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James David Vance [1] (born August 2, 1984) is an American conservative politician and member of the Republican Party, who is serving as the junior United States senator from Ohio since 2023. During his time in the Senate, JD Vance has been described as a neoreactionary, [2] national conservative, [3] [4] right-wing populist, [3] [5] and as an ideological successor to paleoconservatives such as Pat Buchanan. [6] [7]
Vance describes himself, and has been described by others, as a member of the postliberal right. [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] He has cited the authors Patrick Deneen, Rod Dreher, Curtis Yarvin, and J. R. R. Tolkien as influences on his beliefs. [14] [15] [16] Peter Thiel, William Julius Wilson, Robert Putnam, David Autor, René Girard, Raj Chetty, Oren Cass, and Yoram Hazony are also said to have shaped his thinking. [3] [7] [17] [18] [19] [20] Dreher was a guest at Vance's baptism for his conversion to Roman Catholicism. [21] His economic views have been described as "economic populism" and sometimes "economic nationalism." [17] [22] This view has elements of protectionism, particularly with regards to re-shoring of American industry, especially manufacturing, and protecting American jobs more generally. [22] Vance has also expressed openness to a weaker U.S. dollar as a reserve currency, in order for American exports to be more competitive with other markets. [23]
His economic views are considered unorthodox within the Republican Party. [24] He supports unionization, tariffs, and antitrust policy. [25] [24] [26] His open support for striking auto workers, in particular, surprised many in the party. [27] While Vance has indicated opposition to tax increases overall, he supports increases for certain taxes on university endowments, corporate mergers and large multinationals. [25] [24] [28] He supports an increase to the minimum wage, and he is highly skeptical of the economic and social contributions of large corporations. [29] [30] On social issues, Vance is considered to be strongly socially conservative. [31] He opposes abortion, [32] [33] same-sex marriage, [31] and gun control. [34] Vance has proposed federal criminalization of transgender healthcare for minors, [35] and has admitted he wants to ban pornography. [36] He is opposed to continued American military aid to Ukraine during the ongoing Russian invasion. [27] [24] [26] Vance has described himself as being "plugged into a lot of weird, right-wing subcultures" online, [10] and is known for his ties to Silicon Valley. [37] News sources have noted him as following "a host of edgy right-wing accounts" such as Bronze Age Pervert, Raw Egg Nationalist, and Lomez. [37] [38] [39] [40]
Vance has said that he is a " reactionary" who is at war with the "regime". [38] He is influenced by [13] [14] [18] and is considered to be "part of a rising New Right circle of politicians and thinkers who have embraced a neoreactionary (or 'NRx') form of politics". [2] The movement, also known as The Dark Enlightenment, opposes mass participatory democracy, particularly liberal democracy. [2] [10] Vance is a personal friend of Curtis Yarvin. [2] [41] [42] A proponent of "reactionary enlightenment", Yarvin has circulated the idea that there is currently a hard connection between academia, politics, and the media, where one reinforces the beliefs of the other, which he describes as 'The Cathedral'; and that the only way to undo the problem is to introduce a kind of monarchy. [10]
Vance has said about his views: "I think Curtis Yarvin's monarchy ideas are bonkers, but you know what? He's absolutely on to something real with his concept of the Cathedral". [2] Vance has argued that American liberals falsely claim to preserve an apolitical civil service that in reality is used to punish right-wing figures, saying: "The thing that I kept thinking about liberalism in 2019 and 2020 is that these guys have all read Carl Schmitt—there's no law, there's just power." [43] He has compared present American history to the end of the Roman Republic. In 2022, he said: "We are in a late republican period... If we're going to push back... 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." [15]
In a podcast interview, Vance said that Trump should "fire every single mid-level bureaucrat" in the US government and "replace them with our people." If the courts attempt to stop this, Vance says, Trump should ignore the rulings of the courts, citing Andrew Jackson's reaction to the Supreme Court ruling Worcester v. Georgia as inspiration, citing a likely apocryphal quote from him saying: "You stand before the country, like Andrew Jackson did, and say the chief justice has made his ruling, now let him enforce it..." [7]
Vance supported the United States Supreme Court overturning of Roe v. Wade and opposes abortion. In 2024, he has said that abortion laws should be set by the states. [44] [45] [46]
In September 2021, when asked whether abortion laws should include exceptions for rape and incest, Vance said, "two wrong[s] don't make a right." He said he preferred to frame the question as a matter of "whether a child should be allowed to live" rather than as what a woman is "forced" to do. [47] [33] A month later, he said: "There's something comparable between abortion and slavery and that while the people who obviously suffer the most are those subjected to it, I think it has this morally distorting effect on the entire society." [48] [49] In January 2022, he said: "I certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally." [50] Yet in an October 2022 debate, he said: "I've always believed in reasonable exceptions." [51] Later, he specified that he supported exceptions for rape, incest, and preserving a mother's life. [52] [32]
In a 2022 interview, Vance said: "I'd like it to be primarily a state issue. Ohio is going to want to have a different abortion policy from California, from New York, and I think that's reasonable. I want Ohio to be able to make its own decisions, and I want Ohio's elected legislators to make those decisions. But I think it's fine to sort of set some minimum national standard." [53]
In June 2024, the Supreme Court at least temporarily preserved access to mifepristone, [54] after which Trump said during a debate that he "agree[d] with their decision" and would not "block" the drug. [55] In July, a week before Vance was announced as Trump's running mate, Vance told NBC's Meet the Press that he likewise supported access to mifepristone. [54]
Vance has been called a natalist or pro-natalist due to his support for the traditional nuclear family, the institution of marriage, and the importance of an active role for the state in encouraging and enabling family-formation and raising the national fertility rate. [56] [57] [58] [59]
In a 2021 speech to the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, Vance blamed "the childless left" for America's woes, accusing it of lacking a "physical commitment to the future of this country." [60] [61] He praised conservative Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán for encouraging married couples to have children and said that parents should "have a bigger say in how democracy functions" than non-parents. [60] [61] Vance suggested achieving this by allotting "votes to all children in this country, but let's give control over those votes to the parents of the children", with the result being that "nonparents don't have as much of a voice as parents". [62] Also in 2021, Vance told Fox News that the United States was being "effectively run … by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made, and so they wanna make the rest of the country miserable". [63]
