Newly minted Republican Party vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance blew through Nevada this past week, carrying toxic water across our burning sands on behalf of former President Donald Trump.

Described as a second take to his entry as Trump’s running mate following a strangely hilarious first week riddled with couch references and angry cat memes, Vance attempted to shake it off in Nevada. He stumped before friendly crowds at a Henderson high school and the Reno/Sparks Convention Center, where a single street-corner critic carried a hand-written placard that read, “Neuter Vance, Protect Pussies’ Rights.”

The Ohio senator and bestselling author of the memoir Hillbilly Elegy made his role in the race clear. He’s Trump’s attack dog, his bearded Mini-Me. He’s the face of a new generation spreading old lines and bold lies to willing believers.

A personal favorite: Blaming Vice President Kamala Harris and the Biden administration for the border crisis after he and his Senate co-conspirators helped tank a bipartisan immigration and border security bill. But forget the facts. Vance is faster on his feet and more energetic than his partner at the top of the ticket.

Most of all, he is the guy who can stay on message and focus long enough to read a teleprompter and not wander off into shoutouts for movie serial killer Hannibal Lecter and making harebrained hypotheticals about shark attacks and sinking battery-powered boats. In that role, I think Vance did just fine. And unlike Trump, Vance served in the Marine Corps, attended class at Yale and actually wrote his own book. 

There has been early speculation that Trump, already stunned by the entry of Harris into the race, might replace Vance as his running mate. The way Trump is slipping, he ought to be worried about being replaced by Vance.

That’s the real problem Vance faces as Trump’s worthy second. Setting aside Vance’s eerie appreciation for the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 game plan for a second Trump administration, a 900-page hair-raiser being described as a ticket to totalitarianism, he can give all the red-meat tirades and hillbilly homilies he wants. But he can’t save Trump from himself.

Trump riffs, digresses and ad libs more than a Vegas showroom crooner who has lost his voice. He’s never been much for standing the heat — that’s what his attorneys are for — but he looks especially weak lately as he watches the polls shift. The “Sleepy Joe” Biden material isn’t going to cut it.

Examples are numerous, but I think Trump reached his nadir this past week in an appearance during the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Chicago. In an interview moderated by ABC News correspondent Rachel Scott, Trump was reminded that he’d spewed racist lies about former President Barack Obama, claiming he wasn’t born in America. Trump also called Black journalists losers and racist themselves. Instead of giving a thoughtful response or actually faking a little humility, the former President of the United States pulled out his rhetorical shovel and began digging a hole.

He started with a well-worn jaw dropper, claiming, “I have been the best president for the Black population since Abraham Lincoln.”

Instead of preparing for questions about his racist remarks that he was guaranteed to be asked, Trump attempted to shift the inquiry to his opponent, a daughter of immigrants from Jamaica and India, by falsely suggesting Harris had misled voters about her race.

“I have known her a long time, not directly very much, and she was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage,” he said. “I did not know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black. So, I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?”

Trump’s appearance got stranger from there.

He tried to blame the moderator and claimed to have been invited to Chicago under false pretenses. His attempt at deception was lame, even for him. It is easy for anyone with Google search to know that Harris is a graduate of prominent and historically Black Howard University, where she belonged to a Black sorority. In the U.S. Senate, she was a member of the Congressional Black Caucus.

But the man who accused Obama of not being born in America and being a secret Muslim would rather embarrass himself on national television than admit his lies.

Vance is more clever but cut from the same political polyester. He insists on repeating his tone-deaf sarcasm about “childless cat ladies,” denies the result of the 2020 election and even suggests that Trump had something to do with this week’s remarkable prisoner exchange between the U.S. and Russia. It’s news that further burnishes Biden’s legacy and burns up the president of the Vladimir Putin Fan Club.

At this rate, I’m expecting Trump to demand Harris produce her birth certificate and submit to a DNA test. Or perhaps he’ll leave that dirty work to the hillbilly Vance, who is apparently comfortable with his own gene pool.

In the end, Vance has as much riding on the next three months as the shameless former president he serves. If recent history is a guide, a Trump victory would be followed by regular insults, political marginalization and potential death threats for Vance and that’s from your friends. Don’t take my word for it. Just ask Mike Pence.

A loss means Vance goes down in history as the firebrand sidekick of the most ethically bankrupt politician America has known.

That’s not a hillbilly elegy, just a tattered legacy.

John L. Smith is an author and longtime columnist. He was born in Henderson and his family’s Nevada roots go back to 1881. His stories have appeared in New Lines, Time, Readers Digest, Rolling Stone, The Daily Beast, Reuters and Desert Companion, among others.