Trump’s selection of Ohio Senator J.D. Vance as his running mate was not a total shock to the system, but the system was unhappy, nonetheless. The old neocons are howling in agony, claiming he is another Hitler. The slow-witted neocons are similarly unhappy, but they are going with the “he’s not Reagan” line. These are the people who claimed George Bush II was the heir to Reagan. The dried out husk of Buckley conservatism is going with their usual perfidy.
It is not just the yesterday men of the official right who are unhappy. The more strident of the online right are vexed that Vance is married to an Indian and was once a member in good standing of the regime. They think he is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. They look at this slot on the ticket as the heir to Trump and therefore the guy who will lead the cause after Trump’s term ends in 2028. They wanted someone who was more clearly on their side, even though such a person does not exist.
The problem with all of this analysis is that it operates within the conventional framework of politics. Despite his civic nationalist inclinations, Trump is the nullification of the conventional political framework. Over the last decade, there have been two main camps regarding Trump. There are those who think he will operate the levers and gears of the machine to their liking or not to their liking and those who get that he exists to destroy the machine, even as he tries to operate it.
With that in mind, the election of Vance should be seen as Trump starting to understand what is happening. People forget that he was set to announce his pick after the debate, but then put it off so the focus could be on Biden. Vance was most likely not the pick at that point. Tucker Carlson said that Trump decided on Vance around the day he announced the pick. In other words, there is a good chance that Trump’s brush with death had some impact on his thinking.
The way to view Vance ideologically is as a compromise between Trump, the civic nationalist, and his core base of support. Trump and his older voters maintain that the system of America is fine. The trouble is the people running the system. It is why they are so invested in Trump the man. Vance and the subculture in which he primarily exists understands that the system is the problem. They are not revolutionaries, but they think systemic change is necessary to avoid disaster.
Some get this to a degree. Patrick Deneen uses different language to describe Vance, but the idea is the same. This Wall Street Journal post comes at the topic from a more dissident perspective. Graedon H. Zorzi is a worth a follow if you are interested in more nuanced analysis of current events. If you look at the list of people Vance follows on social media, it is a list of people who think critically about politics. In one fashion or another, they are critics of the system.
What Vance represents, and you can put people like Christopher Rufo in the same bucket, is either a final defense of the system or a waystation on the road to what Charles Murray calls the white backlash. This subculture that produced Vance is both a compromise between white identity politics and the old civic nationalism, and a synthesis of the two. It is an identitarianism that is majority white, but tolerant of a fringe that is not white, but fully assimilated.
None of this is to say that this is deliberate. There is no evidence that any of the people in this subculture think of themselves as gatekeepers or facilitators. They are simply staking out ground that is morally tolerable yet they are realistic about what is actually happening in the flesh and blood country called America. To a great degree, they are reactionaries, responding to the fantasy world that is the conservative response to the madness falling from the clouds of the managerial elite.
This is what gets missed in the criticism of Vance from the online right. Vance was not a political guy and when he was encouraged to get into politics, he adopted the politics of the people around him. When he got a good look at what those politics meant, he reacted negatively and started down the path that led him to this point. Anyone who has been to a dissident event has heard a version of this story many times. The people Vance chooses to follow all have similar stories.
The question that remains to be answered is if this subculture that produced Vance can create a plausible political program and challenge the orthodoxy. So far, they have stalled where prior efforts have stalled. They present their analysis of the system and then when asked, “now what?”, they have no answer. Patrick Deneen’s last book is a great example. He explains the defects of what he calls liberalism but then gets frightened by the implications and quits the project.
Another angle to this is that this subculture has attracted the interest and limited support from members of the oligarchy. Peter Thiel and Elon Musk are two examples of billionaires who seem to support this project. Claremont operates like a political version of Y Combinator, sponsoring people and projects within this space. Some have proven to be defective, like Richard Hanania, but others, like the IM1776 project or Passage Press, have been more successful.
Trump tapping into this space and thus getting support from members of the oligarchy bodes well for him and the subculture that produced Vance. No reform effort can survive without elite support. This not only bodes well for the project, but it means Trump has a chance to not only win the election but get something done. Proof that the universe has a sense of humor is that this is the real Flight 93 election, a last attempt by reform minded oligarchs to save the system.
