Some years ago, Senator Vance expressed harsh opinions of former President Trump.  Now he has been named as his running mate.  The senator himself says that over time, he honestly changed his mind about Mr. Trump -- and that in the same way, perhaps other skeptical voters might also reconsider their views.  His critics say that he cynically flipped for personal advantage.

Never let it be said that cynicism is in short supply among politicians.  But I believe him.  Why?  Because I changed my mind too.

Anyone who keeps up with this blog knows that although I write quite a bit on what might be called cultural politics, I write much less often on partisan matters.  But there have been a few big exceptions.  When Mr. Trump ran the first time, I wrote of him,

The nominee of one party has never believed in anything but self-promotion.  He is characterologically incapable of holding any principle, save that one.  He is a narcissist; he is a sociopath; and as a consequence of having so little interest in external reality, he is not of sound mind.

At the same time I said of Mrs. Clinton,

Long ago, the other nominee seems to have believed in principles, but they were profoundly wrong ones.  Besides, she has promoted herself as a means to her ends for so long that at last her means have displaced her ends; the principles to which she once devoted herself have at last become a mere means to herself.  Her ideology persists, but only as a sort of reflex, or mental tick.  So although she has reached it by a different path, her destination is much like the other nominee’s.

For the first time in my life, I refused to vote for either presidential candidate.  By the time Mr. Trump ran for reelection, I had changed my view, voting for him reluctantly.  I then wrote,

It seems to me that in the present campaign, as in 2016, both presidential candidates are sneerers, mockers, and boasters, though one displays his bad character in ways that the political classes don’t mind, while the other displays his in a way that they do.  I now think that in that previous election year, I did not take this fact seriously enough, and I regret it.

As to what the respective candidates want to do, things seem to me pretty clear.  Mr. Biden enthusiastically supports several intrinsic evils, abortion being but one of them.  His support for this atrocity is even more horrifying because he claims that it is compatible with being a faithful Christian.  Thus, not only is he committing deadly sin, but he is dragging legions of others into it with him.  Despite Mr. Trump’s offensive style, so far as I am aware he has not given political support to anything like the deliberate taking of innocent lives; in fact he has opposed it.  In 2016, I thought there was good reason not to believe him about that, and I abstained.  Since then, though, he has consistently demonstrated that he meant it after all.

When there is an alternative, it is gravely difficult to find some “proportionate reason” justifying the remote material cooperation with evil involved in voting for a proponent of the liberty to kill babies.  What is worse than willfully facilitating millions of infant deaths?  The genocidal murder of the entire population of Canada would be, but no one has proposed anything like that.  Yet.

When Mr. Trump ran the first time, I was deeply concerned that as president he would rule by executive order, bypassing the Congress and ignoring the Constitution.  As it happened, he didn’t.  The president who has actually tried doing so, in the meantime subverting our institutions of justice to persecute his political opponent and many others besides, is Mr. Biden.  We have now seen how far this can be taken, and it is terrifying.  When juries are asked to render judgment without even being told what precise crime the former president is accused of committing, when the Justice Department targets parents who speak up at school board meetings, when peaceful citizens who hold traditional Catholic views are put on watchlists as dangerous and potentially violent, there is the existential threat to democracy which Mr. Biden’s party claims to oppose.

Just listen to what he and his allies warn about.  That is what their program.  That is what they intend.

During his first campaign, I shared the disgust Mr. Trump expressed for the direction in which our current cultural and political elites are taking the country.  But I didn’t think someone capable of some of the disgusting remarks and behavior reported of him was likely to mean it.  By now, although it is pretty clear that he is capable of great crudity, his critics lie so shamelessly that one must be careful before believing anything said about him.  Besides, it isn’t Mr. Trump who wants to transfer convicted male serial rapists to women’s prisons, or force girls in high school to be exposed to men showing signs of sexual arousal in their locker rooms.

During that first campaign, I was profoundly troubled by some of the people who had somehow become linked with Mr. Trump.  By now, it is pretty clear that as he has gained more experience in political life and more knowledge of the personalities involved in it, he has shed his unsavory associations and chosen wiser advisors.

During that first campaign, I thought there was plenty in the country to be angry about, not least the way so many of our elected representatives exploit and betray their constituents.  However, I worried that Mr. Trump was going too far, courting votes by stoking a dangerous furnace of rage.   By now, it is pretty clear which candidate is stoking the furnace, and it isn’t Mr. Trump.

Mr. Biden defends his latest fanning of the flames by saying that he didn’t say that Mr. Trump should be placed in the “crosshairs,” but only said he should be placed in the “bullseye” – such a big difference -- and anyway, that was merely a metaphor.  I don’t oppose strong metaphors, but this is uncomfortably close to Henry II’s cry about Thomas Becket, “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?”  Perhaps Henry was also speaking metaphorically.  But Becket was assassinated.  Henry was excommunicated and required to make penance.  If only.