In September 2021, while speaking at Pacifica Christian High School in California, Vance said:
This is one of the great tricks that I think the sexual revolution pulled on the American populace, which is the idea that, like, "well, OK, these marriages were fundamentally—you know, they were maybe even violent, but certainly they were unhappy. And so getting rid of them and making it easier for people to shift spouses like they change their underwear, that's going to make people happier in the long term." ... And maybe it worked out for the moms and dads, though I'm skeptical. But it really didn't work out for the kids of those marriages. [64]
Vice wrote that Vance "seemed to suggest that in some cases, 'even violent' marriages should continue." In response to Vice, Vance claimed that rates of domestic violence had "skyrocketed" in recent years due to what he called "modern society's war on families", although in recent decades, rates of domestic violence have decreased. [65] [66] A strategist for Vance called Vice's characterization "extremely dishonest" and said it was "preposterous" to claim that Vance supports people staying in abusive relationships given that he was himself "the victim of domestic abuse when he was a kid". [67]
Vance holds views critical of non-traditional working roles for women. [68] In 2022, Vance wrote: "If your worldview tells you that it's bad for women to become mothers but liberating for them to work 90 hours a week in a cubicle at the New York Times or Goldman Sachs, you've been had." [69] Earlier in April 2021, Vance criticized the Biden administration's American Families Plan proposal regarding childcare to assist working parents, with Vance stating: "'Universal day care' is class war against normal people", as it "is a massive subsidy to the lifestyle preferences of the affluent over the preferences of the middle and working class." [69] [70]
Vance opposes the Respect for Marriage Act, [31] [71] which recognized same-sex marriage at the federal level. He said: "I believe that marriage is between one man and one woman, but I don't think the gay marriage issue is alive right now. I'm not one of these guys who's looking to try to take people's families and rip them apart." [72]
Vance proposed a bill that would make gender-affirming care for minors a federal felony and block taxpayer funds from being used for it, saying, "Under no circumstances should doctors be allowed to perform these gruesome, irreversible operations on underage children." [35]
Vance has argued that failing to secure the United States' southern border has fueled the US opioid epidemic by enabling illegal immigration and drug trafficking into the country, "orphaning an entire generation of kids". [73] He is a critic of mass immigration, claiming that it drives down working-class Americans' wages, increases house prices, and increases strain on social security. [74] He opposes granting legal amnesty to illegal immigrants in the United States and argued that corporations use illegal immigration as a source of cheap labor to undercut the domestic American labor market. [44]
Vance once admonished Trump for demonizing immigrants but has repeatedly called the effects of illegal immigration "dirty". [75] [76] He has supported Trump's proposal for a wall along the southern border and rejected the idea that advocates for the wall are racist. Vance has proposed spending $3 billion to finish Trump's wall. [77] [78]
During Vance's Senate run in 2022, his opponent, Democratic Representative Tim Ryan, accused Vance of supporting the Great Replacement conspiracy theory, citing the fact that Vance had told Tucker Carlson that Democrats "have decided that they can't win reelection in 2022 unless they bring a large number of new voters to replace the voters that are already here." Vance, who later won the election, said that Ryan's statement was "slander" and said he was not racist, citing his biracial children. [79] [80] During the same campaign, Vance falsely suggested that President Joe Biden was flooding Ohio with illegal drugs "to kill a bunch of MAGA voters," saying that "It does look intentional." [81] [82]
In 2023, Vance introduced a bill that would make English the United States' official language. [83] [84]
While Vance has been called an isolationist, he supports Israel [85] and is considered a realist who believes America's real national security threat is China, [86] a view broadly aligned with Republican national security professional Elbridge Colby. [87] [88] At the 2024 Munich Security Conference, Vance said the US did not want to pull out of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), but argued the US should shift its focus to East Asia, and that certain European and NATO member countries were not spending enough for their own security. [89] [90]
Vance is a strong supporter of Israel and has said "culturally, morally, politically, it is a real ally in the sense that we're not just sort of sharing interests, we're actually sharing common values." [19]
Vance has been called a "steadfast supporter of Israel throughout the country's war in Gaza". [44] He supports US funding to Israel in the Israel–Hamas war. [91] He has said that Israel should win and end the war in Gaza “as quickly as possible,” to enable the “Israelis and the Sunni Arab states” to form a united front against Iran. [92] Vance has criticized the Biden administration for "depriving the Israelis of the precision-guided weapons" the country needs, and said that Hamas bears full responsibility for all civilian deaths. [93] [94] He criticized Biden in April 2024 for "micromanaging" Israeli actions in the war, saying, "you've got to, first of all, enable Israel to actually finish the job". [95]
Vance repeated his criticism of the Biden administration in July 2024, saying: "Number one, you want Israel to get this war over and as quickly as possible because the longer it goes on, the harder their situation becomes. But second, after the war you want to reinvigorate that peace process between Israel, Saudi Arabia, the Jordanians, and so forth". [96] More broadly, he has said, "We want the Israelis and the Sunnis to police their own region of the world." [97]
When asked in October 2023 whether he would support military action against Iran after militias allegedly connected to Iran attacked US troops, Vance said it would be a "mistake", citing concern about significant escalation. [98] [99] After his nomination as Trump's running mate, Vance praised the 2020 assassination of Qasem Soleimani, adding: "If you're gonna punch the Iranians, punch them hard." [100]
In a 2024 speech, Vance said that "in 2003, I made the mistake of supporting the Iraq War" but that he later realized "that I had been lied to that the promises of the foreign policy establishment were a complete joke." [101]
