Tag Archives: J.D. Vance

It shouldn’t be. The vast improvements in America since 1776 shouldn’t be up for dispute. Freedom of religion, equality for all (however poorly applied in practice), the end of slavery, effective treatments for countless diseases — these should be the baseline. Instead, there are right-wingers such as racist, misogynist preacher John MacArthur and Joel Webbon (who believes America belongs to white people) who would happily undo it all so they can feel being white with a penis makes them special (as I’ve said before, patriarchy makes you stupid and mean; so does racism). Plus anti-vax crackpots such as RFK (or this guy). As someone said many years ago, if slavery became legal again tomorrow there’d immediately be people driving around with chains in their trucks looking to make money.

Defending the gains humanity has made wastes a lot of energy we could be spending making things better. But it has to be done. The same is true of keeping Republicans out of power. The Felon has made it clear he’s done with democracy, freedom of speech, everything if he gets into office again; Republicans are there with him. Assuming we beat them Tuesday (and in whatever violence and court cases follow—though Cheryl Rofer thinks that’s overstated as a threat) we’ll have to keep doing it. Endless struggle to maintain a functioning democracy isn’t anything I look forward to. For the moment, it’s a necessity, so if you haven’t voted, do it tomorrow (assuming you’re not voting for Trump).

There’s no guarantee anyone now fawning on Trump, such as Kennedy or Musk, will get a post in his administration. Trump has no qualms about stabbing his toadies in the back. But it will be someone bad. They’re now advocating for the economy to crash and getting rid of vaccines. Not to mention ruining Obamacare (“Free market” seems to be a euphemism for letting insurers charge more for pre-existing conditions). And for networks that criticize Trump to lose their broadcast license.

While religious conservatives lie about Harris suppressing Christianity, they’ll happily do it to Christians who disagree with them. To say nothing of the increased calls for violence, including from Trump (which Newsmax thinks are awesome). To Republican fascists, everyone who disagrees with them is the enemy within.

Trump is definitely losing it mentally, but that just gives more of an opening for JD Vance, “the most unqualified man ever to run for vice president” to seize power. And Vance is one nasty piece of work.

I have no idea of the outcome Tuesday. And given all the factors, including just the work of counting ballots, it may be a while before we know for sure. But I agree with Jennifer Rubin, it’s not hopeless. Harris has run an amazing campaign; Trump has been incompetent. Between the electoral college and the voters who think Trump will be better for their wallet or actually want to persecute immigrants or establish a Christian state, that may not be enough … but maybe it will. Don’t give up, ever.

J.D. Vance’s standard response when he’s caught taking the side of, say, abusive husbands, is to whine about unfair media treatment. i.e., how dare they report his statements accurately! Likewise, blowback after Trump accused Kamala Harris of cosplaying as a black woman is just hysterical over-reaction from the media. No, it isn’t. Nor is Trump making a relatively subtle point about Harris’ “chameleon-like nature,” as Vance claims. He’s lying that the woman who attended an HBCU and pledged a black sorority didn’t acknowledge her black side until there was political advantage. Much the same way some Republicans said Obama wasn’t really black.

As for chameleonic, he’s shifted his positions a lot over the years as it suited him (which makes me wonder how deep his conversion to Catholicism goes). Case in point, “Vance tells us repeatedly that he often did things in law school just because they were expected of him” or “He wants to hold fast to the his wounded Scots-Irish machismo while simultaneously rising to heights of both American capitalism and cultural success.”

Ever wonder what Vance’s mixed-race children think of him trashing Harris’ mixed-race heritage? Well, apparently Vance isn’t willing to risk offending Republican white-supremacist voters even when they attack his wife: “Obviously, she’s not a white person, and we’ve been accused, attacked by some white supremacists over that. But I just, I love Usha.” Which is good. But you’ll notice he’s not criticizing the racists or telling them to back off.

One thing where he’s consistent is his horrible views on women in general. More here. Childless women, according to Vance are pathetic and miserable. More than that, they’re “psychotic sociopaths.” He’s marching in lockstep with the massive misogyny of the right wing. That’s where the advantage for his career lies. And while Republicans are keen on forcing women into motherhood, they won’t do crap to help them afford it. Vance did, however, lie about Harris opposing the tax-credit vote he skipped out on.

In other political news, Rep. Jim Jordan has decided to investigate the daughter of the judge in one of Trump’s trials. Astonishingly he feels no need to investigate Ginni Thomas, SCOTUS wife and 1/6 supporter. Funny, that.

Trump’s birtherist attack on Harris’ ethnicity doesn’t play well outside the base. Within the Republican camp they’re all piling on. I think Harris can take it. At this point in her life, she’s probably used to it.

