Politico: 55 Things to Know About J.D. Vance

July 16, 2024 //

I am trying to learn about Trump’s running mate, Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio. Politico published a list of 55 things you should know about him. On abortion, his views are even more extreme that Politico’s description. I have read elsewhere that he opposes any exceptions to an abortion ban, even rape and incest, and that he supports a federal ban on abortion. I also heard on a news program that women should not be allowed to get a divorce based on their husband’s abusive behavior. I will search for verification.

Here is Politico’s list.

Categories Elections, Trump

30 Comments Post your own

Jon Awbrey says:

July 16, 2024 at 12:02 pm

J.D. Vance • America’s Goebbels

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Birdchum says:

July 16, 2024 at 12:06 pm

Vance is another opportunist who worships power. He has a lot in common with Donald.

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Steve Ruis says:

July 16, 2024 at 12:07 pm

I didn’t read Politico’s List because the mere fact that Trump chose him as his running mate tells me everything I need to know.

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- Duane E Swacker says:
  
  July 16, 2024 at 2:07 pm
  
  Smart move. Certainly not a heavy read.
  
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NYC public school parent says:

July 16, 2024 at 12:12 pm

The most important (and frightening) thing about JD Vance is that he is Peter Thiel’s guy, through and through. Thiel liked Trump, so JD Vance does, too. He will do what Thiel wants, not what Trump wants.

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Oakland_mom says:

July 16, 2024 at 12:14 pm

“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,” Vance told the audience at Pacifica Christian High School in Southern California.

In “Hillbilly Elegy” Vance related a story about his grandmother pouring gas onto his grandfather and setting him on fire after he came home drunk.

Does Vance have any idea how much trauma is inflicted on children who have to experience this kind of violence? Gee, I’m glad it all worked out for him, but he seems to have changed his tune, now that he’s hitching his star to the King of Divorce (and fondness for porn stars) DJT. But Trump didn’t beat his wive(s) so I guess that makes it OK. What a hypocrite.

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- Birdchum says:
  
  July 16, 2024 at 2:31 pm
  
  Having a close relative who went through an abusive marriage, and thankfully got out of it, I find Vance’s comments about domestic violence and abuse disgusting.
  
  But then, this is what the GOP has become: a misogynist,male supremacist cult in which the men openly advocate treating women like second or third class citizens.
  
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- Catherine King says:
  
  July 17, 2024 at 4:19 am
  
  Oakland Mom: Oh, . . . it’s okay because Vance said he changed his mind about Trump.
  
  This tells me that he is as much of a shallow sxxt as Trump and his family are.
  
  And BTW, following the logic of MAGA’s and the 2024 supporters’ obvious intentions, when they take away the rule that one is a citizen by being born in the USA, and start deporting on other criteria, they have set the stage for deporting on the criteria that you don’t belong to the GOP or support Trump. This includes all democrats and members of the press, of course, whose job it is to raise sticky questions. CBK
  
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  - Bob Shepherd says:
    
    July 17, 2024 at 9:13 am
    
    I don’t think that one can actually know Trump for what he is and THEN “change one’s mind about him.” It’s like say, yeah, I used to have a pretty negative opinion of John Wayne Gacey and Ed Gein, but I’ve changed my mind about them and their alternative lifestyles. It’s not as though Trump suddenly stopped being an utter lowlife, traitorous, criminal POS.
    
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  - Catherine King says:
    
    July 17, 2024 at 11:02 am
    
    Bob: I was kind of joking. My comment about Vance being a shallow sxxt like Trump and his family pretty much meant what you said. Anyone who so tritely says “I changed my mind” when referring to identifying with and supporting someone like Trump is, in my view, dumb as a doorknob. CBK
    
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Bob Shepherd says:

July 16, 2024 at 12:33 pm

I read his book. Given that, I was shocked by his turn.

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J. Nashville says:

July 16, 2024 at 12:49 pm

J. D. Vance’s book “Hillbilly Elegy” overgeneralizes his own family as if it speaks for all of Appalachia, but it does not. I highly recommend a short book What You are Getting Wrong About Appalachia by Elizabeth Cate.

My late mother (1946-2022) grew up in Eastern Kentucky. After reading Vance’s book, she texted me the following:

He stereotyped “hillbillies” and labeled all of us the same. My family made it because my dad worked as hard as he did at whatever jobs he could get to supplement teaching. He kept a cow to milk and a hog to fatten and butcher each year, and we had chickens for eggs and meat. My mother grew huge gardens, which was a lot of work, and she worked hard preserving the food for winter. If my dad borrowed a dollar, it killed him until he got it paid back. JD Vance’s people did not live like that and actually did not have any of the sense of ethics and honor my dad had.