In the aftermath of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, amid a rift among Republicans over whether to admit Afghans who aided the US during the war, Vance claimed that "We're actually prioritizing Afghan refugees more than we're prioritizing our own citizens." [102]
Vance has called China "the biggest threat" to the United States, and has argued that the war in Ukraine is distracting the US from focusing on the threat from China. [103] At the Munich Security Forum in 2024, Vance said the US Foreign Policy should pivot from Europe to East Asia, he said, "The United States has to focus more on East Asia. That is going to be the future of US foreign policy for the next 40 years, and Europe has to wake up to that fact." [104]
In an interview with Steve Bannon in 2022, days before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Vance said, "I don't really care what happens to Ukraine one way or the other. I do care about the fact that in my community right now the leading cause of death among 18-45-year-olds is Mexican fentanyl that's coming across the southern border." [105] [106] Vance is a vocal critic of US military aid to Ukraine in the ongoing Russo–Ukrainian War and has faced bipartisan criticism for his views on Ukraine. [107] [108] [109] In February 2024, he said, "Given the realities that we face, the very real constraints in munitions and [Ukraine's] manpower, what is reasonable to accomplish and when do we actually think we're going to accomplish it? And my argument is, look, I think what's reasonable to accomplish is some negotiated peace." [110]
In April 2024, Vance voted against an aid package for Ukraine; in a New York Times essay, he wrote that he remained "opposed to virtually any proposal for the United States to continue funding this war" and argued that US aid would not change the trajectory of the war. [111] Vance argues that Ukraine should adopt a "defensive strategy" to "preserve its precious military manpower, stop the bleeding and provide time for negotiations to commence"; that the US and Ukraine must "accept that Mr. Zelensky's stated goal for the war—a return to 1991 boundaries—is fantastical"; [111] and that "Ukraine is going to have to cede some territory to the Russians". [112]
In December 2023, Vance was criticized for calling for the suspension of further aid to Ukraine because he said it would be used so its ministers "can buy a bigger yacht". [113] Vance has criticized the Ukrainian government for corruption, and contends that the Biden administration has not properly audited aid to Ukraine. [114]
In interviews and statements in 2024, Vance said that he did not want Russia to conquer Ukraine, but supported a "freeze" of "the territorial lines somewhere close to where they are right now"; guarantees of Kyiv's neutrality and exclusion of Ukraine from NATO (a key Russian demand); and providing "some American security assistance over the long term." [115] [116]
In July 2024, after the Labour Party won a landslide victory in the 2024 United Kingdom general election, Vance said that the United Kingdom could become the "first truly Islamist country with nuclear weapons". [117] This statement, which echoed right-wing characterizations of Britain and Europe, was dismissed by senior British officials, such as Angela Rayner, James Murray, and Andrew Bowie. [118] [119] Nevertheless, Vance and British Foreign Secretary David Lammy have described each other as friends, [120] [121] [122] and Vance's foreign policy advisor, Elbridge Colby, called Lammy "far preferable" to his Conservative predecessor, Lord Cameron. [123] [124] [125]
Vance supported the Biden administration's legislation allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices. [126] In 2022, he cosponsored a bill to cap the price of insulin, and he supports permitting the importing of medical drugs from overseas. [127] He has said that he has no intention of repealing the Affordable Care Act. [127] Vance has suggested he would support legislative efforts to provide universal pregnancy healthcare coverage. [128]
In August 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic, Vance wrote an op-ed opposing his alma mater's COVID vaccination requirement. [129]
In September 2023, Vance introduced his "Freedom to Breathe" bill to prevent federal agencies from requiring masks on commercial airlines, public transit and in public schools and to prevent those industries from refusing to serve people who don't wear a mask. He claimed that mask mandates "failed to control the spread of respiratory viruses" and "violated basic bodily freedom" [130] and were "unscientific". [131] In Senate remarks, he said children "need us to not be Chicken Little about every single respiratory pandemic and problem that confronts this country". [132]
Vance said in 2024 that he opposed cuts to Social Security or Medicare, and opposed privatizing Social Security. [133] [134] He has said concerns about the long-term solvency of the Social Security Trust Fund are overstated, and that increasing labor force participation and birth rate would sustain the system. [134]
Vance has expressed concern that large tech companies have too much influence in politics and the flow of information and has called to "break up" Google, as well as implying he believes Meta should be split up. [135] [136] He has said that Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Lina Khan is "doing a pretty good job", citing her antitrust enforcement against tech firms. [135] [137] Vance and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse introduced the Stop Subsidizing Giant Mergers Act, which would end tax-free treatment for corporate mergers and acquisitions of companies above a certain threshold. [138] [139]
Vance has downplayed the effects of climate change. In response to a radio host who asserted there was no climate crisis, Vance said, "No, I don't think there is, either." [140] Vance has said, "If you think that man-made climate change is a catastrophic problem, the solution for it is for us to produce more of our own energy, including fossil fuels, here in the United States". [141]
Vance has argued that environmental regulations have caused a large number of manufacturing jobs to be outsourced to other countries. [142] He has proposed a bill that would repeal certain tax credits created by the Inflation Reduction Act for electric vehicles and institute a $7,500 tax credit for gas-powered cars manufactured in the US. [143] Vance also proposed paying to end the marriage penalty for the Earned Income Tax Credit by repealing electric vehicle tax credits. [144]
During the 2016 US presidential election, Vance was an outspoken critic of Republican nominee Donald Trump. In a February 18, 2016, USA Today column, he wrote, "Trump's actual policy proposals, such as they are, range from immoral to absurd." [145] In April 2016, Vance said, "Trump is unfit for our nation's highest office". [146] In the Atlantic and on a PBS show hosted by Charlie Rose, [147] Vance called Trump "cultural heroin" [148] and " an opioid of the masses." [149] [150] In August 2016, Vance asserted that Trump is "noxious and is leading the white working class to a very dark place." [146] In October 2016, he called Trump an "idiot and "reprehensible" in a post on Twitter [151] [152] and called himself a " never-Trump guy." [153] [154]
