Former president Donald Trump’s selection of Ohio senator J. D. Vance as his running mate has generated much commentary. The mainstream media has tried to frame Vance as a postliberal “threat to democracy,” while Trump’s supporters have celebrated him as a bridge to a new generation.

But there is a deeper story here. The Vance selection is not a gambit to secure a particular demographic or region—white men are Trump’s base; Ohio is a safe red state—but an effort to cultivate an emerging counter-elite that could make the second Trump administration substantially more effective than the first. ...

If the Trump-Vance ticket wins in November, this counter-elite support could pay significant dividends for the Trump agenda.