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Vance said the US would look to strengthen alliances between the“Israelis and the Sunni Arab states” to “form a united front against Iran”.
Exclusive: Secret Service ramped up security after intel of Iran plot to assassinate Trump.
The oligarchs are creating a Narrative right now.
Let’s hope white americans aren’t so dumb to believe the future cyber attack, which will be blamed on iran, is worth going to war for.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y36ZEKYMvzM
“It is an identitarianism that is majority white, but tolerant of a fringe that is not white, but fully assimilated.”
That’s how we may frame America, but JD’s family situation smells of the libertarian oligarchy attitude that people are interchangeable, that this is not a blood and soil country. Our demographics are in a dire situation right now. That is really the only issue that matters. I have trouble believing that someone with a lefty “Asian” wife is going to be sensitive to the need to get the house in order.
Exactly. Setting aside the assassination attempt, Trump is an old man, and the chances of this guy becoming El Jefe if Trump is elected are pretty significant. Something tells me that if a guy with a son named Vivek becomes the head honcho, the primary change we can expect is that the flood of immigrants becomes his San Fran girlboss wife’s 203 uncles and 3rd cousins named Pajeet instead of guys named Juan. Frankly, I would rather take the one’s named Juan. They at least have some fragments of European culture in their background from the continent’s history. The dot… Read more »
That’s exactly what happened under Zero, I never saw as many people at the grocery store with head wraps as I did after he was finished with his 8 years of destruction. Remember, born in Hawaii, but his heart was in Indonesia. SSDD.
Impossible to say anything with any surety right yet. I am more informed about American politics than the average Canuck – and I had no idea who this guy is or was. He stinks to high heaven: supposedly raised in poverty and squalor, with a psychotic family… usually kids from those childhoods end up in jail or doing low paying mundane jobs at best. But I am supposed to believe he bravely rose above his circumstances, and rose to prominence in the Marines and other organizations on pluck and merit alone? Pull my other finger! That’s like the Disney movies… Read more »
Was in the Tulsi camp (since she single handedly destroyed Chlamydia Harris’ candidacy) but as far as picking up the MAGA baton in2028 he’s probably the best one + @ 39 we can get away from the octogenarian lean.
You know, theoretically we become adults at age 18. I don’t know about you, but when I was 40 I still had some stupid ideas. You really need another 20 years to learn through life experience and to get cynical enough to have your head screwed on straight. We’re not talking about running a company here, where short-term decision-making rules the day. We’re talking about making decisions that are going to have generational impact. Seasoning that comes through age and experience I think is a plus in government.
Trump’s critics often failed to understand that if they think that the Don is bad, what follows is worse. J. D. Vance shows what follows Trump.
Vance’s youth and wide range of experience are big positives.
His globalist handler wife is a huge negative.
Trump has a foreign wife, but at least she’s one of us. I don’t know if I can handle Barack Obama 2.0, the First Lady edition. At this point, I’m kind of hoping the Democrats go back to being their racist selves. That is really our only hope. The Whigs are worthless. They will never have enough gumption to get our house in order.
There’s been a real democrat FLOTUS problem since Clinton.
Trump’s pick of Vance bought me another election cycle. I thought it was a terrific pick, and most notably, it finally exposed Nick F as a sputtering little goblin: the goy Ben Shapiro.
If the system can be saved, big IF, we’ll need Vance and Gaetz and Massie and Theil and Musk money. Not our guys of course, but like they say, Gaetz didn’t get me cancelled for being edgy online.
After the recent elections in the UK and France, however, I do think this is the actual Flight 93 election. If Trump loses, the Borg has won.
I view the UK and particularly French elections as precursors to revolutionary times. There almost certainly will be a pro-white government elected in France next go-round and a likely civil war to follow.
President Vance will be a successful reformer, just like Gorbachev was in the USSR.
Agreed. That’s where this is going.