In a private message in 2016, Vance wrote, "I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole like Nixon who wouldn't be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he's America's Hitler." [155] [156] [157] Vance said he did not vote for Trump in 2016, [158] but instead for independent candidate Evan McMullin. [159]
By February 2018, Vance began changing his opinion, saying Trump "is one of the few political leaders in America that recognizes the frustration that exists in large parts of Ohio, Pennsylvania, eastern Kentucky and so forth". [160]
Vance supported Trump in 2020. [161] In July 2021, he apologized for calling Trump "reprehensible" and deleted posts from 2016 from his Twitter account that were critical of him. [162] [163] Vance said he now thought Trump was a good president and expressed regret about his criticism during the 2016 election. [151] Vance visited Mar-a-Lago to meet with Trump and Peter Thiel ahead of an official announcement of his US Senate campaign. [164]
In October 2021, Vance reiterated Trump's false claims of election fraud, saying that Trump lost the 2020 presidential election because of widespread voter fraud. [165] On April 15, 2022, Trump endorsed Vance for the US Senate. [153]
After historian Robert Kagan wrote a November 2023 Washington Post opinion piece titled "A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We should stop pretending", Vance wrote Attorney General Merrick Garland a letter suggesting Kagan be prosecuted for promoting "open rebellion" by Democrat-controlled states. Kagan said that his piece did not advocate rebellion and remarked, "It is revealing that their first instinct when attacked by a journalist is to suggest that they be locked up." [166] [167]
On June 30, 2024, on Face the Nation, Vance said, "I believe that the president has broad pardon authority ... but more importantly, I think the president has immunity". [168]
Formerly a vocal critic of Trump, Vance was named as his running mate on July 15, 2024, at the 2024 Republican National Convention. He now shares Trump's views on trade, foreign policy, and immigration. While many Democrats and some Republicans see Vance's shift as opportunistic, Trump loyalists generally believe it is a genuine progression, noting Vance's strong focus on working-class voters. [169] [170]
AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler stated, "A Trump–Vance administration would be a dream for corporate CEOs but a nightmare for workers. [171] [172] Sen. JD Vance likes to pose as a union supporter on the picket line, but his record proves to be a sham. He has introduced legislation to allow bosses to bypass their workers' unions with phony corporate-run unions, disparaged striking UAW members while collecting hefty donations from one of the major auto companies, and opposed the landmark Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, which would end union-busting "right to work" laws and make it easier for workers to form unions and win strong contracts." [171] [172]
Vance's brief tenure in the Senate, just under two years, has not garnered much confidence from labor advocates. [172] He voted against Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, which allocated hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies to American manufacturers. [172] According to the AFL-CIO, the nation's largest union federation representing approximately 12.5 million workers, Vance has proposed legislation that would allow employers to bypass their workers' unions and has opposed measures that would make it easier for workers to form unions. [172]
Vance also opposes the PRO Act, which expands protections related to employees' rights to organize and collectively bargain, instead voicing support for proposals by the conservative group American Compass, which includes workers' councils and sectoral bargaining. [173] [174] Based on his voting record in the Senate, the AFL-CIO has scored him at 0% on its Legislative Scorecard. [175] Teamsters President Sean O'Brien has praised Vance and other Republicans for "listening to unions and standing up to corporations", [176] for which O'Brien was criticized by other union leaders, including from within the AFL-CIO and the Teamsters union itself. [177] [178] [179] Vance has criticized " right-to-work" anti-trade union laws. [180]
Vance has become part of a rising New Right circle of politicians and thinkers who have embraced a neoreactionary (or 'NRx') form of politics.
Vance says he is 'plugged into a lot of weird, right-wing subcultures'. He draws from a whole new political lexicon, one that would seem baffling to his more starched colleagues in the Congress.
But its support for this agenda – grouped for simplicity's sake under the heading of 'national conservatism' – is grounded in more obscure intellectual sources: Catholic-inflected 'post-liberalism,' conservative populism and localism, and various strands of neo-reactionary thought that flourish online.
Among his other current intellectual influences, Vance has cited the conservative localist Rod Dreher, the reactionary blogger Curtis Yarvin and the "postliberal" Catholic philosopher Patrick Deneen.
I would have to say Tolkien," Vance said. "I'm a big Lord of the Rings guy, and I think, not realizing it at the time, but a lot of my conservative worldview was influenced by Tolkien growing up.
Major Republican donors opposed Vance because they viewed his inclination toward economic populism as hostile to their model of small-government, free-market conservatism.
Major Republican donors opposed Vance because they viewed his inclination toward economic populism as hostile to their model of small-government, free-market conservatism.
He's against same-sex marriage and said he would not support federal legislation to codify marriage equality...
On X, he follows niche but popular anonymous posters such as Bronze Age Pervert, Raw Egg Nationalist, and Lomez...
Vance has described himself as a 'reactionary' at war with the 'regime.' He drops casual references to his personal friend Curtis Yarvin, and he's fond of delivering thunderous pronouncements like 'the universities are the enemy' (the title of a 2021 speech) and 'fire every single mid-level bureaucrat' (his 2021 advice on a podcast to a future President Trump).
More recently, he has turned into a hard-edged conspiracist who claimed President Biden was flooding Ohio with illegal drugs—a blatantly false claim.
Vance's views appear to line up quite closely with the latter camp's most prominent proponent, Elbridge Colby, another former Trump official. Vance recently namechecked Colby at the National Conservatism conference.
Some have labelled Vance (and Colby) neo-isolationists, but that misses the mark. According to his public statements, Vance wants to maintain the existing security order and push back on those seeking to overthrow it. But the power of one challenger, China, forces the U.S. into trade-offs.
"I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole like Nixon who wouldn't be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he's America's Hitler," he wrote privately to an associate on Facebook in 2016.
In a 2018 print run of his book, Vance revealed that he had voted for a third-party candidate.
