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The right-wing Ohio Republican, who opposes abortion rights and backed Trump's effort to overturn the 2020 election, is a former venture capitalist who portrays himself as a champion of the working class.
Former President Donald Trump on Monday chose U.S. Sen. JD Vance as his running mate despite the Ohio Republican formerly describing himself as a "Never Trump guy" and calling the presumptive GOP nominee an "idiot," an "asshole," and "America's Hitler."
Trump—who survived an assassination attempt at a Pennsylvania campaign rally on Saturday—announced his pick on the opening day of the Republican Party's convention in Wisconsin with apost on his Truth social media platform, calling Vance "the person best suited" to be vice president.
"JD honorably served our country in the Marine Corps, graduated from Ohio State University in two years, summa cum laude, and is a Yale Law School graduate, where he was the editor of the Yale Law Journal, and president of the Yale Law Veterans Association," Trump wrote. "JD's book, Hillbilly Elegy, became a major bestseller and movie, as it championed the hardworking men and women of our country."
Vance's selection came two days after the senator took to social media to assert that President Joe Biden's rhetoric—including the assertion that Trump "is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs"—led "directly" to Trump's attempted assassination.
Should he accept his selection, Vance—who turns 40 next month—would be making a stark departure from his previous views on Trump.
"I'm a Never Trump guy," Vance said in a 2016 interview with the late Charlie Rose. "I never liked him."
"My God what an idiot," he said of Trump on social media that same year.
In another message explaining his views on the rise of Trump, Vance wrote that the Republican Party "has itself to blame."
"Trump is the fruit of the party's collective neglect" of working-class Americans, Vance argued. "I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole" like former President Richard Nixon "who wouldn't be that bad... or that he's America's Hitler."
Vance, who claims to be a champion of working people and against elites, is a former venture capitalist whose 2022 Senate campaign was backed by billionaires and who has ties to Big Pharma. He opposes reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights. He has complained about high gas prices while raking in Big Oil campaign contributions. He says that Project 2025—a conservative coalition's agenda for a far-right takeover of the federal government—has some "good ideas" in it. He has fundraised for January 6 insurrectionists. He blamed the Robb Elementary School massacre in Uvalde, Texas on "fatherlessness." He wants to ban pornography.
"As Trump's running mate, Vance will make it his mission to enact Trump's Project 2025 agenda at the expense of American families," Jen O'Malley Dillion, chair of the Biden-Harris reelection campaign, said in response to Trump's pick. "This is someone who supports banning abortion nationwide while criticizing exceptions for rape and incest survivors; railed against the Affordable Care Act, including its protections for millions with preexisting conditions; and has admitted he wouldn't have certified the free and fair election in 2020."
"Billionaires and corporations are literally rooting for JD Vance: They know he and Trump will cut their taxes and send prices skyrocketing for everyone else," she added.
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) responded to Vance's selection in a statement asserting that "this is the most consequential election of our lifetimes, and with Donald Trump's decision today to add JD Vance to the Republican ticket, the stakes of this election just got even higher."
"JD Vance embodies MAGA—with an out-of-touch extreme agenda and plans to help Trump force his Project 2025 agenda on the American people," the DNC continued. "Vance has championed and enabled Trump's worst policies for years—from a national abortion ban, to whitewashing January 6, to railing against Social Security and Medicare."
"Let's be clear: A Trump-Vance ticket would undermine our democracy, our freedoms, and our future," the DNC added.
Maurice Mitchell, national director of the Working Families Party, said in a statement that "Donald Trump just made clear that his calls for unity were hot air, and that he plans to double-down on his extremist agenda and sow further division."
"JD Vance has called for a national abortion ban and denied the results of the 2020 election," Mitchell added. "He's bankrolled by the same billionaire CEOs who are raising prices while slashing wages for working people. All of us who believe in a future where people can live safely and freely must come together to defeat Trump and Vance in November."
Food & Water Watch Action deputy director Mitch Jones said: "Just like Trump himself, JD Vance is a fossil fuel backer and climate change denier that poses a serious risk to public health and our environment. Among the countless reasons that Trump and Vance shouldn't be elected to lead our country, the duo represent an existential threat to a livable climate future for all Americans and people around the globe."
"For the sake of our planet and the wellbeing of current and future generations, it is critical that sensible people of all stripes come together to ensure that Trump and Vance are defeated in November," he added.
Alliance for Retired Americans executive director Richard Fiesta argued that Vance "locks in place a ticket that endangers the things that retirees care about the most: the protection and expansion of their earned Social Security and Medicare benefits."
"As a member of the U.S. Senate in 2023 and 2024, Sen. Vance earned just a 13% lifetime Pro-Retiree Score in the Alliance for Retired Congressional Americans Voting Record for his votes on important senior issues," Fiesta noted.
"Donald Trump has long acknowledged he would be open to slashing Medicare and Social Security spending in a second term as president, and Sen. Vance also supports cutting those benefits," he added. "The selection of Sen. Vance as his running mate is another major step in that direction."
