MILWAUKEE On Monday afternoon inside Fiserv Forum, cameras from every major American news network filmed the smiling face of Sen. JD Vance as he strolled through the floor of the Republican National Convention to wild applause and screams.

Sixwire, a country band from Nashville, played a cover of Merle Haggards Lets Rebuild America First before House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), speaking from a lectern on the main stage, made it all official.

Pursuant to Rule 40-D of the rules of the Republican Party, I formally declare President Donald J. Trump and JD Vance as the Republican nominees for president and vice president! he said. Vance waved to the crowd and shook hands and posed for photos.

Nearly three years ago, Vance, then a poorly polling Senate candidate, made a less auspicious appearance as a guest on the manosphere podcast Jack Murphy Live. He told the pseudonymous host that if Trump ever retook the White House, hed advise him to purge U.S. government institutions of everyone but MAGA loyalists.

I think Trump is going to run again in 2024, Vance said . I think that what Trump should do, if I was giving him one piece of advice: Fire every single mid-level bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people.

And when the courts because you will get taken to court and then when the courts stop you, stand before the country, like Andrew Jackson did, and say, The chief justice has made his ruling, now let him enforce it, Vance continued, referring to when Americas seventh president defied a Supreme Court ruling to stop the genocide against Native Americans and stealing of their land.

Vances vision was of a vengeful president disposing of democratic norms and tossing aside the checks and balances of Americas three branches of government. I tend to think that we should seize the institutions of the left, he said at another point. And turn them against the left. We need like a de-Baathification program, a de-woke-ification program.

Now, three years later, as the GOP nominee for vice president of the United States, Vance is closer than ever to making that authoritarian vision a reality and if Mondays RNC was any indication, hell have more than enough support in the Republican Party to do so.