JD Vance is a rightwing troll disguised as a populist. He could be our next vice-president | Jan-Werner Müller

Having called Trump an idiot' and a potential American Hitler', the Republican senator now fawns over him

There's one thing Donald Trump knows how to do well: maximizing suspense in an elimination contest and treating contestants with exquisite cruelty. Competing for a spot on his presidential ticket is as close as politics can get to The Apprentice, the show that fooled millions of Americans into thinking that Trump was a successful businessman.

A number of Republican candidates for running mate, from the endlessly self-humiliating Tim Scott to the nondescript Doug Burgum, are vying for what surely looks like a political suicide mission: they must know that Trump betrays everyone eventually, yet they seem to think that their fate as a faithful no 2 will be different. Not all aspirants are equally threatening to American democracy, though. The top prize not just for sycophancy, but for clear and present authoritarian danger must go to the man widely considered the veepstakes" frontrunner, JD Vance.

Jan-Werner Muller is a professor of politics at Princeton University and a Guardian US columnist