23 February 2024

J.D. Vance Interview

Some readers on Twitter objected to us “platforming” Vance, but isn’t it always more interesting to hear from the people you disagree with? . . .Vance’s rage is real, and it won’t easily be quenched

Hillbilly energy
Tipped to be Trump’s running mate, JD Vance is the voice of the new American right.

New Statesman
Hillbilly energy - New Statesman

Does America’s 2024 election come down to a choice between two different shades of your crazy uncle, one semi-senile, the other vulgar and erratic? 
A decade ago, when Donald Trump launched his presidential bid, there was a real clash of visions for the US at stake. 
  • “Make America great again” (MAGA) heralded the end of globalization and the return of tariffs, hard borders and nationalism: the stuff of the Dark Ages, as far as establishments on both sides of the Atlantic were concerned.
Today, the Trumpian critique of neo-liberal globalization is echoed by Financial Times columnists – and enacted into policy by the Democrats. 
  • The Joe Biden administration has retained Trump’s tariffs against China. 
  • More than that, Biden has implemented industrial policies aimed at returning manufacturing to the US and taking the lead on semiconductors and green tech.
For Senator JD Vance of Ohio, reportedly among the top-three choices for Trump’s running mate, these concessions aren’t enough. 
While a new consensus recognizes distinct national interests in economics, and that America must restore the industrial foundations of its power, Team Biden has failed to reverse the domestic “decay” Vance railed against in a recent speech opposing the latest Ukraine funding bill. 
The Bidenites remain committed to liberal internationalism and the free movement of labor, galvanizing populist insurgents such as Vance to insist on a MAGA restoration. . .

Start with the internationalism. 

As Vance told me in a recent phone interview, 

  • “in most areas, Biden fundamentally sees the role of the United States as to work towards the liberal international order, the rules-based American order, and to use American power to enforce that order”. 
Trump’s approach, by contrast, can’t be described 

  • “in any other way than Jacksonian, because I think it’s a mixture of extreme skepticism towards intervention overseas, combined with an extremely aggressive posture when you do intervene overseas… Don’t punch often, but when you punch, punch really goddamn hard.”
Trump’s vision “recognizes that we are in an era of rising multipolarity, and you can’t fight against that – you have to deal with it”, said Vance. 
  • “It recognizes that Russia is occasionally an adversary but also has sometimes aligned interests… You have to deal with them as a complicated actor in foreign affairs. So I think there’s just a much different foreign-policy agenda.”

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