This is an expanded version of my column in today’s Times (£) of London.
As soon as JD Vance was chosen as Donald Trump’s vice-presidential running mate, a predictable chorus dismissed him as Trump’s mini-me. Like Trump, Vance champions those who have been left behind. Like Trump, he opposes mass immigration, the “green scam” and wokery.
Omnivorously interested in ideas, Vance has refused to dismiss everything said by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. In 2021, Vance said:
If you listen to [MSNBC News host] Rachel Maddow every night, the basic world-view that you have is that MAGA grandmas who have family dinners on Sunday and bake apple pies for their family are about to start a violent insurrection against this country. But if you listen to Alex Jones every day, you would believe that a transnational financial elite controls things in our country, that they hate our society, and oh, by the way, a lot of them are probably sex perverts too. Sorry, ladies and gentlemen, that’s actually a hell of a lot more true than Rachel Maddow’s view of society.
Subsequently challenged about this, Vance remarked:
Believing crazy things is not the mark of whether somebody should be rejected. Believing important truths should be the mark of whether we accept somebody, and if they believe some crazy things on the side, that’s fine. We need to be OK with nonconventional people.
As a result, he has been branded a white nationalist and Nazi. But of course. Case closed.
Apart from the smears involved in this cartoonish caricature, Vance’s views offer an important set of lessons for the Conservative Party, were it in a state to listen.
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