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This article is part of a series on |
Conservatism in the United States |
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James David Vance [1] (born August 2, 1984) is an American conservative politician and member of the Republican Party, who is serving as the junior United States senator from Ohio since 2023. During his time in the Senate, JD Vance has been described as a neoreactionary, [2] national conservative, [3] [4] right-wing populist, [3] [5] and as an ideological successor to paleoconservatives such as Pat Buchanan. [6] [7]
Vance describes himself, and has been described by others, as a member of the postliberal right. [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] He has cited the authors Patrick Deneen, Rod Dreher, Curtis Yarvin, and J. R. R. Tolkien as influences on his beliefs. [14] [15] [16] Peter Thiel, William Julius Wilson, Robert Putnam, David Autor, René Girard, Raj Chetty, Oren Cass, and Yoram Hazony are also said to have shaped his thinking. [3] [7] [17] [18] [19] [20] Dreher was a guest at Vance's baptism for his conversion to Roman Catholicism. [21] His economic views have been described as "economic populism" and sometimes "economic nationalism." [17] [22] This view has elements of protectionism, particularly with regards to re-shoring of American industry, especially manufacturing, and protecting American jobs more generally. [22] Vance has also expressed openness to a weaker U.S. dollar as a reserve currency, in order for American exports to be more competitive with other markets. [23]
His economic views are considered unorthodox within the Republican Party. [24] He supports unionization, tariffs, and antitrust policy. [25] [24] [26] His open support for striking auto workers, in particular, surprised many in the party. [27] While Vance has indicated opposition to tax increases overall, he supports increases for certain taxes on university endowments, corporate mergers and large multinationals. [25] [24] [28] He supports an increase to the minimum wage, and he is highly skeptical of the economic and social contributions of large corporations. [29] [30] On social issues, Vance is considered to be strongly socially conservative. [31] He opposes abortion, [32] [33] same-sex marriage, [31] and gun control. [34] Vance has proposed federal criminalization of transgender healthcare for minors, [35] and has admitted he wants to ban pornography. [36] He is opposed to continued American military aid to Ukraine during the ongoing Russian invasion. [27] [24] [26] Vance has described himself as being "plugged into a lot of weird, right-wing subcultures" online, [10] and is known for his ties to Silicon Valley. [37] News sources have noted him as following "a host of edgy right-wing accounts" such as Bronze Age Pervert, Raw Egg Nationalist, and Lomez. [37] [38] [39] [40]
Vance has said that he is a " reactionary" who is at war with the "regime". [38] He is influenced by [13] [14] [18] and is considered to be "part of a rising New Right circle of politicians and thinkers who have embraced a neoreactionary (or 'NRx') form of politics". [2] The movement, also known as The Dark Enlightenment, opposes mass participatory democracy, particularly liberal democracy. [2] [10] Vance is a personal friend of Curtis Yarvin. [2] [41] [42] A proponent of "reactionary enlightenment", Yarvin has circulated the idea that there is currently a hard connection between academia, politics, and the media, where one reinforces the beliefs of the other, which he describes as 'The Cathedral'; and that the only way to undo the problem is to introduce a kind of monarchy. [10]
Vance has said about his views: "I think Curtis Yarvin's monarchy ideas are bonkers, but you know what? He's absolutely on to something real with his concept of the Cathedral". [2] Vance has argued that American liberals falsely claim to preserve an apolitical civil service that in reality is used to punish right-wing figures, saying: "The thing that I kept thinking about liberalism in 2019 and 2020 is that these guys have all read Carl Schmitt—there's no law, there's just power." [43] He has compared present American history to the end of the Roman Republic. In 2022, he said: "We are in a late republican period... If we're going to push back... 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." [15]
In a podcast interview, Vance said that Trump should "fire every single mid-level bureaucrat" in the US government and "replace them with our people." If the courts attempt to stop this, Vance says, Trump should ignore the rulings of the courts, citing Andrew Jackson's reaction to the Supreme Court ruling Worcester v. Georgia as inspiration, citing a likely apocryphal quote from him saying: "You stand before the country, like Andrew Jackson did, and say the chief justice has made his ruling, now let him enforce it..." [7]
Vance supported the United States Supreme Court overturning of Roe v. Wade and opposes abortion. In 2024, he has said that abortion laws should be set by the states. [44] [45] [46]
In September 2021, when asked whether abortion laws should include exceptions for rape and incest, Vance said, "two wrong[s] don't make a right." He said he preferred to frame the question as a matter of "whether a child should be allowed to live" rather than as what a woman is "forced" to do. [47] [33] A month later, he said: "There's something comparable between abortion and slavery and that while the people who obviously suffer the most are those subjected to it, I think it has this morally distorting effect on the entire society." [48] [49] In January 2022, he said: "I certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally." [50] Yet in an October 2022 debate, he said: "I've always believed in reasonable exceptions." [51] Later, he specified that he supported exceptions for rape, incest, and preserving a mother's life. [52] [32]
In a 2022 interview, Vance said: "I'd like it to be primarily a state issue. Ohio is going to want to have a different abortion policy from California, from New York, and I think that's reasonable. I want Ohio to be able to make its own decisions, and I want Ohio's elected legislators to make those decisions. But I think it's fine to sort of set some minimum national standard." [53]
In June 2024, the Supreme Court at least temporarily preserved access to mifepristone, [54] after which Trump said during a debate that he "agree[d] with their decision" and would not "block" the drug. [55] In July, a week before Vance was announced as Trump's running mate, Vance told NBC's Meet the Press that he likewise supported access to mifepristone. [54]
Vance has been called a natalist or pro-natalist due to his support for the traditional nuclear family, the institution of marriage, and the importance of an active role for the state in encouraging and enabling family-formation and raising the national fertility rate. [56] [57] [58] [59]
