioning personal components and pooping as appropriate just for adults and created a citizen’s fee to overview all kids’s books for probably offensive content material. They almost stopped recognizing Black Historical past Month till realizing that was a step too far.
All of this was prelude to the latest major election, when Huntington Seashore voters handed two controversial measures. One requires voters to point out a photograph ID earlier than casting a poll, which California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta has stated he’ll battle in courtroom. One other requires future councils to unanimously approve the elevating of flags, aside from authorities or army flags, on metropolis property — a continuation of the council’s motion final yr that successfully banned the flying of the Satisfaction flag.
H.B.’s council majority has been so noxious and revanchist that some former mayors, Republicans and Democrats alike, have united to try to cease their affect. However different native conservatives are raring to go after the three remaining Democrats on the council this fall.
Van Der Mark will not be the mastermind of what’s occurring in Surf Metropolis — however she is its figurehead, with a resume tailor made for MAGA Land.
Huntington Seashore Metropolis Atty. Michael Gates, proper, speaks subsequent to Tony Strickland, left, and Gracey Van Der Mark at a “meet and greet” occasion at Outdated World Village in Huntington Seashore in 2022.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Occasions)
She first achieved native notoriety in 2017 for hanging out with Proud Boys at protests. After one protest, she posted now-deleted YouTube feedback calling minorities who attended an anti-racism workshop “coloured individuals” instructed by “aged Jewish individuals.” Such remarks bought her booted from two college district civilian committees and helped torpedo her bids for the Ocean View college board in 2018 and the Huntington Seashore Metropolis Council in 2020.
As a substitute of slinking again into her hate gap, Van Der Mark adopted the Trump guide for victory. She internalized the insults, sharpened her rhetoric — and waited.
She was a finalist to switch UFC legend Tito Ortiz when he stepped down from the Huntington Seashore Metropolis Council in 2021. By then, Surf Metropolis had lurched nearer to Van Der Mark’s pink worldview. It turned floor zero for resisting masking mandates throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Gates, town legal professional, went to courtroom to battle California over every little thing from constructing extra housing to sanctuary state insurance policies. Van Der Mark and three different Republicans ran as a slate in 2022 and overthrew H.B.’s liberal Democratic majority, with Gates additionally reelected on the slate.
Ever since, it’s been chaos and division within the identify of proudly owning wokism — par for the course for Trump’s potential VP candidates. However right here’s what is going to actually get his consideration. Regardless of a reputation out of a Washington Irving brief story, Gracey Van Der Mark is definitely Latina.
She was born Gricelda Larrea to Ecuadorean and Mexican immigrants, grew up in Southeast Los Angeles County and speaks Spanish. With polls displaying Latinos throughout the nation transferring towards Trump like by no means earlier than, a operating mate like Van Der Mark would assist him fend off accusations of racism and peel off extra Latino voters from Joe Biden.
One factor I’ve realized in years of protecting Van Der Mark’s rise is to not underestimate her. She has made a profession out of it — so why ought to the mayor cease at Sacramento when the West Wing below Trump can be a greater match?
So have at it, you two. Hop on a Zoom name and rant about evil Taxifornia. Scheme. Flatter. Marketing campaign.
And God assist america if what I simply wrote truly occurs.