Ultimately, critics contend, Trump chose Vance for the one thing many say the former president values most: loyalty. Vance has said he would have supported Trump's efforts to subvert the 2020 presidential election.
"Vance stands for nothing but gaining power," said former Labor Secretary Robert Reich. "Trump picked him for vice president because he has publicly said he'd do what [former Vice President] Mike Pence refused to do—overturn democracy to place America under MAGA control."
"A Vice President Vance is one more reason why a second Trump term would be far more dangerous than the first," Reich warned.
"The danger of Trump and of Trumpism is more real today than it was 24 hours ago."
It is now known that the man who shot Donald Trump on Saturday was a 20-year old registered Republican named Thomas Matthew Crooks. Whatever his motives, the rounds Crooks fired exploded into an already incendiary political situation, furnishing Trump and his MAGA supporters with further ammunition to attack the Democratic party and, by posing as innocent victims of nefarious enemies, liberal democracy itself.
Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), in the running for Trump's vice presidential pick, immediately took to X todeclare: "Today is not just some isolated incident. The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump's attempted assassination." Rep. Mike Collins (R-Georgia) went further: "The Republican District Attorney in Butler County, PA, should immediately file charges against Joseph R. Biden for inciting an assassination," hewrote. And Republican Senator Mike Lee, has declaring that "we've got to take the political temperature down," has called on President Biden and the governors of Georgia and New York to immediately drop all criminal charges against Trump," reiterating the MAGA claim that such charges represent a "weaponization of justice" against Republicans. (Republicans Against Trumpresponded on X by posting that "Senator who last week promoted a tweet that called his legislative opponents traitors punishable by death now asks "to take the political temperature down.")
Such calls are shaping an emerging consensus that Trump is a victim of an escalating rhetorical violence.
Trump himself has wasted no time in saying as much,posting on his "Truth Social" platform:
"We will FEAR NOT, but instead remain resilient in our Faith and Defiant in the face of Wickedness. . . In this moment, it is more important than ever that we stand United, and show our True Character as Americans, remaining Strong and Determined, and not allowing Evil to Win. I truly love our Country, and love you all, and look forward to speaking to our Great Nation this week from Wisconsin."
Here's the problem: the "unity" in the face of "wickedness" to which he appeals is the unity of his supporters—along with credulous potential supporters–in struggle against those Democrats, liberals and leftists that he has long claimed are the source of all political evil. It was only months ago, after all, that he declared, on Veteran's Day, that: "We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections . . . They'll do anything, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America and to destroy the American Dream."
The violence at Trump's rally was terrible, and for all kinds of reasons it makes sense that almost everyone would focus on what happened in that instant. But no commentator of whom I am aware has considered a simple question: what was Trump saying when he was shot?
C-Span has posted avideo of the entire rally. Trump spoke for less than five minutes before being shot (at the 8:11 mark). He began by denouncing "the fake news" for supposedly under-reporting his "big crowd." He then mocked "Biden" for his tiny crowds. He then immediately segued to the theme of the theft of the country: "Good hardworking American patriots . . . . our country is going to hell . . . millions and millions of people are pouring in from prisons and mental institutions. We're going to stop it . . . We're gonna deport. Deport. . . . We're going to defeat crooked Joe Biden and laughin' Kamala Harris and we're going to take back the White House and take back our country . . . Our country's been stolen from us. . . . One of the greatest crimes is what they've done over four years . . . " Denouncing the 2020 election as "a rigged deal," he repeated that "We're gonna take back our country . . . . but it's not easy, because we have millions and millions of people in our country who shouldn't be here, dangerous people . . . criminals . . . drug dealers . . . " Seconds later, celebrating his "great borders," the shots rang out.
Trump was shot while just beginning to whip his crowd into a frenzy of resentment against all of those responsible for "stealing" both the 2020 election and the country itself.
This has been Trump's consistent message since first announcing his candidacy in 2015. It is the message behind his call for "the Squad" to "go back home," his talk of "shit hole countries," his vicious denunciations of "RINO Republicans," his suggestion that General Milley ought to be "executed," and his relentless attacks on "woke liberals," "Marxists and Communists," liberals, progressives, and Democrats. And of course his incitement of the January 6, 2021 insurrection.
If American politics is currently in the throes of rhetorical polarization, then this polarization is extremely asymmetric. For no Democratic leader has ever associated with paramilitary "Patriot" groups or come close to promoting violence or advocating insurrection.
None other than renegade Republican Adam Kinzinger hassaid it well: "People are allowed to be outraged at the political rhetoric, but not both support Trump and feign outrage. His violent rhetoric isn't even metaphoric."
The great danger is that a torrent of sentimentalism, political idiocy, and deference to Trump will allow the long-standing metaphorical and actual violence of Trumpism to be forgotten, helping Trump to continue claiming to be the innocent whose victimization personifies the victimization of all "patriotic" Americans. The photo of Trump's fist-pumping while yelling "Fight" after the shooting has gone viral, and is already being labeled "iconic." And Republicans have wasted no time in weaponizing it. As the Politicoheadline states: "Blood turns to martyrdom as Republicans rally around Trump. The incident served to reinforce one of the pillars of Trump's image: strength."