In a 2021 speech to the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, Vance blamed "the childless left" for America's woes, accusing it of lacking a "physical commitment to the future of this country." [60] [61] He praised conservative Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán for encouraging married couples to have children and said that parents should "have a bigger say in how democracy functions" than non-parents. [60] [61] Vance suggested achieving this by allotting "votes to all children in this country, but let's give control over those votes to the parents of the children", with the result being that "nonparents don't have as much of a voice as parents". [62] Also in 2021, Vance told Fox News that the United States was being "effectively run … by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made, and so they wanna make the rest of the country miserable". [63]
In September 2021, while speaking at Pacifica Christian High School in California, Vance said:
This is one of the great tricks that I think the sexual revolution pulled on the American populace, which is the idea that, like, "well, OK, these marriages were fundamentally—you know, they were maybe even violent, but certainly they were unhappy. And so getting rid of them and making it easier for people to shift spouses like they change their underwear, that's going to make people happier in the long term." ... And maybe it worked out for the moms and dads, though I'm skeptical. But it really didn't work out for the kids of those marriages. [64]
Vice wrote that Vance "seemed to suggest that in some cases, 'even violent' marriages should continue." In response to Vice, Vance claimed that rates of domestic violence had "skyrocketed" in recent years due to what he called "modern society's war on families", although in recent decades, rates of domestic violence have decreased. [65] [66] A strategist for Vance called Vice's characterization "extremely dishonest" and said it was "preposterous" to claim that Vance supports people staying in abusive relationships given that he was himself "the victim of domestic abuse when he was a kid". [67]
Vance holds views critical of non-traditional working roles for women. [68] In 2022, Vance wrote: "If your worldview tells you that it's bad for women to become mothers but liberating for them to work 90 hours a week in a cubicle at the New York Times or Goldman Sachs, you've been had." [69] Earlier in April 2021, Vance criticized the Biden administration's American Families Plan proposal regarding childcare to assist working parents, with Vance stating: "'Universal day care' is class war against normal people", as it "is a massive subsidy to the lifestyle preferences of the affluent over the preferences of the middle and working class." [69] [70]
Vance opposes the Respect for Marriage Act, [31] [71] which recognized same-sex marriage at the federal level. He said: "I believe that marriage is between one man and one woman, but I don't think the gay marriage issue is alive right now. I'm not one of these guys who's looking to try to take people's families and rip them apart." [72]
Vance proposed a bill that would make gender-affirming care for minors a federal felony and block taxpayer funds from being used for it, saying, "Under no circumstances should doctors be allowed to perform these gruesome, irreversible operations on underage children." [35]
Vance has argued that failing to secure the United States' southern border has fueled the US opioid epidemic by enabling illegal immigration and drug trafficking into the country, "orphaning an entire generation of kids". [73] He is a critic of mass immigration, claiming that it drives down working-class Americans' wages, increases house prices, and increases strain on social security. [74] He opposes granting legal amnesty to illegal immigrants in the United States and argued that corporations use illegal immigration as a source of cheap labor to undercut the domestic American labor market. [44]
Vance once admonished Trump for demonizing immigrants but has repeatedly called the effects of illegal immigration "dirty". [75] [76] He has supported Trump's proposal for a wall along the southern border and rejected the idea that advocates for the wall are racist. Vance has proposed spending $3 billion to finish Trump's wall. [77] [78]
During Vance's Senate run in 2022, his opponent, Democratic Representative Tim Ryan, accused Vance of supporting the Great Replacement conspiracy theory, citing the fact that Vance had told Tucker Carlson that Democrats "have decided that they can't win reelection in 2022 unless they bring a large number of new voters to replace the voters that are already here." Vance, who later won the election, said that Ryan's statement was "slander" and said he was not racist, citing his biracial children. [79] [80] During the same campaign, Vance falsely suggested that President Joe Biden was flooding Ohio with illegal drugs "to kill a bunch of MAGA voters," saying that "It does look intentional." [81] [82]
In 2023, Vance introduced a bill that would make English the United States' official language. [83] [84]
While Vance has been called an isolationist, he supports Israel [85] and is considered a realist who believes America's real national security threat is China, [86] a view broadly aligned with Republican national security professional Elbridge Colby. [87] [88] At the 2024 Munich Security Conference, Vance said the US did not want to pull out of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), but argued the US should shift its focus to East Asia, and that certain European and NATO member countries were not spending enough for their own security. [89] [90]
Vance is a strong supporter of Israel and has said "culturally, morally, politically, it is a real ally in the sense that we're not just sort of sharing interests, we're actually sharing common values." [19]
Vance has been called a "steadfast supporter of Israel throughout the country's war in Gaza". [44] He supports US funding to Israel in the Israel–Hamas war. [91] He has said that Israel should win and end the war in Gaza “as quickly as possible,” to enable the “Israelis and the Sunni Arab states” to form a united front against Iran. [92] Vance has criticized the Biden administration for "depriving the Israelis of the precision-guided weapons" the country needs, and said that Hamas bears full responsibility for all civilian deaths. [93] [94] He criticized Biden in April 2024 for "micromanaging" Israeli actions in the war, saying, "you've got to, first of all, enable Israel to actually finish the job". [95]
Vance repeated his criticism of the Biden administration in July 2024, saying: "Number one, you want Israel to get this war over and as quickly as possible because the longer it goes on, the harder their situation becomes. But second, after the war you want to reinvigorate that peace process between Israel, Saudi Arabia, the Jordanians, and so forth". [96] More broadly, he has said, "We want the Israelis and the Sunnis to police their own region of the world." [97]
When asked in October 2023 whether he would support military action against Iran after militias allegedly connected to Iran attacked US troops, Vance said it would be a "mistake", citing concern about significant escalation. [98] [99] After his nomination as Trump's running mate, Vance praised the 2020 assassination of Qasem Soleimani, adding: "If you're gonna punch the Iranians, punch them hard." [100]
In a 2024 speech, Vance said that "in 2003, I made the mistake of supporting the Iraq War" but that he later realized "that I had been lied to that the promises of the foreign policy establishment were a complete joke." [101]
