Senator J.D. Vance looks on as former president Donald Trump speaks to the media during his hush money trial for at Manhattan Criminal Court.(Mark Peterson / Getty Images)
On the day convicted felon Donald Trump made his triumphal (?) return to the US Capitol, which is still standing although his thugs ransacked it on January 6, CNN published a great story about all the terrible things Ohio Senator J.D. Vance said and promoted about Trump on social media and elsewhere before (and shortly after) Trump was elected. Vance, you might have heard, is reportedly on the short list to be Trump’s vice president.
OK, I know: These people can’t be shamed (e.g., Senators Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Lindsey Graham; the list goes on). As long as you ultimately kiss the ring, you get total absolution in Trump world.
But that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy reveling in the hypocrisy of Vance, who became the supposed bard of the white working class after his memoir Hillbilly Elegy came out. The New York Times promoted it as “a tough love analysis of the poor who back Trump.” CNN made him a contributor after the book’s publication.
Be sure to read the CNN piece yourself. But a few points jumped out at me.
I remembered that Vance had been a Trump critic. I didn’t remember how harshly. Or how self-servingly. (CNN revealed some of this when Vance declared his run for Senate, but much of it is new.) Never forget: He called the man he now creepily worships “cultural heroin” in The Atlantic. His brand was conservative morality, which he found lacking in his “hillbilly” family.
The new piece focuses heavily, though not exclusively, on viciously anti-Trump tweets Vance liked (which is maybe why Vance ally Elon Musk recently decided to make “likes” on his hellsite invisible.) My favorite: Vance liked a tweet featuring a photo of Trump and the late O.J. Simpson. “Here is an old picture of one of USA’s most hated, villainous, douchey celebs. Also in picture: OJ Simpson.” Good to know he enjoys a little dark humor.
After the Access Hollywood tape came out, Vance liked a tweet that read: “Maybe the Central Park 5 could take out a full-page ad to condemn the coddling of thug real estate barons who commit serial sexual assault.”
He also, rather vainly, promoted tweets that suggested he might have a role in a future Hillary Clinton administration, although he eventually pivoted to #NeverHillary.
As late as August 2017, he denounced Trump’s Charlottesville riot comments, praising the “very fine people on both sides,” and writing, “There is no moral equivalence between the anti-racist protestors in Charlottesville and the killer (and his ilk).” As CNN has previously reported, he deleted his Trump-critical Charlottesville comments before declaring his Senate run.
In short, he’s a charlatan launched by mainstream media as the “white working class” whisperer, even though he was working in investment banking when he wrote his book largely blaming the poor for their own poverty.
But again, as you could predict, Vance is unapologetic for his hypocrisy. He told CNN that realizing the “corporate media and Deep State’s” work to undermine Trump changed his mind.
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“I’m proud to be one of his strongest supporters in the Senate today and I’m going to do everything in my power to ensure President Trump wins in November—the survival of America depends on it.” The grandiosity, it hurts.
Donald Trump Jr. vouched for him. “We’re 100% confident that JD is America First to the core” and “no one in the Senate has been a stronger supporter of my father.” Trump campaign factotum Jason Miller, intriguingly, compared Vance’s past criticism of Trump to Vice President Kamala Harris’s criticism of President Joe Biden when she was running against him in the Democratic primary four years ago. “It’s important to keep in mind that politics is ultimately politics,” he said.
It’s also important to keep in mind that most Republicans have sold their souls and their values to the convicted felon and adjudicated sexual assaulter who has lost control of his business empire for fraud. The gulf between the values that first made Vance famous and his pro-Trump stance today is wider than it is for most. Should he become Trump’s VP pick, I’ll look forward to seeing him on the debate stage with Kamala Harris.
Joan WalshTwitterJoan Walsh, a national affairs correspondent for The Nation, is a coproducer of The Sit-In: Harry Belafonte Hosts The Tonight Show and the author of What’s the Matter With White People? Finding Our Way in the Next America. Her new book (with Nick Hanauer and Donald Cohen) is Corporate Bullsh*t: Exposing the Lies and Half-Truths That Protect Profit, Power and Wealth In America.