Everyone knows how J.D. Vance reinvented himself for the Trump era—going from the NPR-listening public's favorite "hillbilly"-whisperer—and frequent Trump critic—to the president's favorite lapdog (not to mention one of the world's most prominent ideologists for the new wave of radical right populism/white nationalism/neo-fascism sweeping the globe).
Once it became clear that white supremacism and Nazi-curious Groyperism were the hip new thing in the Republican party—and the fastest way to rise in Trump's political movement—Vance had no trouble abandoning his earlier assessment of Trump as a "demagogue" and adopting the new far-right "nationalist" talking points as his own.
He "turned his coat and would have turned his skin," as Byron wrote of Southey.
And so it has gone with every possible principle he might once have held. Did he think the Iraq war was a bad idea? He quickly accommodated himself to the role of chief apologist for Trump's similar military adventurism in neighboring Iran.
"He had sung against all battles, and again/ In their high praise and glory; [...] Fed, paid, and pampered by the very men / By whom his muse and morals had been mauled[.]" (Byron again)
Now, though, it appears Vance is in the process of re-inventing himself yet again. He is starting the grand ordeal of re-positioning himself for a general election run in the post-Trump era, which means catering to a very different audience from his usual crew of online Nazis.
He is going to have to turn his coat and change his skin yet again.
And so, he has come out with a new memoir plainly pitched once again at the NPR-listeners. He has gone on the View to present a kinder, humbler image. I haven't read his book—and never will—but by all accounts he has chosen a few episodes from his past to pointedly disavow, so that he might be received back into the graces of civilized opinion.
He now regrets his comments about "childless cat ladies," he assures us. "When I consider the Church’s admonition to respect the dignity of every life, this was a clear moment where I failed," he piously intones.
But notice how carefully selected this one admission is. Vance picked a comment he made before the campaign, so that he can grovel in apologetic self-abasement—without breathing one word of criticism against "Daddy" Trump, whose support Vance probably still needs to secure the Republican nomination for 2028.
Vance has never had a sense of self, let alone self-respect, so he is happy to eat as much humble pie as he needs to—so long as he doesn't have the provoke the ire of the boss.
He's also pointedly choosing to address only the comments he made that most offended a politically salient demographic: college-educated female voters.
It does not, meanwhile, appear that "the Church's admonition to respect the dignity of every life" caused Vance to feel any doubts or qualms at all when it came to the murders, kidnappings, and torturing of stigmatized minority groups—in which he has been a gleeful participant at every turn.
In his memoir, Vance apparently tries to portray himself as the embodiment of Weber's ethic of responsibility—someone who was just trying to weigh his moral obligations as a Catholic with the hard choices involved in "enforcement."
He returned to the theme in his appearance on The View yesterday. "I think it strikes the right balance here," he apparently said of the immigration policies he endorses; "[...] you can have borders, you’re allowed to enforce your borders ... but you also have to take certain precautions and certain care."
You'd think from the sound of it that Vance was a Bush-era conservative who just had to make some hard trade-offs between things like prosecutorial discretion and spending some more annual appropriations dollars on the border.
You'd never guess that Vance was actually a vocal, angry, impassioned defender of the administration's decision last year to abduct 200 Venezuelan asylum-seekers and put them on a plane to El Salvador, in violation of a federal court order, where they were repeatedly beaten and tortured and confined for four months without access to their families or attorneys.
You'd never guess that there are people languishing right now in secret prisons in Equatorial Guinea, the Congo, Eswatini, the Central African Republic, because Vance's own administration had inked deals to send people to active war zones, specifically in order to circumvent U.S. treaty obligations to people facing threats of torture and persecution.
You'd never guess that Vance has not only publicly endorsed his administration's policies of extrajudicially murdering more than 200 civilians in boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific—but that he sneeringly mocked the victims and made light of the terror that these atrocities have inflicted on impoverished fishing communities in the region.
Maybe there are some hard choices involved in immigration policy; maybe "Law enforcement is always inherently not a very pretty process," as Vance put it—but abducting 200 asylum-seekers, in a move so flagrantly lawless that a unanimous Supreme Court paused it as a violation of due process, is not just one of those "tough" things any government official would have to do.
Neither is blowing up people without charge or trial—without even offering the boats a chance to surrender and submit to inspection, the way the Coast Guard would do in any real "law enforcement" operation, and had previously been doing for years.
Apparently "the Church’s admonition to respect the dignity of every life" made him second-guess a remark that threatens to alienate a voting bloc he will need to court in 2028—but it didn't prompt him to reconsider at all his support for murder, torture, kidnapping, enforced disappearance—so long as these only affect non-citizens who can't vote.
Indeed, the atmosphere of this whole memoir and this whole stage of Vance's latest self-reinvention is best defined as a constant, cloying sanctimony—pious insincerity in its most insipid form. He kills with a prayer on his lips; he defends murder and torture with his hands piously clasped and his eyes rolled hypocritically heavenward.
Clothed with the Bible, as with light,
And the shadows of the night,
Like Sidmouth, next, Hypocrisy
On a crocodile rode by.
And many more Destructions played
In this ghastly masquerade,
All disguised, even to the eyes,
Like Bishops, lawyers, peers, or spies. (Shelley, "The Masque of Anarchy")
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