There is only one issue that matters in the upcoming election, and that is the energy issue, specifically its falsification as an environmental concern. The “Green New Deal” and it associated patterns of thought represent an existential threat to civilization in a way that nothing else in our day and age even compares to. No energy, no civilization. Everything else is academic. JD Vance is a strong supporter of the oil and gas industry and he considers global climate change to be a fantasy (which it is). That makes him worth supporting, even if it means we get stuck with… Read more »
I’m willing to accept the possibility that you outlined: Vance was involved in the never Trump stuff because he adopted the politics of those around him. He then had some epiphanies and started moving towards Trump, and even some viewpoints on our side. Heck, everyone on here started somewhere else and ended here ideologically. The list of people he follows on X is interesting evidence to that conclusion that I’ll mull over. HOWEVER… You can’t easily gloss over the married to an Indian woman thing. It’s not just that he married an Indian woman. It was an “interfaith” Hindu-Christian marriage… Read more »
Tucker is good at what he does, but I don’t think he has the chops to run government. He’s a media personality and that’s it. Honestly, he needed another Pence, except one who is on our side.
The good thing is that it doesn’t really matter who Trump picked as VP. All candidates must do the ritual at the Western Wall… and that’s just the public part of the ritual.
The system can’t be reformed anyway.
–Everyone keeps asking who else did you want? Mike Flynn, and the two rumors were 1) that was who Trump wanted and 2) That was too far for political insiders to go as the implication would be too clear. –Vance was involved in the never Trump stuff because he adopted the politics of those around him I don’t hold much malice towards pre-2017 “conservative” never-Trumpers. It’s not like they were completely wrong. However after that point the ship had sailed and still carrying on about Orange Man Bad is, at best, intellectually vapid. –It’s not just that he married an… Read more »
It becomes increasingly difficult to get good people to go into politics in a country where the system encourages and allows patsies to try and blow their brains out. So the candidates we’ve got are the ones we’re left with.
“The system” is anti-whiteness. Vivek on the Romans (and Iowa voters) and Vance in his book (and life) have signaled their allegiance to it. Does it need saving? Seems to be doing fine, with or without them. They’re just into it. Trump’s surrender to that faction of the regime is a sad fate, but it’s probably the least horrible end he’s allowed. Does he know? Did he just find out? Is he so boomer-brained he thinks he’s helping out some young go-getters? I suspect that’s Elon’s error. Anyway, America has a hell of a streak of bad days going, but… Read more »
Vance bears the hallmarks of a true toady who has been snatched from a low background, groomed, and installed for oligarchical service. I have worked with and for such amphibians. Vance can never lead a genuine reform let alone revolution. Bend over for the next fifteen million invaders, the talk will be potent but the action will not deliver the medicine. I oppose Vance and will vote Biden to accelerate. To Hell with these muppets.
Staying home is something I am seriously contemplating. I don’t know if I can cross over to the dark side and vote for Biden. Maybe if JD does enough stupid things to piss me off.
I agree totally with this take even though I think the system is beyond reform and doubt it would be desirable to preserve it if that even were possible. You are especially right here: Vance was not a political guy and when he was encouraged to get into politics, he adopted the politics of the people around him. When he got a good look at what those politics meant, he reacted negatively and started down the path that led him to this point. Anyone who has been to a dissident event has heard a version of this story many times.… Read more »
Every true alt right guy has a wife of colour.
What did you think ‘colonization’ meant? Pamphlets? Strongly worded letters?
Living each and every day with a non-white leads directly to noticing???
The best thing that can be said about JD Vance is that he is the virtual opposite of that pussy fart known as Mike Pence. Trump is not going to tolerate any backstabbing going forward and Vance is a fighter, so you want someone like him on your side when the time comes to throw down. If Trump wins in November, I hope Vance will swing a baseball bat in the Senate during the interim before inauguration.
One other thing I wanted to add, what is this fixation center right WASPs have with (dot) Indians? The UK Tories love them, center right Australians love them and now the Whigs here in the US.
Curiously, this is a lot like the Whig love affair with the Jews. Indians, like Jews, don’t vote Republican, either.
