JD Vance is the worst-received (non-incumbent) Vice-Presidential nominee since 1980. According to aggregate polling by ABC’s 538, as of September 21st, he has a -10.7 net favorability rating. Back when Vance was announced, I thought that his background as a veteran of the Forever Wars (that then-Sen. Biden supported) who knew how to speak to a liberal audience and at least rhetorically appealed to the working class would play well with the American people. But let’s face it, his announcement hit like a thud. And his recent promotion of false claims about Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, is just one of many missteps we’ve seen since his selection.
Vance led the charge on September 9th, tweeting: “Months ago, I raised the issue of Haitian illegal immigrants draining social services and generally causing chaos all over Springfield, Ohio. Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country. Where is our border czar?” Less than 30 minutes after Vance’s original tweet, the Springfield-News-Sun reported that local police had received “no reports related to pets being stolen or eaten,” and that the rumor originated from a widely shared Facebook post. It should also be noted that members of the “illegal” migrant population in Springfield reside there legally under a program known as temporary protected status, designed for migrants whose home-country is in crisis. Prominent conservatives like Vance are well within reason to debate the legal justifications surrounding TPS policy, but to argue that such migrants are here “illegally” is categorically perfidious.
But it was already too late; the next day, the former president repeated the unsubstantiated allegations at the presidential debate, in front of millions, and the story spread like wildfire in right-wing spaces. That same day, Vance returned to Twitter to allege that a child was murdered by a Haitian migrant, and that communicable diseases were on the rise in the city, neither of which is true. The child actually died in a fatal accident after his school bus was hit by a Haitian immigrant (who was subsequently sentenced to a prison term of nine to 13½ years). The child’s father said in response,“Using Aiden as a political tool is, to say the least, reprehensible for any political purpose… And speaking of morally bankrupt politicians, Bernie Moreno, Chip Roy, JD Vance and Donald Trump. They have spoken my son’s name and use his death for political gain. This needs to stop now.” The “massive rise” in communicable diseases is similarly falsified; according to health records from Clark County, total reportable infectious disease cases declined between 2022 and 2023, and Clark County Health Commissioner Chris Cook told ABC News that preliminary numbers for this year are “tracking similar to last year.”
Reporting conducted by the Wall Street Journal would later reveal that one of Vance’s staffers called Springfield City Manager Bryan Heck to ask if the pet-eating rumors were true on September 9th, and Heck told them they were “baseless.” Obviously, the fact that these claims were absolutely bunk didn’t stop Trump or Vance from continuing to run with the story, doubling, and even tripling down. Since the Trump-Vance ticket made its series of absolutely bogus allegations, Springfield schools, government offices, and grocery stores have all been victims of consistent bomb threats.Mayor Rue told CNN’s Boris Sanchez: “This is costing the city. We’re definitely in the hundreds of thousands of dollars in expense.” Vance has since blamed the media for the more than 30 bomb threats that have terrified Springfield residents, saying at a rally in Sparta, Michigan last week, “The Governor of Ohio came out yesterday and said, ‘Every single one of those bomb threats was a hoax,’ and all those bomb threats came from foreign countries. So the American media, for three days, has been lying and saying that Donald Trump and I are inciting bomb threats, when in reality, the American media has been laundering foreign disinformation. It is disgusting, and every single one of them owes the people of Springfield an apology.” In the interview Vance is likely referring to, Gov. Mike Dewine said that the “vast majority of the bomb threats came from foreign countries, not 100%, but it’s the vast majority.”
But Vance is conveniently leaving out the obvious truth: that the increasing negative attention Springfield has been receiving originates from his and President Trump’s platforming baseless conspiracy theories. Vance is so allergic to representing the situation honestly that he can’t even tell the truth when it generally serves his narrative. And “narrative” is exactly how I would define his and the former president’s commitment to lying about Haitian migrants in Springfield, OH. In a recent televised interview with Dana Bash, Vance said the quiet part out loud regarding Springfield, saying, “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do.” Here, the junior senator from Ohio articulates with ease the political strategy that has confounded many in the media and those unwilling to live in the Republican Party’s “alternative-facts” based-reality. He and the former President have always been willing to lie to the American people if it serves their own interests. In this case, lying about Haitian migrants is okay if it means shifting the national conversation towards immigration, an issue they feel is an electoral winner. This instrumental dishonesty is the defining rot at the core of the Republican Party.
Vance has employed this strategy throughout his entire time in the public eye and will say anything to further his own agenda, regardless of how deeply hypocritical it comes across to those unwilling to “buy in.” Before Trump was the most influential figure in the Republican Party, Vance was a “Never Trumper” who openly pondered if Trump could be “America’s Hitler.” Now that Vance has hitched his wagon to Trump, he’s the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Vance has been operating on a strategy that Trump perfected. Now he’s learning from the master himself, whose objective talent for shifting the political currents, even without having the facts on his side, is saddeningly remarkable. And this dystopian thought pattern comes from a man who’s argued that America is entering a “late-republican period” and is in desperate need of a strongman like Caesar to save society from caving in upon itself. There is no truth, in Vance’s idealized America, just a mindless base, willing to accept whatever slop he and his boss feel like feeding them.
Following his selection as the Republican Party’s Vice-Presidential nominee, there has been much discussion of JD Vance as “The Future of the Republican Party.” I, too, once saw Vance as a rising star, but not anymore. For one, he’s lacking in charisma, as evidenced by the viral clip of him ordering donuts like a lizard in a zip-up human costume and his failed attempts at comedy on the stump. Secondly, his political instincts are poor, and his brain seems trapped in the drudges of the chronically-online wing of the digital right. All those comments decrying childless women might play well with the average @LibsofTikTok follower, but with the general public, Vance comes across like an incel. And as Taylor Swift highlighted last week in her endorsement of Kamala Harris, “childless cat ladies” vote too.
Vance and Trump are betting that their lies about Springfield won’t matter if they can scare the American people into believing that foreigners are overrunning our society, and that the Republican ticket will protect them no matter what. Setting aside this strategy being morally egregious, and racist, playing to some American’s more nativist instincts has worked consistently throughout American history, but I think Vance and Trump are neglecting the damage that so obviously lying without abandon does to your campaign’s credibility. I hope and believe that many voters are going to hear their dubious claims being constantly debunked, and think, “Why should I believe anything those liars have to say?” If Harris and Walz take the White House in 7 weeks, I think Vance’s time in the scathing sun of the national spotlight will burn up his future political prospects and send him right back to the couch. But who knows, maybe the Vance-Trump ticket’s idea of the American public is right. Maybe we are just reactionary enough and just gullible enough to sleepwalk into a future where JD Vance is one heartbeat away from the presidency, and where the truth is whatever he wants it to be.
The opinions expressed within this piece represent the views of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Jefferson Independent.
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