It’s bad enough that we may be stuck with Donald Trump for another four years, but now it looks like Donald Trump Jr. and JD Vance could run together on the 2028 ticket. Apparently, Don Jr. was instrumental in convincing his father to choose Vance as his running mate and some folks are saying Trump’s eldest son has his own political aspirations.

“Don Jr. and Vance are besties now,” a source told Page Six. “Rumor is that people are thinking Don Jr. could get on the ticket as VP in 2028,” should Vance decide to run for president.

Junior is, in fact, so stoked about Vance’s nomination that he even said “It’s the American dream — he’s just gonna be an incredible pick,” according to Page Six.

This leaves me with the feeling that I haven’t been kicked enough lately. Could someone please do it again?

Okay, that’s sarcasm, but this is the rabbit hole the U.S. sliding down. Dear old Dad knows as much about politics and running a country as he does about applied nuclear physics, which is to say he doesn’t know anything. Even after running the country into the ground during the first four years. Junior isn’t any smarter. If anything he’s at least a couple of notches down this totem pole than his father.

Vance is fairly articulate and he may help rein in some of Donald Trump’s craziness but he’s still bad news anyway. He’s virulently anti-abortion and about as homophobic as a person gets. This is a man who wants to ban abortion across the board — even in cases of rape and incest. And when it comes to the LGBTQ+ community, he’s pulled the following stunt, according to GLAAD and The Washington Post:

“Held up the nominations of dozens of diplomats assigned to serve in posts across the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America for more than a year over his questionnaire that “asked would-be ambassadors if they would increase the number of ‘gender-neutral bathrooms’ in U.S. embassies, boost resources for ‘gender dysphoria and gender transition care’ and raise the ‘Progress flag’ during ‘regional Pride celebrations.'” 

But he did things that were even worse than that, according to the Post.

“At the height of his campaign, Vance placed holds on more than 30 nominees, forcing diplomats to consider contradicting President Biden’s assertion that LGBTQ rights are human rights. Vance was the single biggest obstacle to confirming career ambassadors in the Senate, despite not sitting on the committee that oversees the nominations, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.”

The New York Times reported in April that Vance and Don Jr. had quite a friendship, adding that “Mr. Vance owes his quick ascent into the Trump orbit to his unlikely friendship and ideological kinship with the former president’s oldest son.”

Further, the story noted, “They text or talk nearly daily and try to meet up if they are in the same city, according to people who know them both. They are a social-media tag team, often reposting each other’s messages.”

Page Six also reports that Trump, 78, likes the fact that Vance is a millionaire. The Ohio senator has his own venture capital firm and worked for tech tycoon Peter Thiel in the past. But his book Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, and tells the story of growing up around poverty and drug use in Appalachian Ohio.

Apparently Trump also likes the way Vance looks. “He looks good,” the former president/convicted felon said earlier. “He looks like a young Abraham Lincoln.”

Don Jr. told the Post in March that he was pulling for Vance as opposed to others,, saying “I want a fighter.” This is definitely a game of the old switcheroo since Vance has been critical of Trump in the past but now seems to be adhering to MAGA tropes in recent times. This even includes showing up in New York City last May to support Trump during his hush money trial. At the time Vance told the press, “The thing that the president is prevented from saying, which is a disgrace, is that every single person involved in this prosecution is practically a Democratic political operative.”

He offered no evidence to support this. Maybe like his prospective boss, he likes to remain fact-free.

I’m not hopeful about this election at all. I’m not. But a Donald Trump/JD Vance campaign in 2028 is like pouring salt in the wound.

Are we even going to awaken from this conservative nightmare? I have my doubts.