“What happened to JD Vance?”

This is a question I’ve heard a lot these past few days. And I’d like to offer both an opinion, and some evidence to back up that opinion.

Many have suggested that JD Vance has “gone full MAGA” with his support of Donald Trump, and his willingness to be nominated for Vice-President of the United States. And that may be so.
But I’m not actually intending to get into the weeds of Vance’s particular political views and how they have shifted. (That is an interesting story, of course and everybody feel free to knock yourself out, and explore this, issue by issue…)

I’d like to suggest a more nuanced, but also more dangerous, reason to be concerned about JD Vance. I believe it’s the top reason to be concerned about Vance as Vice-President of the United States.

It boils down to this: Through an analysis of his own words, JD Vance is the latest in a long line of “Trump associates” with the hubris to believe he can control and manage Donald Trump.

To illustrate this conclusion, I’d invite you to revisit the actual context of Vance’s 2016 now infamous “American Hitler” comment. It has been widely suggested that Vance called Donald Trump an “American Hitler.”

The truth of Vance’s alleged Godwin Law violation is more nuanced than many are suggesting, as the truth often is. The context is this text message sent to his former college roommate, Josh McLaurin, Democratic State Senator of Georgia. (Hopefully that serves as a full disclosure for anybody reading this…)

The two were friends at the time, but clearly have gone different directions, following their college days. McLaurin released a very revealing text from Vance. It’s just one of the many pieces of evidence available as to Vance’s original 2016 opinions about Donald Trump.

The gist is that JD Vance saw the 2016 election as entirely discouraging. He called Donald Trump the “fruit of the party’s (Republican Party’s) neglect.”

This shockingly tracks with things I believe: that Donald Trump is the rather predictable outcome of our cultural moment, and and if he hadn’t rocketed into our consciousness, somebody else would have.

But it’s the line that includes the “American Hitler” comment that gets my attention. Here’s what Vance actually said:

“I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical (******) like Nixon who wouldn’t be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he’s America’s Hitler.”

So, lets parse this as carefully as we can.

Did JD Vance actually say “Donald Trump is America’s Hitler”?
No.
He clearly did not.

He said he MIGHT BE America’s Hitler.

But lest you think I’m excusing Vance here, pause for a moment and consider the stunning context here… JD Vance was saying that this likely Republican Candidate for President in 2016 might actually be a demagogue, similar to Adolf Hitler. 2016 JD Vance acknowledges that the Republican Party has created, by its own actions, the fertile ground where a demagogue might emerge.
(“…we need to offer those people (poor, lower educated White people) SOMETHING…or a demagogue would.”)

In sum….

2016 JD Vance completely understands the grievance of working class White people.
2016 JD Vance privately conceded that the Republican Party itself is indeed at fault FOR this grievance.
2016 JD Vance is clearly worried that the toxic stew created by both these last two sentences could be fertile ground for a “demagogue.”

Pause over these truths, friends.
They are troubling.

But they are not the most troubling thing he says, given Vance’s ascension as Trump’s Vice Presidential pick. The most troubling thing Vance says here is:

“…(he) might even prove useful.”

That, friends, is the line I want you to focus on.
Here is the heart of the hubris.

The answer to “what happened to JD Vance” is that he’s fallen victim to a hubris that should concern every American.

Not only because of any MAGA views he may or may not hold.
Not just because he once gave serious consideration that Trump might be “America’s Hitler.”
Again, I can’t get inside his mind to figure out the former, and he clearly hedges on the latter.

No. The reason to be concerned about Vance is that he NOW believes he –and some new second-generation of Trump White House staff– can restrain, control, and otherwise “use” Donald Trump.

But we’ve seen this movie before, haven’t we?
Dozens and dozens have tried and failed to “use Donald Trump” to achieve political ends.

In fact, I’ll go a step further. I’m going to give JD Vance a big, huge “benefit of the doubt” here. (One many of you, no doubt, will not…) I’m going to assume that somewhere during these past eight years, JD Vance decided Trump was not America’s Hitler.

But, that even more clearly means that at some point during thest last eight years, Vance consciously chose, and is now choosing, “Option #2.” He is choosing believe that he and others can control Trump, can “use” Trump, for their own political agendas. And that, my friends, is the most dangerous view of all, for anyone we might elect Vice-President, or anyone who might advise Donald Trump.

Dozens and dozens of people have foolishly believed THEY would be ones to control Trump, to reign him in. We’ve foolishly counted on the courts to do this. But most dangerous of all are the close associations whose own hubris lead us to truth them, and them to trust in their own power.

Michael Cohen believed he could control Trump.
So did Trump’s own kids.
General John F Kelly believed it.
Rex Tillerson believed it.
Mike Pompeo believed it.
Dozens and dozens of others.

But finally, there are Mark Meadows and former Vice-President Mike Pence. On January 6th Meadows comes to understand the full extent of what he didn’t control, and he hits alone in his office, watching the insurrectionist horror unfold. Meanwhile, on that same day, Vice-President Pence credibly feared for his life, but stayed at the Capitol to complete his constitutional duty. And, in that moment, Pence forever broke with Donald Trump.
Through his actions, Pence came to understand the level of his own hubris in thinking he could control this American demagogue.

This, my friends, is the true danger of the Trump second term, and people like JD Vance. Not just Donald Trump himself, but also an entirely new team of minions and associations ready to step up the plate and foolishly believe they have the power, skill, and control to do what nobody else ever could.

Which means, as I have been saying, that the only way to defeat America’s newly unleashed fascists and fascist-adjacent leaders, is to keep showing up at the ballot box, election after election, until this fever has finally broken. It might take a decade.

Too many in the Republican Party are addicts who believe they don’t have a problem…or if they acknowledge it at all, foolishly believe in their own power to mold, shape, an control a second Trump term.

The evidence clearly indicates they cannot. But their backs are against the wall, and we (the public) must understand the lengths to which they will now go to “win” this election.

The Trump assassination attempt was horrific and wrong for many reasons, but two huge ones:

1. Because in our nation we should NEVER resort to, or wish for, political violence to achieve politcal change (so long as there is the option of an election…) and
2. Because the of the foolish imaginings that, “if Trump were only out of the way (in jail, dead, etc…) this movement of his would collapse.”

This second point is the most naive.
It is the twin foolishness to Vance’s own hubris.

It foolishly fails to realize the true depth and scope, the sheer number, of fascist and fascist-adjacent people who have been unleashed in our nation, ready to line up and take the place of Mike Pence. (Or, even JD Vance, when he assuredly fails…)

Trust me, in this environment, should Trump magically disappear from the scene tomorrow, somebody else would rise to take his place, aided and abetted by all those who would foolishly believe they could control them. That’s because JD Vance was right when he said the modern Republican Party had created a situation ripe for a demagogue. That’s one thing Vance got right in 2016.

My question for the American public is this then:

Do you really want give another set of Trump associates —even LESS qualified than those in the first term— the chance to do what nobody else has EVER done?

Democrats have their own flaws and foibles. Yes, Joe Biden is really old.

But everyone around Donald Trump is lining up, like fresh, codependent, addiction-enablers, believing that they can control, manage, and guide him… in Vance’s language “use him”

The American people have one clear path to offer an “intervention” to this addictive cycle and behavior.
And that is the November election.

I still don’t know what the American people will do.

But I definitely know what JD Vance cannot.