Rick Wilson on the weirdness of JD Vance
"The Mountain Dew jokes, the awkward campaign videos — it just doesn’t connect."
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Like many liberals, I quietly hoped heading into the RNC that Donald Trump would pick JD Vance as his running mate, because I suspected it might go badly. Little did I know it would go like a dumptruck driving through a nitroglycerin plant.
Vance is boring on the stump. His humor makes Jeb Bush seems like Richard Pryor. He lacks charisma. He’s downright weird. But worse than all that, his politics are infused with misogyny (“childless cat ladies”) and amorality (“I don't really care what happens to Ukraine one way or the other”).
His shameless transformation from a Trump critic who once described him as “America’s Hitler” to a leading pusher of the MAGA cult speaks to a complete lack of principle. And with the exception of Don Jr. and assorted rich Silicon Valley oddballs, nobody likes him. Check out CNN’s breakdown of how Vance’s “off the charts” low approval numbers stack up unfavorably even in comparison to punchlines like Dan Quayle and Sarah Palin.
To get some colorful expert perspective on all things JD, we connected with Rick Wilson, Lincoln Project co-founder and leading Never Trumper, who’s been hilariously roasting Vance on social media.
Wilson told us Trumpworld “made this decision to bring Vance on with the belief that they were invulnerable and invincible and inevitable.”
“Vance was an overpriced stock, and these guys bought into it,” he added. “They bought into it because people like Elon and Peter Thiel said, ‘We’re going to take care of you.’ It was all bullshit. Anybody could have watched Vance on TV and seen he wasn’t a superstar performer.”
Wilson and Public Notice contributor Thor Benson also discussed what Vance’s ascendancy means for the GOP going forward and why embracing a reactionary brand of populism is a risky political strategy. A transcript of their conversation, lightly edited for length and clarity, follows.
Thor Benson
What do you think motivated Trump to pick JD Vance?
Rick Wilson
The motivation was a whole bunch of dollar bills from a bunch of tech bros. We’re really talking about guy who appeals to a weird group of nationalist, populist, semi-monarchist, Peter Thiel acolytes in Silicon Valley. They think, “This guy gets us.”
He’s a guy who’s been in politics for a total of two years. Barack Obama came up very quickly, but JD Vance hasn’t even gotten his toes wet in this business. They are very different characters even though I’ve heard some Republicans compare them.
Vance is not a charismatic guy. He’s not a good speaker, and inside Trump world, there’s a lot of anxiety now. It felt different for them when they were very confident and cocky and believed Trump was the inevitable victor. Now they're having buyer’s remorse.
Thor Benson