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retired teacher says:

July 16, 2024 at 12:55 pm

Vance is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, a regular Horatio Alger story. Though he overcame his dysfunctional childhood, he is just another hedge fund opportunist looking to make money by exploiting others. He fits right in with Trump’s extremist campaign.

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NYC public school parent says:

July 16, 2024 at 1:00 pm

I know I will get a lot of pushback here for noting how the NYT has reported on JD Vance, but it’s an example of what they do to normalize completely unfit Republicans – cherrypicking to amplify the positives while (intentionally?) missing the main story. They did this with Amy Coney Barrett as soon as she was nominated, to make her appear more moderate before the Senate hearings. They did this will William Barr when he was nominated as Atty General. Minimizing or excluding the main reasons that they are unfit, despite there being copious evidence to support it.

from the NYT:

“From Skeptic to Superfan: J.D. Vance’s Turnabout on Trump

He once called Donald Trump “cultural heroin” and said he feared he could be “America’s Hitler.” But over an eight-year transformation, the Ohio senator became one of his most ardent supporters.”

This isn’t a negative story, although some folks will point to it as proof that the NYT is so hard on Republicans. This isn’t critical of Vance. On the contrary, it reports that Vance changed his mind about Trump simply because his own understanding of how good Trump was changed. It spins a negative into a benign or even positive story.

The fact that Vance’s change “coincidentally” happened after Peter Thiel hired him is not even mentioned at all! In fact, Peter Thiel isn’t even mentioned!

Overall, the NYT story makes both Vance and Trump look good, despite writing a story about how Vance once said highly critical things about Trump. That isn’t negative reporting. It’s reporting on a negative story by spinning it into a benign or sometimes even positive story. The NYT did this with the Supreme Court immunity decision, too.

https://sfstandard.com/opinion/2024/07/15/with-jd-vance-as-vp-peter-thiel-would-finally-have-trump-right-where-he-wants-him/

This opinion piece contains more credible information about why and how Vance became a Trump supporter than a long NYT news story that presents uncritical faith that JD Vance’s own narrative of his transformation is the only news fit to print, and any fact that would make readers question JD Vance’s own spin on his story is simply not worth including.

By the way, this is similar to how the NYT usually reports on charters. The charters’ own narratives are presented as if they are absolutely true, and sometimes they include a voice like Diane Ravitch’s that challenge the narratives but usually they just (intentionally?) exclude all evidence that challenges the charters’ own narratives about their astonishing successes.

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- FLERP! says:
  
  July 16, 2024 at 5:17 pm
  
  lol you don’t need to say “some people,” it’s clear you mean me. I’m the only one who pushes back on this narrative.
  
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Duane E Swacker says:

July 16, 2024 at 1:52 pm

Do I really want to know that much about Vance?

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- Duane E Swacker says:
  
  July 16, 2024 at 2:06 pm
  
  Although, this one caught my eye: “He has suggested that the Biden administration is allowing fentanyl to cross the Southern border as part of a deliberate strategy to kill Republican voters: “If you wanted to kill a bunch of MAGA voters in the middle of the heartland, how better than to target them and their kids with this deadly fentanyl. . . . It does look intentional. It’s like Joe Biden wants to punish the people who didn’t vote for him.”
  
  Seems like he’ll be a perfect fit into the tRump’s irreality.
  
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  - Birdchum says:
    
    July 16, 2024 at 2:49 pm
    
    so much for unity and civility, right?
    
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  - Duane E Swacker says:
    
    July 16, 2024 at 2:53 pm
    
    As long as the left follows Kevin Roberts mandate in allowing it.
    
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FLERP! says:

July 16, 2024 at 6:46 pm

I’m not trying to defend JD Vance so nobody needs to jump on me, but apart from these 55 things, he is a bit of unconventional historically for GOP veep nominees.

https://www.leefang.com/p/jd-vances-populist-anti-corporate

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- FLERP! says:
  
  July 16, 2024 at 6:56 pm
  
  God my comments from my phone are so consistently illiterate
  
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- dianeravitch says:
  
  July 16, 2024 at 11:57 pm
  
  Surprised, FLERP, that Lee Fang did not quote Vance saying “I don’t care about Ukraine one way or the other.” Does this mean he agrees with Trump that we should abandon NATO? That we should let Putin do “whatever the hell he wants in Europe”? That would be a new world order.
  
