92 Comments

Thank you for this article. I only have one comment. White Christofacist men = white supremacy. 😳

Expand full comment

Take this from an expert who sees it the way I see it. #VoteBlue up and down and everywhere, regardless of who it is.

https://x.com/TimothyDSnyder/status/1813561316831088978

Timothy Snyder

@TimothyDSnyder

Got all the way through the Constitution and did not find the provision whereby the South African oligarchs select the vice-presidential nominees on behalf of the Russian dictator.

Expand full comment

Love the last paragraph!

Expand full comment

Just saw an ad by VP Harris saying Vance is for a national abortion ban. Glad to see it.

Expand full comment

Vance is not a free agent. He has many handlers and Pelosi said to trump (paraphrasing) 'everything you do points to Russia' and with Vance it is even more true. How can we not understand this? Our whole country being maneuvered by a foreign adversary, ceding control of our country? Unlike UK or France, we are a nation of only two major political parties and when one of them becomes Pootie's party, what are we even doing here? Fuck the media for being complicit in selling the country to a foreign adversary. Have you all noticed how weak, old, and spent trump looks in the convention videos? He has trouble getting up to clap and has trouble keeping his eyes open.

https://x.com/davetroy/status/1813431194861588707

Expand full comment

Apologies if it is irritating to see my numerous comments. I just want to share the research on this guy. He is more dangerous than trump because he thinks he is an intellectual (though not the lefty kind) and that he thinks he can.

OK here is Vance going after our universities. America, the beacon of higher ed that attracts the cream of the crop from all over the world (well, not so much since 2016), has been the powerhouse for technology, innovation and so much more, this Vance fucker wants to burn it all down (instead of the liberal approach to make it accessible for everyone). This guy is nuts! It is truly giving a diamond to a monkey who will not understand the value of it.

https://x.com/highbrow_nobrow/status/1812964589447094682

The Intellectualist

@highbrow_nobrow

CBS News: Hungary’s Viktor Orbán seized control of universities rewrote the Constitution and neutered the courts. Is that what you're advocating for in the US?

JD Vance: I think Orbán made smart decisions that we could learn from in the US. (June 2024)

Good to see others echoing what I am seeing:

https://x.com/JYSexton/status/1813253906446876806

Expand full comment

Of course Vance wants to pull the ladder up after he got his Ivy League law degree at Yale and degree from Ohio State. Disgusting. Education for me but not for thee.

Expand full comment

Thanks for these links, Padma.

Expand full comment

Here is one more: :)

https://x.com/davetroy/status/1813432027019886643

Dave Troy

@davetroy

·

8h

1/It’s beyond clear from evidence that Trump would not have chosen Vance, and that Musk, Sacks, Carlson et al pushed Trump to select him. This suggests Trump and Vance are beholden to that network, and are also aligned with Putin’s interests. The only thing more terrifying than…

Dave Troy

@davetroy

·

8h

2/Trump and his capriciousness is this scenario, where he is not only beholden to Putin’s network, but also fully disposable.

He is a beaten, pathetic man, and knows that if he steps out of line, he’s never more than an inch away from being erased. And indeed, there will be…

Dave Troy

@davetroy

·

8h

3/an incentive to have him gone. Once November 5 comes, he should employ a taster, avoid windows, and stay indoors. He will become fully unnecessary, and even in the way of this team of would-be Red Caesars.

Dave Troy

@davetroy

4/Corollary: Musk and Putin are in charge of this enterprise now. The rest of the Republican Party is a phantom limb and just doesn’t realize it yet. They will.

Expand full comment

THIS IS TERRIFYING. And wholly believable :(

Expand full comment

I choose to believe that Vance is Trump’s worst choice for VP, precisely because he is a MAGA dream. His radical views will attract the extreme right, but they will alienate moderates, and guarantee they lose the women’s vote by a huge margin.

Expand full comment

But if they still win, then he’s a great choice for Project 2025 authors. And right now, maybe they’re cocky, but if the election was held today they’d win.

Expand full comment

Read this: from 2022! These fuckers are not going anywhere even if we defeat trump.

I repeat a comment I left on another thread. Murdoch, Thiel, Musk, these fucking foreigners have come to this country, enriched themselves beyond measure because of it, and now want to destroy it. Fuck them!

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/04/inside-the-new-right-where-peter-thiel-is-placing-his-biggest-bets

This is crazy like giving diamonds to monkeys, a bunch of nutcases and misfits (reminds me of broken people who don't know how to deal with a normal world)! and now one of them has an opportunity to get into the WH: (some excerpts from the article)...

"Vance described two possibilities that many on the New Right imagine—that our system will either fall apart naturally, or that a great leader will assume semi-dictatorial powers."

""He [Vance] said he thought this was pessimistic. “I tend to think that we should seize the institutions of the left,” he said. “And turn them against the left. We need like a de-Baathification program, a de-woke-ification program.”

“I think Trump is going to run again in 2024,” he said. “I think that what Trump should do, if I was giving him one piece of advice: Fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people.”