In the aftermath of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, amid a rift among Republicans over whether to admit Afghans who aided the US during the war, Vance claimed that "We're actually prioritizing Afghan refugees more than we're prioritizing our own citizens." [102]
Vance has called China "the biggest threat" to the United States, and has argued that the war in Ukraine is distracting the US from focusing on the threat from China. [103] At the Munich Security Forum in 2024, Vance said the US Foreign Policy should pivot from Europe to East Asia, he said, "The United States has to focus more on East Asia. That is going to be the future of US foreign policy for the next 40 years, and Europe has to wake up to that fact." [104]
In an interview with Steve Bannon in 2022, days before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Vance said, "I don't really care what happens to Ukraine one way or the other. I do care about the fact that in my community right now the leading cause of death among 18-45-year-olds is Mexican fentanyl that's coming across the southern border." [105] [106] Vance is a vocal critic of US military aid to Ukraine in the ongoing Russo–Ukrainian War and has faced bipartisan criticism for his views on Ukraine. [107] [108] [109] In February 2024, he said, "Given the realities that we face, the very real constraints in munitions and [Ukraine's] manpower, what is reasonable to accomplish and when do we actually think we're going to accomplish it? And my argument is, look, I think what's reasonable to accomplish is some negotiated peace." [110]
In April 2024, Vance voted against an aid package for Ukraine; in a New York Times essay, he wrote that he remained "opposed to virtually any proposal for the United States to continue funding this war" and argued that US aid would not change the trajectory of the war. [111] Vance argues that Ukraine should adopt a "defensive strategy" to "preserve its precious military manpower, stop the bleeding and provide time for negotiations to commence"; that the US and Ukraine must "accept that Mr. Zelensky's stated goal for the war—a return to 1991 boundaries—is fantastical"; [111] and that "Ukraine is going to have to cede some territory to the Russians". [112]
In December 2023, Vance was criticized for calling for the suspension of further aid to Ukraine because he said it would be used so its ministers "can buy a bigger yacht". [113] Vance has criticized the Ukrainian government for corruption, and contends that the Biden administration has not properly audited aid to Ukraine. [114]
In interviews and statements in 2024, Vance said that he did not want Russia to conquer Ukraine, but supported a "freeze" of "the territorial lines somewhere close to where they are right now"; guarantees of Kyiv's neutrality and exclusion of Ukraine from NATO (a key Russian demand); and providing "some American security assistance over the long term." [115] [116]
In July 2024, after the Labour Party won a landslide victory in the 2024 United Kingdom general election, Vance said that the United Kingdom could become the "first truly Islamist country with nuclear weapons". [117] This statement, which echoed right-wing characterizations of Britain and Europe, was dismissed by senior British officials, such as Angela Rayner, James Murray, and Andrew Bowie. [118] [119] Nevertheless, Vance and British Foreign Secretary David Lammy have described each other as friends, [120] [121] [122] and Vance's foreign policy advisor, Elbridge Colby, called Lammy "far preferable" to his Conservative predecessor, Lord Cameron. [123] [124] [125]
Vance supported the Biden administration's legislation allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices. [126] In 2022, he cosponsored a bill to cap the price of insulin, and he supports permitting the importing of medical drugs from overseas. [127] He has said that he has no intention of repealing the Affordable Care Act. [127] Vance has suggested he would support legislative efforts to provide universal pregnancy healthcare coverage. [128]
In August 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic, Vance wrote an op-ed opposing his alma mater's COVID vaccination requirement. [129]
In September 2023, Vance introduced his "Freedom to Breathe" bill to prevent federal agencies from requiring masks on commercial airlines, public transit and in public schools and to prevent those industries from refusing to serve people who don't wear a mask. He claimed that mask mandates "failed to control the spread of respiratory viruses" and "violated basic bodily freedom" [130] and were "unscientific". [131] In Senate remarks, he said children "need us to not be Chicken Little about every single respiratory pandemic and problem that confronts this country". [132]
Vance said in 2024 that he opposed cuts to Social Security or Medicare, and opposed privatizing Social Security. [133] [134] He has said concerns about the long-term solvency of the Social Security Trust Fund are overstated, and that increasing labor force participation and birth rate would sustain the system. [134]
Vance has expressed concern that large tech companies have too much influence in politics and the flow of information and has called to "break up" Google, as well as implying he believes Meta should be split up. [135] [136] He has said that Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Lina Khan is "doing a pretty good job", citing her antitrust enforcement against tech firms. [135] [137] Vance and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse introduced the Stop Subsidizing Giant Mergers Act, which would end tax-free treatment for corporate mergers and acquisitions of companies above a certain threshold. [138] [139]
Vance has downplayed the effects of climate change. In response to a radio host who asserted there was no climate crisis, Vance said, "No, I don't think there is, either." [140] Vance has said, "If you think that man-made climate change is a catastrophic problem, the solution for it is for us to produce more of our own energy, including fossil fuels, here in the United States". [141]
Vance has argued that environmental regulations have caused a large number of manufacturing jobs to be outsourced to other countries. [142] He has proposed a bill that would repeal certain tax credits created by the Inflation Reduction Act for electric vehicles and institute a $7,500 tax credit for gas-powered cars manufactured in the US. [143] Vance also proposed paying to end the marriage penalty for the Earned Income Tax Credit by repealing electric vehicle tax credits. [144]
During the 2016 US presidential election, Vance was an outspoken critic of Republican nominee Donald Trump. In a February 18, 2016, USA Today column, he wrote, "Trump's actual policy proposals, such as they are, range from immoral to absurd." [145] In April 2016, Vance said, "Trump is unfit for our nation's highest office". [146] In the Atlantic and on a PBS show hosted by Charlie Rose, [147] Vance called Trump "cultural heroin" [148] and " an opioid of the masses." [149] [150] In August 2016, Vance asserted that Trump is "noxious and is leading the white working class to a very dark place." [146] In October 2016, he called Trump an "idiot and "reprehensible" in a post on Twitter [151] [152] and called himself a " never-Trump guy." [153] [154]
