In the second episode of our hyper-short 2024 election series, ‘NotesBeforeYouVote.com,’ we consider the curious case of JD Vance in under 60 seconds. Vance, like so many Trump associates, has done a complete about-face from when he warned that Donald Trump was so dangerous he might be “America’s Hitler.”
It should be especially noted that while the Harris/Walz ticket appears on the ascendent, anything can happen in a tight race. Given the unhealthy pallor, ragged energy, and growing cognitive confusion of old Donald, it is within the realm of possibility that JD “Non-breeding women don’t deserve equal rights” Vance could be president this time next year, if their ticket wins and Trump keels over.
In the video, I quote from a post by a fellow West Virginian and old friend, Deirdre Purdy, from her, alas, recently discontinued, but well-argued substack, ‘Rare Old Bird: A WV Rural Democrat.’ She nails the grubby quality of JD Vance’s opportunistic, now extremely hard-line politics. His aim seems ever to be to paint himself a hard-truth hero, but really and truly to move himself towards power, forget whatever ethical flip-flops and circus contortions are needed.
DEIRDE PURDY:
"Before his elevation to Trump’s right hand, Vance was best known for his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, which was widely praised by the (non-Appalachian) cultural elites as a “tough love analysis of the poor who back Trump.” Appalachia, Vance wrote, is a “hub of misery.”
Those who love Appalachia choose to differ. Start with the title: “Hillbilly” — a pejorative for ignorant, lazy, and unsophisticated rubes. “Elegy” — a lament for the dead. It implies that hillbillies should mourn themselves and their culture.
Vance describes family and friends from his quasi-Appalachian youth (his grandparents who largely raised him were from Kentucky) as chronic spendthrifts, drug addicts, alcoholics, dependent on welfare, who mostly failed to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
Mamaw, Vance’s grandmother was a strong influence who “loathed disloyalty, and there was not greater disloyalty than class betrayal.” Mamaw tried. The more sociological parts of Hillbilly Elegy are class betrayal, pure and simple.
Like Trump, Vance has total contempt for the people he claims to speak for. He characterizes people from Appalachia as deserving their poverty because of their self-destructive moral failings
Vance’s simplistic rags-to-riches tale does have a hero: JD Vance. By sheer incredible strength of personal will, Vance says, Vance escaped from and rose above Appalachia.
From the Marines to Ohio State to Yale Law to venture capitalism in the techno-libertarian wing of Silicon Valley with Peter Thiel to the US Senate from Ohio thanks to Trump’s endorsement and $15 million from Thiel, 39-year-old Vance has always been a “hyper-ambitious shape-shifter who will do anything or be anyone to get ahead.” (David Frum) | READ WHOLE POST HERE
PRESIDENT VANCE???
Politics-wise, what would a Vice President JD and possible President Vance seek for a new hardline America? Vance, Purdy notes, “is the ultimate hardliner on abortion: no exceptions for rape or incest.” He supports a nationwide abortion ban and would use the Comstock Act to prevent abortion drugs from reaching women, while opposing IVF, the procedure that has brought children to so many desperate families. He’d also abandon Ukraine, poo-poo climate change, and echo a militaristic approach to all dissent in America. Vance, then, is the wet-dream future of the MAGA vision for the country. Purdy concludes (in a quote part of which you’ll see in the video):
Commentators who say the Vance nomination brought Trump nothing miss the point that Vance brings Trump a mini-Trump, younger and more virulent, who never heard a Trump-word he wasn’t willing to echo. Vance promises to extend pure MAGA, Christian nationalism, and Trumpism deep into the 21st century. | READ ON
PARTING THOUGHT No. 1
PARTING THOUGHT No. 2
EDITORIAL CARTON: MIKE SMITH | Las Vegas Sun | More of his work
FINAL THOUGHT: Which candidates embody this more?
VIEW EPISODE 1 in the ‘NotesBeforeYouVote series | Click
LINK TO EPISDE 1: ‘No Climate For You’
SHAPE-SHIFTING JD WINCE