It’s like the same people run everything. Nah, that would be a conspiracy.
Good question and I have no answer. This is a continuous thread since at least the time of Cromwell and his alleged Glorious Revolution.
I have listened to far too much of this convention and I have not heard the word “conservative” once.
I don’t really know where Vance stands. I must have read his “Hillbilly Elegy” about seven years back. He hails from the Rust Belt, and his socio-economic background is white lumpenprole. He managed to escape the common destiny of Rust Belt lumpenproles by earning a Yale law degree and going on to a legal career. But he seems to be blaming poor whites in the Rust Belt for what has happened to them (economic and consequently social devastation attendant upon deindustrialisation), and exhorting them to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. If you’re looking for ethnic solidarity, he is probably… Read more »
Vance was the best pick of the likely alternatives, and maybe even the best pick overall. Certainly better than Nikki Haley or Marco Rubio. What I admire about Vance is he has a Machiavellian streak, as Michael Anton might describe it. He played the game very well, like Barack Obama, and cultivated serious people by allowing them to project their own assumptions onto him, without actually declaring his intentions, one way or another. Also like Obama, he has used various names and identities to climb the greasy pole (hopefully not literally). Which brings me to Peter Thiel. Many on the… Read more »
This. We weren’t going to get any better. He brings money, which unfortunately is very important. The intra-Elite competition is emerging and of course this is essential to victory. I’d worry about the rest of it in 3 years.
I can believe that Vance’s politics have evolved in the last 8 years. Whose haven’t? He’s had his chance to see the clown world borg bare its fangs as have the rest of us and has drawn his conclusions. He married his hindu wife 10 years ago, prior to this evolution. Would his political evolution have led to a personal evolution which made a different choice? Hard to say. The point is he’s young, 39, a work in progress. Speaking of his wife, the judges she clerked for were Roberts and Kavanaugh, ostensibly “conservative” but in truth borg. I’d like… Read more »
Would his political evolution have led to a personal evolution which made a different choice?
Excellent question even though it may be wish casting. I personally know of one such case where there was buyer’s remorse over the dusky wife and hapa kids. It does indicate a serious lapse of judgment.
I will give credit where credit is due, I thought Trump would pull a Ronald Reagan and choose the Republican establishments pick for a running mate. Trump choose JD instead, JD is not perfect but who is? Both sides are for sure in Israel’s pocket but at least there are some positive things about this new power center forming in the GOP. Neother Musk nor the PayPal mafia are us, but they don’t hate us either. I will take that.
The people celebrating Trump getting shot or saying it’s fake and he staged it, these people want him dead and all of us dead also. They may pull out all the stops and steal it again. We may be able to see the corruption from Mars but not voting at this point because the candidates aren’t perfect it’s just madness. The other side wants your son’s castrated and your daughter’s raped. All your are voting for is the people that don’t want that. It’s not a real hard decision
At this point my willingness to support Trump and Vance boils down to Ukraine. Both Trump and Vance seem inclined to end the conflict on the most favorable terms Ukraine can get (probably the loss of four oblasts and Crimea and neutrality guaranteed by Russian presence monitoring the remnants of the Ukraine military, but the continued existence of the Ukrainian state). If Ukraine doesn’t agree, Trump and Vance would cut off the funding. The fact that the Europeans seem terrified of Trump and Vance is another reason to support them. Biden, by contrast is likely to do something borderline insane,… Read more »
In that neocon piece you linked to, Bill Kristol wrote, “We’re now way beyond reassuring establishment Republicans, whether business types or social conservatives or foreign hawks.” “foreign hawks,” not “foreign POLICY hawks.” What a Freudian slip!
Let’s assume that you guys are correct and that the assassination attempt was legit. Contrary to popular opinion, this pick gives them even more incentive to whack Trump. If Trump gets whacked, JD is going to have the same problem with his wife that Romney had with his Mormonism. Too much of our base is going to stay home. Probably including me. Honestly, I wouldn’t mind who he’s married to if our immigration were in order. But given what’s happened in the past, I don’t trust this guy at all. Next thing you know, they’ll quadruple the H1B visas and… Read more »