Our whiny wannabe dictator is pissed that nobody from Google called after his shooting: “Google, nobody called from Google. Google has been very bad. They’ve been very irresponsible. And I have a feeling that Google’s going to be close to shut down,”

If law enforcement prosecutes a corrupt Republican elections official they’ll face “piano wire and a blowtorch” according to Trump toady Patrick Byrne. Expect more of this if we deny them their white supremacist dictatorship in November.

“Trumpism’s potential destruction of liberal democracy in a wave of reactionary authoritarianism with fascist highlights, has at bottom just been another of Donald Trump’s endless stream of grifts.”

Looks like the senator really, really, really hopes to be Trump’s right-hand lickspittle — er vice-president.

Vance, , if you remember, is the raging misogynist who think being able to divorce an abusive spouse is a bad thing. And that people should get extra votes based on the number of children they have. I presume both are pitches to religious conservatives who think it’s a man’s right to beat his wife and that breeding huge Duggar-like families is a godly thing. His recent statements on Trump likewise seem to be toadying to the former president.

The recent $83 million defamation verdict against Trump? Joe Biden made it happen and the jurors were liberal so it isn’t a valid decision (as Philip Bump puts it, “suggesting that New York is one of several “extremely left-wing jurisdictions” where Trump is facing charges, implying that this was a stacking of the deck against Trump instead of a result of his alleged crimes while he lived in those jurisdictions.”)! And this isn’t something 2024 voters care about so stop mentioning Trump’s a rapist! And Congress should have refused to certify the 2020 results until the states submitted some pro-Trump electors because there were serious problems like social media covering up the evidence against Hunter Biden (Rep. Elise Stefanik, who’s competing with Vance for the Most Loyal Trump Toadie Award, is likewise anti-certification). Of course, even if that swayed the election results (it didn’t) that doesn’t justify not certifying the electors, any more than James Comey’s bullshit about Clinton in 2016 (which probably did tip the scales) invalidated Trump’s win.

Keep in mind, Vance has already called for Trump to fire anyone in government not loyal to him and ignore any Supreme Court decisions he considers invalid. And parroted right-wing lies about how J6 rioters are being locked up without trial. But as LGM says, his views (to the extent he believes any of it) shows again Republicans are all in on their lord and master, Trump. And for the attempted coup: Charlie Kirk, for instance, claims the rioters wouldn’t have been arrested if they’d made a gay sex tape. He seems to think this makes sense.

As Jennifer Rubin says, faced with tyranny, people can resist, accommodate or collaborate. “Republicans did not face imprisonment or death for standing up to Trump. It wasn’t that hard to put up a fight” but very few joined the Dems in resisting. Instead they accommodated, providing examples of “how a reasonable person can dismiss Trump’s astounding disregard for the law and even for basic decency and yet still vote for him and other GOP candidates in the name of some greater good” or they collaborated, whole-heartedly supporting Trump’s agenda and, if he wins, dictatorship. Vance has chosen option 3.

In a just world the Republican pro-fascist, anti-woman Party would have been crushed under a blue wave. But given gerrymandering, voter suppression efforts and the norman trend of midterm elections to work against the party in the White House, holding Republicans to such modest gains is remarkable.

I’m particularly please by Cortez Masto’s win. Not only does her win give us control of the Senate (counting Vice President Harris’s tie-breaker vote), but I wrote GOTV postcards via Activate Blue on her behalf. It’s good to feel I contributed. It’s great to know that things like that help make a difference, that it really was a better choice than sitting on my butt. Not that success is guaranteed — I GOTVed for Cheri Beasley in NC and she lost — but it’s worth trying.

The clear message is don’t treat women like crap but I doubt Republicans will accept it. As witness Gab CEO Andrew Torba declaring women are a threat to civilization (heard that one before, asshat). Jesse Waters suggests we get single women married to make them turn Republican (spoiler: won’t work). Then again, Republicans lost every demographic but older white voters. Which explains why Florida went so red, I guess.

I am getting plenty of schadenfreude watching them go from “red wave!” to sputtering indignantly. It’s the fault of celebrity candidates with no political savvy. Marjorie Taylor Greene is shocked and appalled that anyone would blame Trump (guess she really does hope to be his VP pick). Tucker Carlson, talking head on America’s most-watched news network, blames the media. Kayleigh McEnany worries if Trump announces before the Georgia runoff, it’ll hurt Walker. From your lying lips to God’s ears, my dear. Paul Campos has a fantasy of 2024 that’s more implausible but it would be fun.