The merely-metaphor line might have been believable in a  day before Progressives had routinely adopted the tactic of “doxxing” those who disagree with them – publicizing their home addresses and information about their children, and encouraging their followers to go after them.  It isn’t now.

It might have been believable in a day before congressional leaders egged on mobs to threaten the homes of Supreme Court Justices, saying to them “You have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price.  You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”  It isn’t now.

It might have been believable in a day before the FBI took to making dawn raids on the homes of people like Mark Houck, who, while quietly praying in front of an abortion clinic, committed the terrible crime of defending his child against someone who threatened the child and shoved him.  It isn’t now.

So yes, I can believe Mr. Vance when he says he changed his mind.  Because I did.

The times have changed.  The candidate has changed.  But also some of the many hoaxes have been exposed.

When you consider the vitriol which has already been directed at Mr. Vance – and much more is in readiness -- bear in mind that in the view of our cultural elites, this Yale Law School graduate is a hick.  His story of growing up in Appalachia, Hillbilly Elegy, won widespread praise before he began to think about politics.  My wife and I found his story personally engaging because she comes of hillbilly stock.  We live among hillbillies every summer, in the mountains of eastern Kentucky.  What Mr. Vance says about how the devastation of the coal industry, about fentanyl addiction, about generational dependency, and about family breakdown, we see with our own eyes.

But now the culture lords say that Mr. Vance’s personal story is just a string of cliches about welfare queens.  You see, they have caught on that he’s not their sort of person.  And neither is Mr. Trump.

I have written on several occasions that a certain kind of crudity and oafishness is considered lovable by the political classes, and not even recognized as oafish because it is their sort of oafishness.  Another kind is considered lovable by those whom they disdain.  Obama was a smooth rich fellow who flattered the elites.  Biden is a coarse rich fellow who sneers at the common people in the same breath as he boasts of his humble origins.  The elites think this kind of talk is merely telling it like it is.

Trump, though, is a coarse rich fellow who flatters the common people.  Since he sneers at the elites and adopts a popular tone in doing so, it enrages them.  Though all of these rulers claim to look out for the “little guy,” the difference is that Obama and Biden styled themselves as their patrons, and viewed the “little guys” as their clients.  Trump styles himself as their benefactor, and views them as his constituents.

The selection of Mr. Vance as Mr. Trump’s running mate has been criticized on grounds that he doesn’t help Mr. Trump expand his base.  What this overlooks is that Mr. Vance helps his party expand its base to all those who used to think his party didn’t care about them – the ones Mr. Biden’s party take for granted -- and to all those who, like Mr. Vance himself, have been coming to view Mr. Trump differently.

I think of the people I talk with.  A few months ago, my wife and I were chatting about politics with another couple.  The woman, who is no extremist or patroness of violence, expressed distaste for Mr. Trump -- and then said, “but I might have to vote for him again, because the alternative is Satanic.”  Just so.  Given a choice between the distasteful and the Satanic, take the distasteful every time.

What we see today are not ordinary political divisions.  I don’t think the older leadership of Mr. Trump’s party grasps why anyone should perceive what Mr. Biden represents in the way our mild-mannered friend did.  But a lot of other people do.

During Mr. Trump’s first campaign, I had no patience with those who considered him a sort of messiah -- as the Left had paraded Mr. Obama -- and who said that God could use even a wicked man.  I still don’t have patience with that view.  But God can convert a wicked man.  It happened to me.  We can hope.

So do I believe that Mr. Vance could change his mind?  Of course I do.

And I earnestly hope for more changes of mind -- on the part of both members of the Trump/Vance team.

I had been more than half-expecting at least one attempt on Mr. Trump’s life, but I would have greatly preferred to be wrong.  My first reaction to the shooting has been sorrow.  My second has been prayer.

Former Attorney General William Barr intelligently remarked, “The Democrats have to stop their grossly irresponsible talk about Trump being an existential threat to democracy.  He is not.”

If you are expecting political discussion to become more civil, though, it isn’t going to happen any time soon.  As soon as the shock of the assassination attempt wears off, Mr. Trump’s detractors will start working to turn it against him.

Attempts to search Google about the shooting turn up an astonishing number of old screeds blaming various acts of violence on various persons who allegedly liked Trump.  Of course this list of hits – no pun intended – is just the working of a slanted algorithm, but you can expect the human narrative doctors to work along the same slanted lines.

For as soon as it becomes safe to say so, the haters of Mr. Trump will begin insinuating that that it is because he is an existential threat to democracy that the shooting occurred.  You see, because of his “incendiary rhetoric,” he has only himself to blame.

