A reader responds to the (second) JD Vance piece

You knew this was coming. And it's well worth your time.

Once again, I’ve received a LOT of emails from Unreported Truths readers about my criticism of JD Vance and his shifting views. And once again they’re mostly negative.

Many of you suggested I scrutinize Tim Walz similarly. (I expect to do so. Walz is basically unvetted and has plenty of skeletons to discuss - including his Covid policies and his misleading description of his military service after Sept. 11.)

Some of you criticized me for piling on, asking why I had written twice about Vance. The answer is that he is - at least for now - the intellectual and political future of right-wing populism. He is likely to be important for years, whether Trump wins or loses.

But one email offered a deep, substantive theory for Vance’s shifts since 2016. I want to share it. As I wrote last week, I want Unreported Truths to be a place where readers can challenge me and each other on vital political issues, not merely an echo chamber.

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(Mi casa es su casa. For less than 20 cents a day.)

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As with K’s note last week, I have made only minor copy editing fixes to the email. This is M’s space, not mine:

Thanks Alex, as a poor free subscriber, I appreciate your commitments, especially on marijuana, but in general.

What I think you seem to overlook, and almost everyone does, including most in the Republican party…

Perhaps - and this is a big but I think justified leap here - perhaps Trump's economic instincts are much more profound, and intellectual, and real, than his circus celebrity approach reveals. And perhaps Vance has come to see this also, which gives deeper justification for a genuine change of worldview. If so, this authenticates him as a true person of leadership, willing to change based on the truth of new ideas. That's the other extreme of possibility to explain this all, I know, but it should be seen as possible. Here's why:

Ending free trade? Quite a revolution. Ending globalization? Same. Tariffs, onshoring, ending the era of climate apocalypse, massive energy build out, rebuilding cities, classical architecture? All very different from the last century. 

This is not a random worldview, just to get elected, but can only stem from an axiomatically different idea of the nation and its mode of operation, of its means of success as a nation, that it's not an aggregation of interests dictated by the free market and invisible hand. The same could be said about foreign policy, as with NATO, etc, but that's very complicated, since it's the highest temple of the current elites and comes with even more opposition, nearly infinite.

But, if one were to consider that perhaps underneath the circus ring leader, and entertainer, and tough guy routine, Trump has tapped into what some might say is a return to the 19th century American school of political economy, as a reference and name for what seems to be a deeply profound axiomatic shift in American politics. If true, then that is something substantial… something so substantial could provoke a smart man with a diverse set of experiences, like JD, to join the movement around this idea, despite the roughneck, unsophisticated working-class oriented entertainer facade that confuses the deeper intellectual elements.

The allure of power is of course a factor, but it is for everyone who comes nearer to it, and explains little. So is a change of identity if anyone encounters extremely diverse environments for prolonged periods, that just happens and is hopefully assimilated over time into a new coherence, taking the best of both if the underlying identity is healthy. But perhaps there is something of a deeper idea here, and as with deeper ideas, requires one to consider a different realm than behaviorist categories of identity provide.

Perhaps Trump is operating at a deeper level, that most ignore or can't see, but JD can, has, and agrees.

Such historical moments are fun this way, ideas begin to matter much more than decades prior. 

All the best on your journey, mine has been a diverse one too!

M