It is certain that Trump and the GOP will play this for all it is worth during next week's four day Republican national convention in Milwaukee. Meanwhile Joe Biden's candidacy totters amidst worries about his age and mental acuity, opening up real divisions within the Democratic party that need somehow to be closed.
We are experiencing a perfect storm of democratic crisis.
President Biden has admirably denounced the shooting of Trump and, in the spirit of comity, has temporarilysuspended his campaign's communications and ads. His full-throateddeclaration that "there's no place in America for this kind of violence" indeed contrasts sharply with the responses of Trump and his allies, whose ire has focused not on political violence in general, but on the violence against Trump. Biden, however old, feckless, and politically precarious, is a President who supports constitutional democracy and acts like it. In the coming weeks Trump will surely seize on this as a sign of weakness.
However the politics surrounding the Democratic party's unfolds, it is essential that everyone who cares about the defense of our weak and enfeebled constitutional democracy refuse to allow the Republican party to pose as victims of tyrannical liberals and as defenders of the peace. Trumpism centers on the fostering of bitter division, and on commitments to mass deportation, police violence, and the political persecution of opponents. Nothing, including Saturday's shooting, ought to be allowed to overshadow the danger that the MAGA Republican party now poses. Democrats and their supporters will face rhetorical challenges in the days to come. But unilateral rhetorical disarmament is not an option. The danger of Trump and of Trumpism is more real today than it was 24 hours ago. We must not let Americans forget it.
"The greatest consequence of this event may turn out to be fence-sitting Democratic electeds using it as an excuse to avoid a decision on Biden," said one observer.
Progressives on Sunday pushed back against calls from "top Democratic sources," via CBS News, who said the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump demanded that those pushing to replace President Joe Biden in the presidential race "stand down."
Sources within the Democratic Party, said CBS News correspondent Robert Costa, "believe that those Democrats who have concerns about President Biden are now standing down politically [and] will back President Biden because of this fragile political moment."
"All of that talk about the debate faded almost instantly" after one person was killed and a bullet grazed Trump's right ear at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on Saturday, according to Costa.
Biden and his allies have vehemently pushed back against calls for him to step aside from lawmakers and commentators following the first presidential debate in which he struggled to deliver a coherent message about his plans for a second term and the threat posed by Trump.
Trump has led Biden in polls for months, and the debate late last month led to calls from Democrats including Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont and 19 House members for Biden to allow another Democrat—such as Vice President Kamala Harris or Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer—to run in his place.
"The greatest consequence of this event may turn out to be fence-sitting Dem electeds using it as an excuse to avoid a decision on Biden," said author and podcast host Max Fisher. "Probably the single best thing that could happen to Trump just happened."
Progressive organizer and former U.S. House candidate Aaron Regunberg said he was not convinced that Trump's chances of winning the election would necessarily be "massively helped by having a registered Republican almost shoot him," referring to suspect Thomas Matthew Crooks.
The rally shooting, however—now indelibly associated with an image of Trump raising his fist before being whisked off stage by Secret Service agents—will likely emphasize the former president's claims to "strength and toughness," said Regunberg. "Democrats desperately need a nominee who can similarly demonstrate strength."
With Republican allies of Trump increasingly embracing "violent, authoritarian rhetoric," he added, it is "more urgent—not less—for Democrats to have a real conversation about whether our current nominee is on course to hand Trump a governing trifecta."
With Trump allies including Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) and Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.) openly accusing Biden of fanning the flames that led to the shooting by speaking out against the former president's anti-democratic agenda, progressive political commentary magazine Current Affairs said the assassination attempt may have "emboldened Trump and his base while Biden remains historically unpopular."
Progressive commentators including Mehdi Hasan applauded Democratic elected officials for displaying "what normal people say and do at times like this" in contrast with Trump and other Republicans' response to violence directed at Democrats such as Rep. Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) husband Paul Pelosi in 2022.
Last year, Trump drew laughter at an event where he asked a crowd of supporters, "How's [Pelosi's] husband doing by the way? Does anyone know?" His son, Donald Trump Jr., spread conspiracy theories about the attack just days after it happened, and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) was among those who mocked Pelosi shortly after he was injured.
But critics cautioned Biden and the Democrats not to conflate a cruel response to the violence directed at Trump with legitimate attacks on the former president's authoritarian aspirations.
In the eyes of some voters, said University of Washington professor Sasha Senderovich, "The candidate who has to prove he's not senile every day is now running against a fucking superhero whom one is no longer allowed to call fascist because 'inflammatory rhetoric.'"
Financial Times columnist Edward Luce warned that "almost any criticism of Trump is already being spun by MAGA as an incitement to assassinate him. This is an Orwellian attempt to silence what remains of the effort to stop him from regaining power."