Hey, JD Vance, your shameless audition to be Trump’s running mate worked. You conned the con man, but you didn’t fool the majority of Americans. In fact, CNN recently reported that you averaged a net favorability rating of negative 6 points across all polls, a number that was far higher than any other vice presidential nominee since 1980, including Sarah Palin.

Wow, you’ve come a long way down from basking in the aura of Yale Law School to wallowing in the mud with the likes of Sarah Palin.

Let’s pause to remind our readers of a time not so long ago when you were spot-on in your assessment of Donald Trump.

Remember when you said Trump was an “idiot” who was “unfit for our nation’s highest office?” Or when you referred to Trump as “America’s dictator?” Or called him “morally unscrupulous?”

Or how about that time after the release of the Access Hollywood tapes, the one in which Trump bragged that he could grab women by the private parts. You said, “Fellow Christians, everyone is watching us when we apologize for this man. Lord help us.”

It gets better. Recall when you said, “Trump is cultural heroin. He is noxious, and he is leading the white working class to a very dark place.” Bingo!

Just curious, JD. What do your Yale Law School classmates think about your decision to hitch yourself to a man who led an insurrection, wants to dismiss the Constitution and believes climate change is a hoax? Will they be honest with you or will they stay silent so they don’t jeopardize their chances of clerking for a conservative Supreme Court Justice?

Now, voila!, you’ve become one of Trump’s staunchest defenders, an apologist to the max. You claimed, for example, that Trump was “not a vengeful guy.” Meghan McCain, daughter of late-Sen. John McCain, took issue with that statement, to put it mildly. As she said, “Every member of the McCain family can attest firsthand that this is a bald-faced lie.”

And another “oops.” You claimed that people like Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices they’ve made, and they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.” You’ve even suggested that people without children don’t have a stake in the future of the country.

Hey, JD, that type of garbage might amuse Tucker Carlson and the extreme MAGA folks, but, as you discovered, it doesn’t fly with decent, thinking Americans. Trump will have you to blame when Taylor Swift, a childless cat owner, endorses Kamala Harris.

Speaking of garbage. That’s the label your new hero Donald Trump slapped on Kamala Harris. It seems like your new father figure forgot his pledge to “unify the country” after the attempted assassination.

Speaking of assassination, remember when the Jan. 6 rioters yelled “Hang Mike Pence!” Pence had the temerity to follow the Constitution rather than refuse Trump’s demand not to certify the 2020 election results.

Your willingness to go along with Trump’s Big Lie about the 2020 election no doubt raised your stature in Trump’s eyes. But remember this: Trump will not hesitate to throw you under the bus at the first opportunity if you displease him. In fact, he might even throw you off the ticket if he thinks you’ll hurt his chances winning the 2024 election.

You’re a big ban-abortion guy, JD, which is catnip for many white Evangelical Christians, but castor oil for the vast majority of Americans.

In a January 2022 podcast, you speculated about a post-Roe America, saying, “Every day George Soros sends a 747 to Columbus to load up disproportionately Black women to get them to go have abortions in California. And, of course, the left will celebrate this as a victory for diversity – uh, that’s kind of creepy.”

What’s creepy, JD, is people like you thinking you have the maturity, judgment and values to hold the second highest office in the land.

David Treadwell, a Brunswick writer, welcomes commentary and suggestions for future “Just a Little Old” columns at dtreadw575@aol.com.