In a private message in 2016, Vance wrote, "I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole like Nixon who wouldn't be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he's America's Hitler." [155] [156] [157] Vance said he did not vote for Trump in 2016, [158] but instead for independent candidate Evan McMullin. [159]
By February 2018, Vance began changing his opinion, saying Trump "is one of the few political leaders in America that recognizes the frustration that exists in large parts of Ohio, Pennsylvania, eastern Kentucky and so forth". [160]
Vance supported Trump in 2020. [161] In July 2021, he apologized for calling Trump "reprehensible" and deleted posts from 2016 from his Twitter account that were critical of him. [162] [163] Vance said he now thought Trump was a good president and expressed regret about his criticism during the 2016 election. [151] Vance visited Mar-a-Lago to meet with Trump and Peter Thiel ahead of an official announcement of his US Senate campaign. [164]
In October 2021, Vance reiterated Trump's false claims of election fraud, saying that Trump lost the 2020 presidential election because of widespread voter fraud. [165] On April 15, 2022, Trump endorsed Vance for the US Senate. [153]
After historian Robert Kagan wrote a November 2023 Washington Post opinion piece titled "A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We should stop pretending", Vance wrote Attorney General Merrick Garland a letter suggesting Kagan be prosecuted for promoting "open rebellion" by Democrat-controlled states. Kagan said that his piece did not advocate rebellion and remarked, "It is revealing that their first instinct when attacked by a journalist is to suggest that they be locked up." [166] [167]
On June 30, 2024, on Face the Nation, Vance said, "I believe that the president has broad pardon authority ... but more importantly, I think the president has immunity". [168]
Formerly a vocal critic of Trump, Vance was named as his running mate on July 15, 2024, at the 2024 Republican National Convention. He now shares Trump's views on trade, foreign policy, and immigration. While many Democrats and some Republicans see Vance's shift as opportunistic, Trump loyalists generally believe it is a genuine progression, noting Vance's strong focus on working-class voters. [169] [170]
AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler stated, "A Trump–Vance administration would be a dream for corporate CEOs but a nightmare for workers. [171] [172] Sen. JD Vance likes to pose as a union supporter on the picket line, but his record proves to be a sham. He has introduced legislation to allow bosses to bypass their workers' unions with phony corporate-run unions, disparaged striking UAW members while collecting hefty donations from one of the major auto companies, and opposed the landmark Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, which would end union-busting "right to work" laws and make it easier for workers to form unions and win strong contracts." [171] [172]
Vance's brief tenure in the Senate, just under two years, has not garnered much confidence from labor advocates. [172] He voted against Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, which allocated hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies to American manufacturers. [172] According to the AFL-CIO, the nation's largest union federation representing approximately 12.5 million workers, Vance has proposed legislation that would allow employers to bypass their workers' unions and has opposed measures that would make it easier for workers to form unions. [172]
Vance also opposes the PRO Act, which expands protections related to employees' rights to organize and collectively bargain, instead voicing support for proposals by the conservative group American Compass, which includes workers' councils and sectoral bargaining. [173] [174] Based on his voting record in the Senate, the AFL-CIO has scored him at 0% on its Legislative Scorecard. [175] Teamsters President Sean O'Brien has praised Vance and other Republicans for "listening to unions and standing up to corporations", [176] for which O'Brien was criticized by other union leaders, including from within the AFL-CIO and the Teamsters union itself. [177] [178] [179] Vance has criticized " right-to-work" anti-trade union laws. [180]
Vance has become part of a rising New Right circle of politicians and thinkers who have embraced a neoreactionary (or 'NRx') form of politics.
Vance says he is 'plugged into a lot of weird, right-wing subcultures'. He draws from a whole new political lexicon, one that would seem baffling to his more starched colleagues in the Congress.
But its support for this agenda – grouped for simplicity's sake under the heading of 'national conservatism' – is grounded in more obscure intellectual sources: Catholic-inflected 'post-liberalism,' conservative populism and localism, and various strands of neo-reactionary thought that flourish online.
Among his other current intellectual influences, Vance has cited the conservative localist Rod Dreher, the reactionary blogger Curtis Yarvin and the "postliberal" Catholic philosopher Patrick Deneen.
I would have to say Tolkien," Vance said. "I'm a big Lord of the Rings guy, and I think, not realizing it at the time, but a lot of my conservative worldview was influenced by Tolkien growing up.
Major Republican donors opposed Vance because they viewed his inclination toward economic populism as hostile to their model of small-government, free-market conservatism.
Major Republican donors opposed Vance because they viewed his inclination toward economic populism as hostile to their model of small-government, free-market conservatism.
He's against same-sex marriage and said he would not support federal legislation to codify marriage equality...
On X, he follows niche but popular anonymous posters such as Bronze Age Pervert, Raw Egg Nationalist, and Lomez...
Vance has described himself as a 'reactionary' at war with the 'regime.' He drops casual references to his personal friend Curtis Yarvin, and he's fond of delivering thunderous pronouncements like 'the universities are the enemy' (the title of a 2021 speech) and 'fire every single mid-level bureaucrat' (his 2021 advice on a podcast to a future President Trump).
More recently, he has turned into a hard-edged conspiracist who claimed President Biden was flooding Ohio with illegal drugs—a blatantly false claim.
Vance's views appear to line up quite closely with the latter camp's most prominent proponent, Elbridge Colby, another former Trump official. Vance recently namechecked Colby at the National Conservatism conference.
Some have labelled Vance (and Colby) neo-isolationists, but that misses the mark. According to his public statements, Vance wants to maintain the existing security order and push back on those seeking to overthrow it. But the power of one challenger, China, forces the U.S. into trade-offs.
"I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole like Nixon who wouldn't be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he's America's Hitler," he wrote privately to an associate on Facebook in 2016.
In a 2018 print run of his book, Vance revealed that he had voted for a third-party candidate.
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