  No mention of Vance in abortion. He apparently opposes it with no exceptions for rape or incest.
  
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NYC public school parent says:

July 16, 2024 at 10:50 pm

I didn’t watch the Republican Convention, but I learned all about it from the NYT, which informs viewers of the news that is important. It seems like it is going pretty well, the Republicans are back to being a decent, responsible party:

“Ex-Rivals Line Up to Make Trump’s Case at the Republican Convention”

“A Trump-Vance Administration Could Herald a New Era for the U.S. Dollar”

“Daughter-in-Law and Party Chief: Lara Trump’s Dual Roles”

I know earlier there were a couple JD Vance articles, like the positive one I saw, but I guess coverage of Vance is done. He’s also normal, but a great boon for Trump!

Plus, lots of coverage of what the NYT believes is important news about Biden:

“A Trump Resurgence has Democrats in Swing Districts Despondent”

“Biden Circle Shrinks as Democrats Fear Election Wipeout”

“President Biden Finally Got Border Crossings Down. Will He See Political Benefits?”

Very interesting. Now I know that Republican Convention is going well, with lots of people endorsing Trump, and the Democrats are in disarray and are sure-losers.

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- NYC public school parent says:
  
  July 16, 2024 at 11:19 pm
  
  ^^New York Times Pitchbot @DougJBalloon
  
  Because Trump’s would be assassin was not a Democrat—but rather a Republican gun enthusiast with Trump signs in his yard—we will now go back to reporting about anonymous Democrats fretting about Biden’s age.
  
  7:44 PM · Jul 16, 2024
  
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  - dianeravitch says:
    
    July 16, 2024 at 11:42 pm
    
    That’s so true. Today, a story by four reporters about who is Biden listening to: his family or his staff. Conclusion: his family.
    
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- dianeravitch says:
  
  July 16, 2024 at 11:48 pm
  
  I read it the same way, NYCPSP.
  The Times treats an insurrectionist as a normal candidate and disparages a good president.
  
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  - NYC public school parent says:
    
    July 17, 2024 at 11:33 am
    
    Marcy Wheeler, at emptywheel.net, again analyzes the dangerously shoddy news coverage today.
    
    Boiled Frog Journalism
    
    https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/07/17/boiled-frog-journalism-is-trump-an-agent-of-saudi-arabia-and-other-pressing-questions-buried-under-bidens-age/
    
    I was reading one of the obituaries of Dr. Ruth Westheimer, who died last weekend:
    
    “Ruth Westheimer was born Karola Ruth Siegel in Wiesenfeld, Germany, on June 4, 1928, the only child of an Orthodox Jewish couple, Julius and Irma (Hanauer) Siegel. Her father was a notions wholesaler in Frankfurt, and together with her parents and grandmother, she lived a comfortable life largely shielded from the reality that Germany was becoming ever more perilous for Jews.
    
    When the Nazis took her father away in 1938, her mother and grandmother managed to get her included in a group of children sent to a school in the Swiss mountains. There, she later recalled, she was educated only through the eighth grade and served for all practical purposes as a housekeeper for the Swiss children. She never saw her family again; they were all presumed murdered at Auschwitz.”
    
    A chilling reminder of how easy it was for middle class German Jews to be unaware of how dangerous Hitler was because the media (including the NYT in the US) normalized him. Ignored the negative, accentuated the positive.
    
    It took until the Nazis ARRESTED her father in 1938 that her mother managed the rare feat of getting her 10 year old daughter out of Germany, while her mother and grandmother remained and were killed.
    
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  - dianeravitch says:
    
    July 17, 2024 at 11:53 am
    
    The New York Times also normalized Stalin. Its Moscow correspondent was Walter Duranty, who admired Stalin and wrote glowing articles about his leadership. Duranty never printed a word about mass starvation in Ukraine, which Stalin did by confiscating their grain. There’s a wonderful movie called “Mr. Jones” about a Welsh newsman who traveled to Ukraine, saw what was happening and wrote about it. Duranty won a Pulitzer Prize for his fraudulent reporting from Moscow. It should have been revoked. Never too late.
    
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  - Bob Shepherd says:
    
    July 17, 2024 at 1:56 pm
    
    Dr. Ruth. A great light in this world. She will be sorely missed. May her memory be a blessing.
    
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Edward Hsuck says:

July 17, 2024 at 5:36 pm

Vance is a turncoat to his own people

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