Vance has gotten an unusually large amount of attention compared to what is otherwise typical for a VP nomination. People are wondering what does Vance mean for Trump’s likely second term?
I think people are overreading into the implications of Vance. He’s not going to do anything. There will not be anything close to a ‘big tech’ breakup or even an attempt at it, assuming that is what he wants, which is debatable given that being a social climber, there is little evidence to suggest Vance has particularly strong convictions about anything, especially that would jeopardize the connections and status he has worked to hard to attain. Recall, Vance initially hated Trump and likened him to Hitler, until doing a 180. Trump chose Vance anyway, seeing his popularity and that Vance would help extend inroads with tech donors. It was not because Trump sought Vance for policy suggestions.
Also, as we saw during Trump’s first term, Trump pays little mind to his advisors, like Thiel, Bannon, Stone, and others, who either quickly leave, get enmeshed in various scandals, or are pushed to the periphery until they grow frustrated and quit. By 2018, all these ‘movers and shakers’ who Trump had tapped in 2016 were gone. Vance, like Pence, his role will be in name only. Vance is not going to be calling shots or affecting policy in any way, as that is typically not the role of the VP, but also Trump will not let him or either dismiss or ignore him. As I wrote earlier, Trump cares more about the opinions of other billionaires, like Zuckerberg, even if their politics are at odds with his own, than ideological purity.
Second, Trump’s ego is big enough that he’s not going to let Vance or any advisor overshadow him. Someone like George W. Bush was was more impressionable and deferred heavily to his staff, with the credit shared. This is why Bush is almost never solely implicated in the Iraq War, because it was a team effort, and an equal amount of blame goes to others like Rumsfeld, Rice, Cheney, and Powell. But with Trump, he wants to get all the credit or be front and center, which for better or worse, makes it harder to get things done.