Rust Belt populists were in for a rude awakening when Donald Trump chose J.D. Vance, a non-Trump U.S. senator turned MAGA superstar, as his running mate.
Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz called Vance and the MAGA movement “just weird” in a video that went viral, an insult that quickly became a meme. The reintroduction of his past comments about the unfairness of having a “childless cat lady” in government echoes an online joke about the Ohioan having an intimate relationship with the couch. It spread quickly.
Videos of Vance struggling with small talk and awkwardly laughing at himself during the campaign seemed to give the impression of an unserious candidate. The Hillbilly Elegy author and former Silicon Valley investor appeared to lack the charisma of a running mate, and for much of the summer, pundits speculated that Trump would choose him. I suspected that he regretted it.
But Vance has come through strong, holding rallies in battleground states, stumbling at fundraisers, and frequently appearing in combative interviews on popular, and not always friendly, television news shows. Ta.
During the campaign, Vance successfully employed some of Trump’s most combative campaign tactics, particularly demonizing immigrants and undermining the credibility of the news media, effectively stirring up crowds on both topics.
“Journalism in this country is becoming more and more shameful,” Vance said during a September 23 campaign stop in North Carolina, where he visited the pet belonging to a family of Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio. He complained about a reporter investigating his claim that he stole and ate the food. Two days later, in Traverse City, Michigan, he called for the deportation of “millions of illegal aliens” and blamed Kamala Harris for letting them into the country.
For many Trump supporters, the Ohio senator’s hard-core xenophobic message and populist record make him an effective messenger on the campaign’s biggest issues: immigration and the economy. How effective he is with a larger audience will be tested in Tuesday’s vice presidential debate.
Vance, who is no stranger to bombastic anti-immigrant speeches, promoted the “Great Alternative” conspiracy theory during his 2022 Senate campaign that Democrats are promoting immigration to boost their vote share. But in mid-September, Republicans escalated their rhetoric.
According to NPR, the incident comes after unsubstantiated claims were spread on right-wing social media accounts that members of the Haitian immigrant community in Springfield, Ohio, killed and ate local residents’ pets, and among the neo-Nazi group Blood Tribe. It started by attracting attention. Local Republican leaders took up the claim, and J.D. Vance took it mainstream, posting on X on September 10th: Where is the emperor of our borders? ”
During that night’s presidential debate, Trump himself echoed this claim in a now-infamous rant. The accusations were immediate, but Vance doubled down, even apparently justifying the act of lying to get his point across.
Asked about his claims by Dana Bash in an interview on CNN on the 15th, Vance said, “If I have to write a story to make the American media actually focus on the suffering of the American people, that’s what I’m going to do.” ” he said. September.
During the week, Springfield authorities responded to repeated bomb threats against public buildings in the area, including some that evoked anti-immigrant rhetoric. On September 16, local schools were forced to evacuate amid violent threats, and Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (a Republican) himself disputed claims about Haitian Springfield residents. has announced that it will send highway patrol officers to Haiti to strengthen security. school.
It didn’t seem to matter how many times Springfield’s local authorities disputed that claim or how many journalists visited Springfield to investigate and debunk racist rumors. During a series of campaigns, Vance defended himself and demonstrated his desire for power through controversy and apparent disregard for the consequences of his rhetoric.
On September 17, in Wisconsin, Vance brushed off questions about his apparent tendency to “make up stories,” saying that he meant “making up stories” in the sense of making news, and that he didn’t mean making up stories. He said he didn’t want to. . It’s not his fault but the media’s fault that they misunderstood him.
During a question-and-answer session with reporters in front of a crowd, one reporter asked Mr. Vance: “You say you have a responsibility to share what voters tell you, but do you also have a responsibility to fact-check voters first?” Vance jumped in.
“Well, I think the media has a responsibility to fact-check residents!” Vance said, drawing cheers of approval from the hundreds of people who had gathered to hear him speak. He also said that reporters who visited Ohio to investigate reporting allegations about Haitian immigrants were not “seeking the truth” but were instead “bullying,” and the journalists’ attempts to fact-check It seems he refused.
Mac Stipanovich, a former Republican operative from Florida, was offended by Vance’s comments about Ohioans of Haitian descent and questioned the strategic value of publicly bashing immigrants.
“Initially, I thought his goal was to win the general election, and that he was a next-generation guy who didn’t have all of Trump’s baggage and could appeal to a broader audience and help his campaign in the general election.” I thought there was.” After all, he’s just campaigning to win the Republican national primary. In many ways, he’s more Trump than Trump. ” Stipanovic said.
Media coverage of Mr. Vance has focused primarily on his surprising turnaround in 2016, when he wholeheartedly opposed Mr. Trump’s rise to power, going so far as to compare the former president to Hitler, and his support for restricting immigration, promoting economic populism, and reforming the nation. We have focused on his movement toward the “New Right,” which emphasizes values. Heterosexual nuclear family.
Vance’s ideological trajectory and political background are key to understanding the candidate and how he could govern in office.
But what has been overlooked in previous coverage of Vance’s role in the campaign is how effectively he served Trump’s base.
Vance has demonstrated his ability to maintain a combative offensive and defensive style in television interviews, and he adopted a rally format that allows him to showcase that ability.
After speaking, Mr. Vance opened the floor to questions from reporters, giving reporters from local and national news outlets the opportunity to participate in and respond to questions. This format is an audience pleaser, and often before Vance can answer a question, the audience answers for him, drowning out the reporter’s voice and encouraging Vance to gloss over the topic at hand.
During a rally in Wisconsin, a crowd yelled at a reporter who asked Vance to respond to Harris’ accusations of “hateful comments” about immigrants.
“That’s basically my answer,” Vance said. “Big boos and two thumbs down.”
Then, while campaigning in Charlotte, North Carolina, on September 23, Vance again attacked the press to defend his claims about Haitian immigration.
“My responsibility is to listen to the voices of the people I serve, not the biased media,” he told the crowd. He claimed that residents of East Palestine, Ohio, where a train derailed and exploded in 2023, were being treated “like the enemy by the American media.” It was not immediately clear what report Vance was referring to, but his outraged remarks drew applause.
“I’ll always listen to you,” Vance said. “I listen to what’s going on in your community, even if the media attacks me, because that’s what a leader is supposed to do.”
So far, Vance’s influence on racing is not entirely clear. Although polls last month showed no dramatic drop in favorability, his polls have consistently been somewhat weak. Many Republicans who support the ticket enough to attend in-person campaign events told the Guardian they liked what they saw in Vance. Jacob Spaes, a small business owner in Minnesota who traveled to Wisconsin this month to see the senator speak, said he was impressed with Vance.
“To be honest, I didn’t know much about him before that,” Spaes said. “But after seeing everything he’s said, I think he’s a strong candidate.”
Henry Olsen, a senior fellow at the conservative think tank Ethics and Public Policy Center, wrote in an early September column that he accused Vance of bombing interviews and hiding from the press like Sarah Palin in dire situations. Instead, he advised them to keep “weaving through the maze.” He made his national debut in 2008 as John McCain’s running mate.
So far, Olsen told the Guardian he feels Vance is sticking to his guns.
“Unlike a lot of candidates who are trained to get their point across over and over again, he’s able to actually address the questions and carry on an ongoing dialogue and battle,” Olsen said. “It depends on the content of the interview,” he said. “I think this is characteristic of modern election campaigns.”