Some will express hopes that he will "learn something" from the event.  You can also expect a rise in the number of those who smugly ask whether perhaps his attitude toward gun control will also become more favorable.

Updates, one and two days later:

How naïve I was to have thought the haters wouldn’t pile on until after the shock of the assassination attempt had worn off.  They have already begun.

CBS anchor Margaret Brennan blamed Trump for his statement after the shooting:  “I did notice there was no call for lowering the temperature.”

She spoke with commentator Samantha Vinograd, who doubled down, saying that the biggest threat of violence was from Trump's supporters.

CNN, The Washington Post, the Indy Star, and others initially tried to spin the event as something other than an assassination attempt:  He fell at the rally, he was removed from the rally after loud noises, the loud noises startled him.

Politico and Newsweek tried to change the subject:   “Photo of bloodied Trump fist bumping immediately spotlighted by his allies,” “MAGA responds with outrage after Donald Trump injured at Pennsylvania rally.”

Various figures including Dmitri Mehlhorn, an advisor to Reid Hoffman, have encouraged the media to investigate whether the shooting was staged by Mr. Trump himself.  False flag operations do happen, but what kind of staged shooting would direct a real bullet a quarter of an inch from the supposed beneficiary’s skull?

Jacqueline Marsaw, field director for U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Mississippi, posted on Facebook, “I don't condone violence but please get you some shooting lessons so you don't miss next time ooops [sic] that wasn't me talking.”  She posted later, “That's what your hate speech got you!!”

Rep. Thompson fired her, but bear in mind that this is the guy who introduced HR 8081, the “Denying Infinite Security and Government Resources Allocated Toward Convicted and Extremely Dishonorable Former Protectees Act,” to deny Mr. Trump any Secret Service protection at all.

By now everyone has heard that the Supreme Court upheld a town’s power to ban “camping” in public places like parks and sidewalks.  Dissenting, Justice Sotomayor wrote “Sleep is a biological necessity, not a crime.”  Well, elimination is a biological necessity too.  If there is no toilet nearby, would Justice Sotomayor say I have a constitutional right to defecate on the street?

In America there are several main reasons for long-term homelessness.  One is deinstitutionalization of people who need residential mental care.  Another is drug addiction.  And some people, believe it or not, simply prefer living on the street.  Of course shelters should be provided, but even when they are, quite a few people refuse to live in them, mainly because they have rules.  The street doesn’t.

I would gladly support dealing with these problems.  What decent person wouldn’t?  But turning public places into sewers doesn’t help anyone.  It isn’t a response, but an excuse for no response.  The only thing it is good for is giving a hypocritical display of compassion.

Progressivism is a class ideology, and wealthy contempt for ordinary people has no limits.  Progressives don’t want strangers sleeping and defecating in their own yards or driveways.  The reason they don’t mind letting them do such things in parks and on sidewalks is that these places are used by the little people, people who can’t afford to vacation in nice clean resorts and who have to walk where they want to go.

Whenever a moral issue is raised, the reflex of many people is to spout, “Who is to say what is right or wrong?”

This is the wrong question.  The right question isn’t “Who is to say?” but “How can we find out?”

The former question takes for granted that there is no way to find out.  This ignores centuries upon centuries of moral inquiry.

It is like saying, “Who is to say whether the moon is made of rock or of cheese?,” ignoring centuries upon centuries of astronomical inquiry.

“But people disagree.”  Sure.  Some people disagree about the moon, too.  Ethics is harder only because if we get an answer we don’t like, we may have to change our lives.  That’s much harder than just changing our minds – and that is hard enough.

Pro-abortion people often say the unborn baby can’t be protected just because we don’t know he is a baby.   Who is to say?

But in the first place, we do know that he is a baby.  He is an immature member of the same species as ourselves, possessing all the potentiality for further development that a born baby has.

In the second place, the premises you would need to say he may not be a baby lead to unacceptable conclusions.  For example, you might say we don’t know whether anyone is human – but then we can’t protect anyone’s life.  Or you might say that he is human, but not yet a person, because he can’t yet reason, act according to purposes, or speak with us – but born babies can’t do those things either.  Besides, that criterion puts personhood itself on a sliding scale.  For by its lights, if Fred reasons better than you do, acts more prudently than you do, or is more articulate than you are, then even if you are a person, you are less a person than he is -- and so his rights trump yours.  Do you really want to go there?

In the third place, even if we really didn’t know whether the unborn baby were a baby, ignorance wouldn’t justify killing him.  Suppose I really don’t know whether anyone is in the house next door.  Then does my ignorance justify me in firing through the window with a gun?  After all, there may not be anybody there to hit!

You see that not even genuine ignorance would be a reason to abort.  In fact, it would be a reason not to.