More likely the mistake was their choice of battleground.  Culture war stuff didn’t trigger a red wave. White supremacism and fascism turned voters off. No wonder white supremacist Nick Fuentes

That Walker still has a shot tempers my delight. So does JD Vance winning in Ohio. But we have multiple gubernatorial wins, multiple election deniers — not all of them — going down to defeat. More gays and women in high office. Abortion rights measures won in multiple states. It looks like Sarah Palin’s political comeback ain’t happening. While Cheri Beasley lost as NC senator to a Republican, NC forced-birther Bo Hines went down in flames.

Newt Gingrich, a man who built his brief political career on smearing Democrats now pretends outrage that Biden has demonized Republicans. Of course the stuff Biden says about their misogyny, theocracy and opposition to democracy is absolutely true, which is not something anyone can say about any view Gingrich ever expressed.

While I’ve only seen Gingrich mouthing off on Fox News it’s depressing that he does occasionally do op-eds or interviews for reasonably sane media outlets. He’s been outside the halls of power for years, he never had any deep insights when he was in them, who cares what he thinks? The same with Trump. Yes, it was amusing to know he was freaking out but there’s no need to report every furious accusation he flings on Truth Social or track who he’s mad at for failing him. He’s an ex-president and he won’t say anything we haven’t heard before so why not just ignore him?

In the last analysis Superman was right: fighting for truth and justice is a never ending battle. I’m looking around for ways to keep contributing to the fight, whether it’s donations, writing Please Vote postcards (I’ve signed up to write postcards for potential Warnock voters) or whatever. Victory is not assured, but Tuesday showed us that neither is defeat. And contrary to some pre-election takes, victory without compromising our principles.

Curtis “Mencius Goldbug” Yarvin’s calls to destroy American democracy  have become an inspiration for dictatorship loving right-wingers such as J.D. Vance. (yes, the guy who thinks it’s wrong women can divorce abusive husbands). This detailed interview in Vox has me wondering what’s really going on in his head.

Yarvin makes the stunningly novel argument that democracy has failed, therefore what’s needed is a dictatorship. But a good dictatorship, an absolute monarch who looks out for all the people, not just a given political faction (I’m reminded of Vincent Price declaring in Scream and Scream Again that his creation will be “Yes, a master race, but not an evil master race!”). Such dictators is few and far between. The probability of finding one is even more remote when you consider Yarvin wants a right-wing dictatorship to break free of the left’s supposed control of culture, education and government. The Republican right wing has no interest in setting up a government that works for everyone. Their dreams of a new constitutional convention are specifically so they can impose their minority will on the rest of the country, not to form a united government where everyone has buy in. So his ideas are bullshit and snake-oil from the get-go.

One possibility is that Yarvin is lying to himself about what will happen after his fantasy revolution. The history of naive revolutionaries who thought they were bringing on a golden age is legion. The Russian Revolution. The French Revolution. Castro in Cuba. Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe. All of them fought against bad regimes that deserved overthrowing, all of them fell into dictatorship. The United States didn’t, but we still founded a new nation where millions of Americans lived and died in slavery.

Another possibility is that he’s lying to us. Like the right-to-lifers who insisted women would not be prosecuted if abortion became illegal again or that Dobbs won’t be the basis for overturning the right to contraception, Yarvin’ll tell us anything he wants to to keep us from resisting (he admits he was upset the Dobbs decision mobilized the left because if we’re not meek and cowed, a smooth takeover will be impossible).

A third alternative is that his definition of a dictatorship that’s good for everyone is the lie. A lot of the misogynists covered in Jesus and John Wayne and Undead Sexist Cliches claim that male supremacy is good for women, honestly! They’ll be so much happier when they stay home, popping out babies and obeying the man who does the thinking for them. Or the ever-reliable argument we just can’t disrupt society for a few malcontents. The square pegs just gotta fit in those round holes.

As for the left’s supposed control, to the extent that it’s true it’s because we are (as one Bush II official put it), the “reality based community.” Our positions (speaking generally) are right: equality under the law is desirable, women and POC, have equal ability to white men, gay rights and gay marriage don’t destroy or hurt society, religious equality is the best approach, evolution (and more generally science) works, Christian morality is not essential to society, etc. Many of the things the right pretends it’s oppressed by, such as safe spaces, conservatives are actually fine with them — provided it’s a safe space for, say, sexual harassers, not for victims.

On top of which his proposals for Year One — replace all federal workers not loyal to Emperor Trump or whoever, nationalize all police and National Guard operations under the Executive Branch — are seriously dumbass. It doesn’t matter whether the president has absolute power, that’s simply too massive an organization to run smoothly or even keep track of what it does. Does Yarvin think for a minute that replacing all those workers with anyone competent will be that simple or not result in massive disruptions? Certainly not in a gloriously efficient, smooth-running machine.

So my guess is he’s lying to us. But liar or not, his views are just as horrible. It’s depressing we live in a country where “we should be a dictatorship” is now within the Overton Window.