Who is JD Vance?

Elections & Politics Policy Brief #133 | By: Arvind Salem| July 25, 2024
Featured Photo: www.cnn.com
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After possibly the best month of his political career, complete with heroically surviving assassination and a triumphant debate performance spurring calls for his opponent to leave the race, Donald Trump had one last major political task: selecting a vice-president. Dissatisfied with Mike Pence for his refusal to help Trump overturn the 2020 election, Trump turned to a new candidate, one that has publicly expressed he would do what Pence wouldn’t on January 6th: JD Vance.

JD Vance burst into the spotlight after the publication of his memoir  Hillbilly Elegy. The memoir was even taken up by Hollywood and made into a movie. Taken as a narrative, the memoir tells the inspirational story of how J.D. Vance grew up in a poor, broken household yet still managed to rise to the highest echelons of American society. The book was a very product of his rise to this level of society, as it was Yale Law Professor Amy Chua that encouraged Vance to write it in the first place. The book was published in 2016, before Vance would be selected for Vice-President or even win his election to the Senate (which he won in 2022). However, Hillbilly Elegy received backlash from many members of Appalachia as overly critical of Appalachia’s culture and history, and they argued that Vance was using his anecdotal experience to make unsubstantiated, broad statements about Appalachia as a whole. The broader, controversial, argument of Hillbilly Elegy that Vance explicitly states is that culture and laziness are the root cause of poverty rather than uncontrollable economic circumstance. Politically, Hillbilly Elegy became significant as a way to justify Trump’s appeal to formerly blue collar, Democrat industrial towns in 2016, leading to the collapse of the “Blue Wall” in Trump’s  victory over Hillary Clinton.

Analysis:

As a person, JD Vance has a deeply inspiring story. However, in terms of policy, JD Vance’s positions represent dangerous chameleon tendencies (also observed by JD’s mentor David Frum, a speechwriter in the George W. Bush administration, who helped Vance early in his career).

There is no clearer example of this, than JD’s position on Donald Trump, where he first called him a “fraud,” “a moral disaster” and “cultural heroin” but then sought Trump’s endorsement in a crowded Republican primary in Ohio and has been one of his loyalists ever since. Since then, he’s mirrored and even extended many of the right’s political positions. In the Senate, he “introduced a bill seeking to establish English as the official national language” and has called for the deportation of “every single person who invaded our country illegally.” On abortion, he’s more extreme than even Trump himself, who wants to leave it to the states, saying that he would support a national abortion ban after 15 weeks. He supports halting aid to Ukraine and cracking down on dissidents at universities.

Some of these positions are well within the acceptable window of common public discourse, namely halting aid to Ukraine, but the root of the problem stems from JD’s obsequiousness towards Donald Trump on issues that should not be in the realm of discussion (such as overturning a democratic election in 2020). Before January 6th, in modern history, there has not really ever been a choice between following a President or protecting democracy. JD made clear that given that choice: he would choose Trump and ask the states to explore multiple slates of electors, which is a power left to the states and not the vice-president: an ironic turn of events for the party of devolution.


Engagement Resources:
  • Brennan Center; The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School is an organization that promotes reforms to American democracy and argues against many practices today such as gerrymandering and mass incarceration. Readers who are concerned about the health of democracy in light of this pick may wish to donate to this organization.
  • Act for America; Act for America is an organization that seeks to educate and mobilize Americans against foreign and domestic threats, and advocates for bills to achieve these aims. Those who feel that this pick constitutes a breakdown of justice may wish to support this organization.
  • ActBlue; ActBlue allows people to donate to a host of Democratic organizations, candidates, and causes. Readers are likely to find organizations that are opposing the Trump -Vance ticket on this site and may wish to donate money to further that cause.

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