And when the courts stop you,” he went on, “stand before the country, and say—” he quoted Andrew Jackson, giving a challenge to the entire constitutional order—“the chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.”

This is a description, essentially, of a coup.

“We are in a late republican period,” Vance said later, evoking the common New Right view of America as Rome awaiting its Caesar. “If we’re going to push back against it, we’re going to have to get pretty wild, and pretty far out there, and go in directions that a lot of conservatives right now are uncomfortable with.”"

Expand full comment

wow, this guy is openly Project 2025 but he looks better than that crazy Bannon or any of the other trump minions. He is the perfect fit for pootie and for destroying the modern administrative state, young, white, and lasts longer than trump. In fact, they might want this guy now and not trump, though trump will sign off on everything they want. America's nightmare continues even if we defeat trump this election.

Republican Voters Against Trump

@AccountableGOP

JD Vance: “We need a De-Ba’athification program in the U.S....We should seize the administrative state for our own purposes. We should fire all of the people...every single middle-level bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state. Replace them with our people.”

https://x.com/AccountableGOP/status/1812940196062642365

Expand full comment

Thank you for the call out on the Times article. I sent an email to the journalist expressing disappointment in how misleading his article is.

Expand full comment

That's where the power, money,an influence is. Donald Barr, Bill Barr's father converted to extreme catholicism. Opus Dei if I remeber correectly.

Expand full comment

Yeah, that worries me.

Expand full comment

This in particular:

“Vance is tied to ‘Catholic integralism,’ an ideology that seeks Christian influence over society.”

Expand full comment

I wonder how his Hindu in-laws feel about that -- his wife told Fox that she likes that he is religious and thoughtful... I don't think he has any family of his own, maybe his mom but his dad apparently abandoned him when he was a child. He is a broken man selling his soul.

Expand full comment

I wonder how much of Vance's anger and hostility comes from his extended family's background as lower class. I suspect his entire adult life is inevitable big "I'll shoe the world that I'm important, I'm not like my deadbeat family ".

Expand full comment

For some people being raised in a low SES plays out as a sort of narcissistic wound, an injustice that requires retribution. Plus, to such a vain main, going through life with such a weasel face must be a source of chronic anger.

Expand full comment

yes. this is the vibe I am getting from reading things about him. He seems like he is out to burn down the country to start something different. Read the VF article I posted and you come away thinking something is terribly wrong with these people. I mean they can hold whatever views they express for themselves but have no business forcing others to follow (and they should not be anywhere near policy making that will affect millions of people - not in America).

Expand full comment

To me, this lines up with the Catholic Opus Dei b.s. that several SC justices and Leonard Leo ascribe to. Their mission, from God of course, is to force it on all of us.

Expand full comment

Oh yeah, that Opus Dei is freaky deaky scary.

No, we will not accept it.

Expand full comment

he is part of Leo network too of course... there is a video of him talking to that group. So much of our institutions have been infiltrated and now they are going for the executive branch having captured the judiciary. They don't appear to have much use for trump other than that he is running and won't go away -- in fact they are trying to diminish the damage like Jan 6th and all his court cases have done for the new brand.

Expand full comment

Trump was the useful idiot who was already nationally known and adept at creating an image that appealed to a certain segment of America. After being elected, he could grift, and Leonard Leo and the Heritage folks could gain the power to hijack our government. Symbiotic relationship.

Expand full comment

I'm vaguely disappointed. I was hoping Trump would pick Rubio long enough for him to quit the Senate and move out of Florida before Trump changed his mind.

Expand full comment

Me too! He said he hates the job!

Expand full comment

Interesting that Vance holds these views--since his wife worked at a San Francisco law firm and left the day he accepted the VP nomination. https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/wife-trump-running-mate-jd-vance-resigns-s-f-law-19576077.php

Expand full comment

I was reading about his wife last night - a woman with three federal clerkships, including then-Judge Kavanaugh and Chief Justice Roberts - very prestigious. She's got an amazing resume and so many achievements, including being a partner at that law firm! Of course they've had childcare for their three small children - what a hypocrite Vance is!! It's gross! I guess his wife felt she had to resign to keep their image...so sad!!

Expand full comment

She's way too smart to be with such a venal individual like him.

Expand full comment

Maybe she’s becoming a trad wife as is his desire for all women.

Expand full comment

Taking quotes out of context to make politicians appear in a certain light (whether their own party or the “other side”) is a ploy I’d expect from Fox or other right wing media outlets, not the NYT. This is extremely disappointing. As a librarian who deals with information on a daily basis, I’m starting to think looking at primary source documents as Jessica did here is really the ONLY way to know up from down, true from false. It’s very difficult to take anyone’s interpretation and analysis as the “truth” anymore, even seemingly trustworthy sources. I’ll be sending the NYT a note about this. Thanks for bringing that to our attention, Jessica!

Expand full comment

What happened to a free press that is supposed to be reporting without judgement or wrong headed editing!

Expand full comment

2016: oh man the press is sure messing things up!

2020: oh god oh god

2024:

Expand full comment

2024: deja Vu.

Expand full comment